The Weirdest Car To Ever Race The 24 Hours Of Le Mans Was A Pair Of Torpedos With A German Motorcycle Engine

The scientific study of automotive aerodynamics was still practically in its infancy in 1955 when Enrico Nardi—yes, the steering wheel guy—rolled the ridiculous monster pictured above onto the grid at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. Looking to beat the French at their own small-displacement race car game, alongside other Italian hopefuls Stangeullini, and Moretti. Nardi hired engineer Carlo Mollino to design a car as slippery as possible for the high-speed straights of Mulsanne, France, to make the best of the 750cc class displacement limit. And, what slips through the air better than a torpedo? Take one part BMW 750cc motorcycle and one part Fiat 500, wrap it in as little bodywork as possible, and you've got yourself the weird and wonderful 1955 Nardi Bisiluro. This might just be the most unique and ambitious privateer projects in the long history of the twice-round-the-clock race through the French countryside. I love it dearly, and I want to share its story with you. 

The Bisiluro, literally twin-torpedo, is best broken down into three parts. The driver compartment is the larger of the two asymmetrical fuselages, housing all of the car's controls and instruments. The left side is home to the engine and transmission, a BMW motorcycle 750cc engine built up by Giannini Automobili making a claimed 62 horsepower to the rear wheels. My favorite part of the car, however, is the massive art-deco radiator housed by the bridge between the two halves. That bridge, meanwhile, is shaped on the top and underside like a reverse airplane wing, allegedly helping to stick the car to the track with aerodynamic downforce. When the car showed up to Le Mans, it also had a little party trick in that a large panel of the center section would lift up under braking to create a large aerodynamic drag air brake. Unfortunately that part of the plan was scrapped at the last minute because the Le Mans rulebook required (and still does require to this day) a second seat for a riding mechanic. 

Again, this whole thing was built on the chassis of Italy's post-war people's car, the incredible Fiat 500. Using that tiny car as a backbone meant the Nardi Bisiluro is also quite tiny, and weighs practically nothing. Allegedly this car weighs around 880 pounds ready to race. The concept proved itself absolutely perfectly in practice ahead of the 24 Hour, as the car was capable of around 137 miles per hour. Sure, that's a far cry from the 180-ish mph speeds that the fastest Ferraris and Jaguars were capable of, but they were running four or five times as much engine! The Nardi's speeds put it well ahead of the rest of its 750cc class competition, and on par with the speeds Porsche had in its well-developed 1.5-liter 550 RS Spyder. 

The 1955 24 Hours of Le Mans will forever be remembered for the incredibly tragic crash which launched Pierre Levegh's Mercedes 300SLR into the gathered crowds, killing 84 and injuring a further 120. There's no way around that. Nardi's absurd little machine is a mere footnote in that year's race, as it crashed just past the two-hour mark of the race. According to reports from Enrico Nardi at the time, the car lost its footing in the turbulent wash as a faster Jaguar D-Type sprinted past at full speed. The air kicked up by the passing Jag literally blew the lightweight torpedo off its course and into the weeds. 

It was the failure of the Bisiluro, combined with the tragedy of Le Mans, that pushed Enrico Nardi to move away from building and racing cars. From the mid-1950s onward the company focused primarily on aftermarket components for other cars, including engine hop up parts. Obviously the company's best known product today was its wooden steering wheels, typically crafted from African mahogany. Nardi did sell a limited edition commemorative replica of its flat-bottomed Bisiluro steering wheel decades later, and examples still fetch into the several thousands of dollars at auction. The Bisiluro remains a very strange, if tiny, piece of motorsport history. 

It's been 70 years since this car competed, and if it weren't for this totally unorthodox design, it would have been utterly lost to time. And yet, despite its uncompetitive effort, I adore this plucky little machine. Remember the Bisiluro, for as long as you can. One of Italy's own prototypes, too weird to live, and too rare to die.