Pegaso, Spain’s Dream Car

MARIO LAGUNA, Reka Print, £200, ISBN 978 9 9959 057 4 3

It is unusual for a book that is not (yet) available in the English language to feature in these pages, and especially to do so quite as prominently as this, being our ‘second lead’ review.

There is justification, however. For a start, the author Mario Laguna is the world authority on the marque as well as its most unstinting champion. With a direct line to owners across the globe, the Luxembourgian’s achievements include assembling the most impressive display of Pegasos ever when 11 of the 84 cars built from 1951 to 1956 were gathered for Rétromobile in 2015.

So, Pegaso. To summarise, the company was to post-war Spanish motor manufacture what HispanoSuiza was pre-war. Indeed, Pegaso even operated out of the former’s old premises. As part of state bus and truck manufacturer Enasa, it was run by ex-Alfa Romeo engineer Wifredo Ricart and its objective was to showcase Spain as capable of building cars rivalling the very best in the world. It used sophisticated four-cam, dry-sump 2814cc V8s (there was also a 3200cc) with as many Webers as you liked and five-speed transaxles. Yet still it failed.

This book – a 300-plus page hardback in an attractive slipcase and limited to 1000 copies – has been published to celebrate the 70th anniversary of Pegaso and is as comprehensive as you could hope for. Obviously, the Spanish text is impenetrable to those without the language, but there are a few boxes and excerpts in English, as well as translations of all the picture captions. This is key because, once you get past the intro, the book is primarily pictures. And what pictures! There is everything from speed-testing the lethal-looking Bitorpedo to Evert Louwman’s popular Z102 Cúpula doing the international concours rounds in more recent times. The pictures and chassis histories are complemented by plenty of stats and history, tables and tech.

A wonderful labour of love.