Almost 55 years after the participation of a 100% Argentine team At the 1969 84 Hours of Nürburgring, a historic event was announced. The three Torino 380w that ran that famous race for Argentine motorsports will return to Germany.
And they will do it with three drivers who competed in that grueling competition in which Torino dominated over the European teams. In August they will return to Green Hellas the legendary German circuit is known, to turn again on that track.
Oscar “Cacho” Fangio, Oscar “Cacho” Franco and Nestor “Nene” García Veiga, will once again tour with the three Torino of the Argentine Missionlike 55 years ago, when an iron country lined up behind ten drivers and 3 cars that, together with the mechanics, Orestes Berta y Juan Manuel Fangio They took the nascent Argentine automotive industry to the top.
This Argentine Mission 2 will also feature the Mercedes-Benz 300 SL, from 1958, which was the personal car of the five-time Juan Manuel Fangio and which will be present at the Nürburgring along with several more surprises that the organizers promise to reveal.
The announcement was formalized within the tribute paid by the Municipality of Mar del Plata and the local subsidiary of the Mercedes-Benz Argentina Club, to the 75th anniversary of the “Torreón del Monje” street circuit race, which allowed Fangio, with his victory, stand out and begin his career in International Formula 1 in 1950, where he would achieve 5 world titles until 1957.
The Torino and a Dream Team and Nurburgring
Between the night of Tuesday, August 19, 1969 (early morning of the 20th, in Germany) and Saturday, the 23rd, it was written for many the most glorious page of the Argentine automotive industry and engineering.
A team that overcame any crack. Was a Dream Team which was made up of the best that Argentina had in the automotive sector: the best drivers, the best technicians, the best mechanics and three examples of a car that demonstrated world avant-garde. And all led by Juan Manuel Fangio.
That alone explains why, in a country where for many it is no use coming second, It is still remembered as an epic a performance that, through sanctions, left the Argentine car in fourth place overall after having led the competition on the track.
There were three Torino who ran. Number 1, piloted by Rubén Luis Di Palma, Oscar “Cacho” Fangio and Carmelo Galbato; number 2, by Gastón Perkins, Eduardo Rodríguez Canedo and Jorge Cupeiro; and number 3, the only one who finished the Ruta Marathon, by Eduardo Copello, Oscar Mauricio “Cacho” Franco and Alberto Rodríguez Larreta, better known as Larry.
What was done in Germany It was lived as if the Argentine National Team had won a soccer World Cup. Workers in car factories of other brands asked that speakers be placed on the assembly lines and people were more attentive than usual to the reports.
The Argentine builder Horacio Pagani, now living in Italy, recalled that during the days of the race, when he was in high school, “every now and then I would ask the teacher for permission to go to the bathroom, but in reality it was to go listen to my little Spica radio how the race was going.”
The cradle of that epic was Córdoba, the place where the Torino was manufactured and where it was prepared for the competition. Although Fangio was the visible head of the team, the one who lived those 84 hours like no one else was Oreste Berta: “The majority of the group that went to Germany, I would say 9 out of 10, had never been to Europe. For them it was a new experience, everything was wonderful…” he told Clarion in his Fortress of Alta Gracia.
Berta recalled that the Argentine Mission began to take shape, without knowing it, a couple of years before, while they were touring European circuits with Fangio. “I remember that Juan said Wow, how nice it would be to come run here! But it was nothing more than an expression of wish.” And that wish materialized.
Despite the penalty, it was experienced as a feat: “I think it was very important for the Argentines because of the way Fangio did it, an Argentine Mission. All the Argentines participated. The whole country took it as their own” pointed out the Wizard of High Grace.
After 55 years, the three Torino will return to the Nürburgring. And although it is only a symbolic display, it is an act of enormous weight that is reminiscent of a glorious era of the national industry and motorsports.