Here is Swiss Baron Emmanuel de Graffenried, known affectionally as “Toulo,” in his Maserati 4CLT/48, managed for him by Scuderia Enrico Platé, before the start of the Daily Express International Trophy at Silverstone on August 20, 1949. Toulo de Graffenried was a very talented amateur driver who had undertaken a Grand Prix racing career in the final years of the 1930s and continued to compete, mostly with Maseratis, from the end of the War into the mid-1950s. 1949 and Silverstone were both good to him. De Graffenried had won the British Grand Prix in May 1949 when the faster Maseratis of Luigi Villoresi and B. Bira both retired, allowing him to win by over a minute. Now the competition was fiercer and he would finish fourth in the International Trophy behind the Ferrari of Alberto Ascari, Nino Farina’s Maserati and Villoresi’s Ferrari, all top level Grand Prix professionals.
In 1950 he raced again in the British Grand Prix, but failed to finish. At his death in 2007 he was the last survivor of that first race of the new Formula 1.
After his retirement de Graffenried stayed close to Grand Prix racing. In the early 1960s he founded the Club International des Anciens Pilotes de Grand Prix F1 and became an F1 ambassador for Marlboro.
Photo by Alan R. Smith ©The klemantaski Collection – http://www.klemcoll.com
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