Alessandro Cagno


Alessandro Umberto Cagno, Umberto Cagno, nicknamed Sandrin was an Italian racing driver, aviation pioneer and powerboat racer.
Apprenticed at 13 to a Turin engineering factory he was later recruited by Giovanni Agnelli as employee number 3 at F.I.A.T., where he progressed to be a test driver, Agnelli's personal driver and works racing team driver. In 1906 he won the inaugural Targa Florio in Sicily after switching to the Itala team.
Cagno co-founded 'AVIS-Voisin' to build Voisin aircraft under licence. He designed and tested aircraft, founded Italy's first flying school in Pordenone, and was the first person to fly above Venice. After volunteering as a pilot for the Italo-Turkish War in Libya he invented a bomb aiming device.

Biography

Cagno was born in Turin into a working-class family, his father may have been a coal-merchant. Aged 13 he began working as an engineering apprentice at Storero, a local factory.

Motoring

Career

Cagno was apprenticed at 'Storero' in Turin, a builder of carriages, omnibuses and bicycles, that had started to build Phoenix motorised tricycles under license to the German Daimler company. His skill and passion for mechanics lead to him becoming the riding mechanic for Luigi Storero who drove both a De Dion-Bouton tricycle and then his own design of 1.75HP Daimler engined Phoenix tricycle at early cyclecar competitions. They competed at the Piacenza Trotting track and in the Piacenza-Cremona-Borgo-Piacenza road race.
Giovanni Agnelli, who used a Storero racing tricycle, recruited Cagno as the 3rd worker hired by F.I.A.T. and asked Luigi Storero to create a racing department. The staff included Cagno, Vincenzo Lancia and Felice Nazzaro, and they raced in Italy, France, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Russia and the USA.
Cagno worked as both a F.I.A.T. test-driver and the personal driver of Giovanni Agnelli. He was the first person to drive a truck from Turin to Moscow, opened the first Fiat branch in Turin and was a champion powerboater.

Motor racing

From 1901 to 1905 he raced for F.I.A.T., predominantly at Italian mountain races, his first event was at Saluzzo in 1901 where he finished third and fourth in two handicap events. His first international race was aged 18 in 1902 when he finished second at the Circuit of Ardennes in Belgium.
In addition to driving he still worked as Luigi Storero's riding mechanic, so in 1902 he participated in the Sassi – Superga hillclimb; the Susa–Moncenisio hillclimb; and the Padua Sprint race on the 10 km road between Padua and Bovolenta. In 1903 he was the riding-mechanic for Vincenzo Lancia in the Race of Death from Paris to Madrid, but they retired their F.I.A.T. 24 hp before the race was stopped at Bordeaux.
His first victory came in July 1904 driving the 100 hp F.I.A.T. at the Susa-Mont Cenis hill-climb.
He finished third at the Gordon Bennett Cup at Puy de Dôme in 1905 and finished fourth at the Mont Ventoux hillclimb, accompanied at these events by Felice Nazzaro this was the first international success of Fiat. Later in 1905 he finished 3rd in the Circuit of Milano, 2nd in the Susa-Montecenisio hillclimb, and first in the Mont Ventoux hillclimb in France.
In 1906 he switched from Fiat to another Turin based manufacturer, Itala, with whom he won both the inaugural Targa Florio in 1906 and the Coppa della Velocita in 1907. Driving the 120 hp Itala he completed the 3 laps of the Grande Circuit of the Targa Florio, covering the in 9 hours 32 minutes 22 seconds, an average speed of 46.8 km/h.
Cagno drove the Itala to fifth position at the 1907 Kaiser Preis, completing the two laps in 3 hours 07 minutes 26 seconds. His entry number was 35A, indicating that he was the "A" driver in Team 35.
At the 1907 Coppa della Velocita he completed the in 4 hours 37 minutes 26.6 seconds, an average speed of 65.2 mph. The other members of the Itala team finished eighth and tenth. The car subsequently raced in the USA and lapped Brooklands at over 100 mph and is now in the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu, England. In the Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island he finished 7th with the Itala, 1 lap behind Louis Wagner in the winning Darracq.
In 1908 he drove the new 12-cylinder Itala to finish 11th at the French Grand Prix and 3rd in the Coppa Florio at Bologna. The team then entered the 1908 American Grand Prize at Savannah but he retired after a spring broke on lap 12.

Return to Fiat

Cagno had lost interest in motor racing by around 1910, concentrating on aviation, but in 1912 he returned to Fiat as both 'Chief Tester of racing cars' and 'General motor vehicle Tester'.
He made an unsuccessful return to racing at the 1914 French Grand Prix where he completed 10 laps before his Fiat retired after damaging a valve.
During the First World War he ran the General Testing Office for the Italian and French armies.
Cagno returned to racing again in the 1920s when he won the 1923 Italian Grand Prix for voiturettes and the Leningrad-Moscow-Tbilisi event in a Fiat.

Aviation

By 1909 Cagno had lost interest in racing and turned to aviation, gaining his pilot's licence and becoming the instructor at Cameri about 90 km northeast of Turin.
In October 1909 Cagno collaborated with two engineers at Cameri, Clovis Thouvenot and Gino Galli, to establish 'AVIS-Voisin', to build Voisin aircraft under licence. With these aircraft he competed in the Brescia-Montichiari event.
He both designed and tested aircraft, also founding Italy's first flying school at Pordenone in 1910.
In Venice on 19 February 1911, Cagno made six flights in his 50 hp Farman III from the beach at the Lido di Venezia despite the fog. The plane had been transported in pieces from Pordenone and assembled on the skating rink of the Excelsior Hotel. On 3 March he made the first flight over the city and continued daily until 6 March, the last day of Carnival. A passenger was selected by public lottery, the winner sold his ticket to a lawyer named Casellati.
After volunteering for the Italo-Turkish War in Libya in 1911, he built the first Italian bomber.

Motor-boating

Cagno competed in motorboat races using F.I.A.T. powered boats. He won the Monaco meeting in 1906.

Death and commemoration

Cagno retired from motor-racing in 1923, but continued living in his family home in Turin until his death in 1971. At the time of his death, he was the last surviving participant of the first international Grand Prix motor race ever held.
He recorded an interview in 1961 which is used at the Museo Nazionale dell'Automobile where he describes his days in racing:

Results

YearEventDateLocationDistanceResult#
No.		ManufacturerTimeSpeed
Notes
1901Handicap event8 SeptemberSaluzzo10 km3F.I.A.T. 8 hpRacing debut
1901Handicap event8 SeptemberSaluzzo5 km4F.I.A.T. 8 hpRacing debut
1903Circuit of Ardennes22 JuneBastogne Belgium512 km
1047F.I.A.T. 24 hp7:06:563rd in light car class
1904Susa-Montecenisio Hillclimb10 JulySusa22.089 km1 or 3F.I.A.T. 75 hp23 mins 33.4s
1904I Coppa Florio4 SeptemberBrescia372.166 km
dnf12F.I.A.T.
1904La Consuma Hillclimb11 SeptemberConsuma15 km6F.I.A.T. 60 hp Touring17:15.6s
1905Gordon Bennett Cup
Circuit de l'Auvergne		Puy de Dôme3F.I.A.T. 100 hp7:22.83
1905Circuit of MilanoMilan3F.I.A.T. 100 hp
1905Susa-Montecenisio Hillclimb16 JulySusa23 km2F.I.A.T. 100 hp19 mins 26.3s
1905Mont Ventoux Hillclimb17 SeptemberAvignon21.6 km1
F.I.A.T. 100 hp19:30s65.568 km/h
1905II Coppa Florio4 SeptemberBrescia500.975 kmdnf15F.I.A.T. 100 hp2 laps/radiator
1906Targa Florio6 MaySicily446.469 km13Itala 35/40 hp9:32:2246.80 km/h
1906Coppa d'Oro del Turismo14–24 MayMilan3Itala 24 hp
1906IX Grand Prix de
l'Automobile Club de France		26–27 JuneLe Mans1,238.03 kmdnf8AItala 120 hp2 laps/radiator
1906III W.K. Vanderbilt Cup6 OctoberLong Island769.91 km7Itala 120 hp9 laps/running
1907Targa Florio22 AprilSicily3 laps x 92.473 miles
277.42 mile		521AItala 35/40 hp8:39:06
1907I Kaiser Preis13–14 JuneTaunusHeat 1 - 2 laps
535AItala 35/40 hp3:07:26
1907I Kaiser Preis13–14 JuneTaunusFinal 4 laps
10Itala 35/40 hp5:59:14.0
1907III Coppa Florio1 SeptemberBrescia301.80 km
dnf6AItala 35/40 hp
2 laps
1907I Coppa Velocita di Brescia2 SeptemberBrescia301.80 km
13AItala
4:37:36.6Fastest Lap: Cagno
31m31.0
Gold cup valued at $5,000
1908XI Grand Prix de l'A.C.F.
French Grand Prix		7 JulyDieppe477.48 miles
1112Itala 120 hp8:07:56.0Debut of new 12-cylinder Itala 120Hp
1908IV Coppa Florio6 SeptemberBologna328.226 miles
36Itala4:56:12
1908I Grand Prize Race of the
Automobile Club of America		26 NovemberSavannah,
Georgia		402.080 miles
dnf12Itala11 laps/spring
19141914 French Grand Prix4 JulyLyon752.58 km
37.629 km x 20 laps		dnf13Fiat10 laps,
Valve damage
1923III Gran Premio
delle Vetturette		29 JuneBrescia521.76 km
1Fiat 8034:02:16.8129.28 km/hFastest Lap: 7:28.2
1923Leningrad Moscow Tbilisi MoscowRussia1Fiat