VERIFYING AND RESOLVING HISTORIC RACE ENTRIES

STARTING POINT
The Fiat Balilla Sport was already known as an important early sporting example, connected to Ovidio Capelli, later one of the most active Fiat dealers and a recognized racing figure in Northern Italy. Its general history — including ownership continuity, restoration, and traceable registration records — was already well established. The car’s competition activity was also broadly referenced. However, some sporting attributions remained imprecise or affected by conflicting secondary information. In particular, the identification of the car’s presence at specific events, with correct race numbers and locations, required further verification through primary sources.

RESEARCH
The Automotive Masterpieces research focused on clarifying and defining the car’s early competition record through deeper documentary and photographic analysis. A first important result was the confirmation and precise definition of the car’s participation in the Varese circuit event, including the correct race number under which it competed. This provided a more solid and verifiable foundation for one of its lesser-known sporting appearances. An even more significant contribution came from the re-examination of period imagery. Through a closer analysis of historical photographs, it was possible to attribute the car’s Alpine competition correctly to the Grossglockner-Rennen, where it raced in August 1935 under number 56. This corrected an earlier mistaken assumption, based on incomplete references, that the car had instead taken part in the Stelvio hillclimb. Research into the car’s likely Mille Miglia participation under Capelli remains ongoing. While the entry is highly probable given ownership and period documentation, final confirmation still depends on further verification through license plate correlation and archival race records. This aspect has been transparently recorded as work in progress, pending definitive evidence.