Antonio Lago

Antonio Franco Lago (Venice, 28 March 1893 – Paris, 1 December 1960) was an Italian engineer and motor-industry entrepreneur. In 1936 he bought Automobiles Talbot S.A. from his employers, the collapsed Anglo-French S.T.D. Motors combine, and founded the motor-racing marque Talbot-Lago.

In 1915 he joined the Italian Air Force, where he achieved the rank of major during the First World War.

Engineering Lago worked for Pratt and Whitney in Southern California before settling in England in the 1920s, where he changed his name to Anthony. He represented Isotta Fraschini at showrooms in North Audley Street, Mayfair and was technical director of L.A.P. Engineering. He then became a director of Self-Changing Gears Ltd owned by Walter Gordon Wilson and John Davenport Siddeley which manufactured Wilson pre-selector gearboxes,

Marketing 1937 Talbot Lago T150 SS. Teardrop Coupe bodywork by Figoni & Falaschi

Walter Becchia, now best known for designing the Citroen 2CV's flat twin engine during the Second World War's German Occupation, moved from Fiat to S T D Motors' Sunbeam racing in 1923. In June 1934 he produced the first Talbot-Lago T150 model. Antonio Lago organised its promotion. In June three cars, painted in the French Tricolour of red, white and blue, were entered in a Concours d'Elegance in the Bois de Boulogne and driven by well-known female racing drivers wearing tailored outfits that matched the cars. The following weekend the same cars and ladies were presented to the French motoring industry at the Prince of Wales hotel, followed by another concours sponsored by a Paris newspaper. Sales were slow due to French recession and lack of racing success so Lago found a new publicity niche, covering 100 miles in one hour at the Autodrome de Linas-Montlhéry.

Scandal Capitalising on the company's success in sportscar racing, Lago announced plans to build a 3-litre V16-engined car for the 1938 Grand Prix season. He showed the blueprints to the Comité de la Souscription Nationale pour le Fonds de Course (a government body that used public money to try to achieve success in motor racing) and received a 600,000-franc subsidy (approx Euro 300,000 as of 2012), but the V16 never appeared, and it was believed that he used the money to build a factory for Pratt & Whitney aircraft engines.

Business

Despite going into receivership four times, Lago kept the business running until 1958, when he sold it to Simca.

Death and commemoration Antonio Lago was awarded the Legion d’Honneur by the French government "for the glory he brought to France on the race course". He died in Paris in December 1960. He is buried in the cemetery of Predore, the village where he lived.