In its first three seasons, the new European Hillclimb Championship had proved popular with racing fans, who relished the chance to get much closer to the action than at most other motorsport events. Manufacturers like Ferrari and Abarth duly took notice, and began preparing their own works programmes to beat the dominant Porsches.

Despite the European Hillclimb Championship gaining momentum after its revival in 1957, organisers felt it was important to retain a level of relevance for privateers amid dwindling factory involvement. For 1960 the championship was split into two categories, one for GT cars and the official championship for sports cars. Swiss driver Heini Walter secured the sports car title in his Porsche 718 RSK and was therefore crowned champion, while Huschke von Hanstein dominated the GT class in a Porsche 356 Carrera.

The series was immensely popular in the Alpine regions, but for the sake of maintaining an upward trend, it was important to raise awareness in southern and central Europe. Ultimately, it all came down to marketing and prize money, but with only five championship rounds on the 1960 calendar, there wasn’t really enough of either.

On the plus side, the privateers who took part performed well, with Porsche, Maserati and Cooper fighting it out in the championship. At Mont Ventoux, Walter took victory ahead of Harry Zweifel and Sepp Greger. The best GT driver was Carlo Maria Abate in the Ferrari 250 GT. At the second race at Monte Bondone near Trento, the Italians had a home ground advantage. It was a win for Maserati, with Odoardo Govoni and Attilio Mennato Boffa finishing first and second in the new Tipo 60 Birdcage cars. Nino Vaccarella was third. The GT class was won by Ernesto Prinoth in the Porsche Carrera.

Alarm bells were ringing in Stuttgart, and Porsche decided to arm its star privateer Walter with a works version of the 1.7-litre car for the upcoming rounds. He promptly won the Schauinsland race, with Wolfgang Seidel winning the GT class. Walter also won the Swiss Mountain Grand Prix on the Ollon–Villars track from Boffa and young Swiss driver Tommy Spychiger – which decided the title in Walter’s favour. At the finale at Gaisberg, Porsche gave its works car to Greger, who was in with a shot of finishing second in the standings. It was a gamble well made, Greger winning from Walter and Zweifel. The final classification for the 1960 European Hillclimb Championship was Walter from Greger, Boffa and Zweifel. Von Hanstein won the GT Cup from Seidel and Abate…

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by Karl-Heinz Peters, Jörg-Thomas Födisch and Thomas Nehlert

Photographs: Cahier, Porsche, Sammlung Peter Hoffmann, McKlein, Jutta Fausel

Drivers who compete in single-seaters, sports cars and rallying are rare in the ultra-specialised motorsport world of today. In a career spanning three decades, Italian racer Carlo Facetti tasted success in all of these categories. And he embodies a type of racing driver that is pretty much extinct today: the tuner-mechanic who is also pretty good behind the wheel.

Carlo Facetti, born in Cormano on 26 June 1935, started working in his father’s tuning workshop, then did some motorcycle races and in his fifth car race found himself driving the Mille Miglia. He progressed to saloon and GT cars, became a works driver for Alfa Romeo and even tried his hand in Formula 1, before eventually founding his own company, developing cars like the Lancia Stratos and Ferrari silhouettes, and providing the engine for the Alba AR2 that won the Group C Junior Cup (later called Group C2 Cup) in the World Sportscar Championship.

A true jack-of-all-trades, Facetti competed in events like the Monte Carlo Rally, the exotic Gran Premio YPF and even the Temporada Argentina championship, while in between preparing engines and race cars for customers at the family officina back home in Bresso.

Actually, it was the work as a mechanic and tuner that gave him the opportunity to participate in races. Quite frequently, he was tasked not only with working on the cars of his customers, but with driving them as well. The Mille Miglia in 1956 were a typical example: a Fiat 1100/103 prepared by Officina Facetti was entered for Elio Zagato (yes, the famed designer) with Carlo Facetti as onboard mechanic. Zagato was not feeling very well, so he asked Carlo to drive – and this 21-year-old boy with just four races under his belt took the wheel in one of the most famous motor racing events of all time. He did a good job, too, racing on despite a crash. But after Rome had been passed, Carlo saw the Fiat 8V of one of his customers stranded on the side of the road. Heeding the words of his father – ‘Remember, Carlo, customers first!’ – he stopped to provide help. It was just an ignition cable, so both cars continued, the Fiat 8V even taking second place in its class. Around Florence another Facetti customer was desperately waiting for help, so Carlo had to stop again. In the end, he took fifth place in his class – a fine result considering he hadn’t even expected to take part in the event. He drove quite a few impromptu races like that over the years…

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by Ugo Vicenzi

Photographs: McKlein, Archiv Facetti, Motorsportimages