Robert Manzon
Manzon raced his own 1100 cc Cisitalia in 1947, taking wins at Angoulême and Comminges and chasing the Simca Gordinis sufficiently impressively in other events to persuade Amédée to sign him midway through the 1948 season. In his first race, at the Circuit des Ramparts in Angoulême (a circuit on which he always shone), he led the final and set fastest lap before retirement.
He was to become a mainstay of the team and in 1949 he was second to Trintignant at Angoulême, and runner-up to Sommer at Lausanne as well as winning the Bol d’Or at Montlhéry in a production Simca sports car with a special 1000 cc engine. The cars were gaining a reputation for unreliabilty because their engines were so highly stressed, but when they lasted good results often followed. In 1950 Manzon took fourth place in the World Championship French GP at Reims, while in the Formula 2 category he won the GP of Perigueux, the Circuit of Mettet in Belgium and was second at Roubaix and third in the Swiss GP at Bremgarten. The following season he triumphed only once, at Mettet again, but took second places at Les Sables d’Olonne, Rouen and Cadours.
Gordini introduced the new six-cylinder car for 1952, and this brought a much-needed boost in competitiveness. Robert put the extra performance to good use with some fine placings in the championship Grands Prix, including an excellent third at Spa behind the works Ferraris. His best non-title race finish was a second place shared with Bira at Marseilles, while in Gordini sports cars he won the Coupe du Salon at Montlhéry. One of his best-ever performances came at the beginning of 1953 in the Argentine GP when he lay second after a great drive before the car shed a wheel. He took fifth in the subsequent Libre race at Buenos Aires, but on his return to France he quit the team, racing a Lancia sports car for the remainder of the year before joining Louis Rosier’s équipe in 1954. His best result was undoubtedly a third place behind two Mercedes-Benz making their stunning debut at Reims, although he did take a second at Bordeaux behind Gonzalez’ works Ferrari.
In 1955 he was back in his spiritual home with ‘Le Sorcier’, but unhappily gained no real success, just a fifth place at Bordeaux. The following year saw heartbreak at Monaco, where he lay third until a gearbox failure just three laps from the finish. He did take a couple of wins – at the Naples GP, where he inherited the lead after the works Ferraris failed, and in the Pescara sports car race, where in the team’s 2-litre sports car he defeated Taruffi’s Ferrari after an outstanding drive. The much underrated Manzon decided to retire for both family and business reasons at the end of the season.
