Perhaps
the Cuadrado
has raised some suspicion when it appeared for the timid initial tests at the Buenos Aires Autodromo.
But, in any case, these reactions did not manage to hide the surprise and the mocking laughter that he aroused among his rivals who saw him enter the same Buenos Aires car park, now to make his official debut in Road
Tourism
.
It was 1966, years of free modification to the cars that competed in the category
.
The fauna was varied,
between Ford's Galleys and compact ones like Jorge Cupeiro's Chevitú
.
No one approached this unusual creature that, despite initial mistrust, ended up generating admiration.
He was
"ugly but nice"
, as defined by a journalist.
He was also a winner, perhaps the most bizarre winner that TC saw.
The last name belonged to the most respected lineage of
Chevrolet
.
Felix Daniel Peduzzi
had battled against invincible
Fords
.
The end of his career was precipitated by an accident that took him off the track.
Without knowing it, he was about to give way to his son,
Ricardo Alberto Peduzzi
.
They shared a passion for speed, although
Tola
-as the minor was known- was not yet mature:
together with his cousin Carlos Grammatica, they terrorized the residents of Villa Ballester aboard a noisy '29 Chevrolet
that defied inertia and soon
would go down in history as the Square
.
El Cuadrado, an unusual car that competed in Turismo Carretera: on the track, hand in hand with a Torino.
One day, Ricardo felt that his time had come.
He asked his father for the Chevy coupe to repair it and go out to compete in
Turismo Carretera
.
Felix, as annoyed as the rest of the neighbors, sent him to prepare that bizarre vehicle of the year for ñaupa.
Or, more simply, he sent him to work.
Provocation accepted by Tola and his cousin.
It didn't take long for his father to join in to fine-tune one of the most striking actors in the longest-running automotive category on the planet.
The Peduzzi Square: from terror in Villa Ballester and to laughter in the TC
Felix had just retired.
He had raced in 17 seasons of Turismo Carretera
, in which he won eight victories: the first, in the Vuelta de Ballester, was followed by Mendoza, Córdoba, Olavarría, the Vuelta del Norte, Concordia, the Argentine Grand Prix and Río Room.
Highly renowned behind the wheel, he was just as prestigious under the car, on top of the hood: he prepared the competition cars with his own hands in the workshop he had in the town of San Martín.
An accident in the 1964 Grand Prix retired him from the tracks and roads, so he concentrated on the workshop, along with the battered coupe.
Ricardo Peduzzi (with glasses) leans on the Square.
By then, Ricardo was in the prime of his life.
He was barely over 20 years old.
He would go out to have fun with the
black '29 Chevrolet Coach that he had bought from a bank employee in exchange for 50,000 pesos from that time.
He had allowed himself to touch it up, transforming it into a hot-rod.
The Tola wanted adrenaline.
After all, he was a Peduzzi.
Between the challenge that his father launched and the entrance to the Buenos Aires racetrack, a few months passed.
It was enough time for them, against the clock, to shape the Square into the competitive version of him.
They used for this purpose the mechanics and auto parts of the coupe.
They transplanted the 270 HP Chevrolet 6-cylinder in-line engine, the three-speed and reverse gearbox, the clutch and the differential
.
In order for the weight to drop to 1,130 kg, they drilled numerous holes in the chassis, while reinforcing the interior of the vehicle with pipes and changing the wooden floor to a sheet metal one.
For balance reasons they placed the gasoline tank on the right side.
And for the same reason they innovated with the arrangement of the passenger compartment: the pilot's and co-pilot's seats were in a central position, one behind the other.
Although later, with several races on the back, they had to return to a conventional format adjusted to the regulations, TC fans remember it for the central steering wheel and the co-driver breathing down the driver's neck.
Teasing, vindication and glory in Road Tourism
Ricardo Peduzzi and his companion Luis Fabbro entered the racetrack before the hallucination and condescending gaze of their competitors.
The fauna was varied, between
the Galeras of the oval and the renewed compact ones such as the Chevitú and the Torino Hare
.
The old hulk was carried almost like a horse, although the most accurate is to maintain that he was a creature that had come from another world.
He belonged to another era, a gentleman from the twenties transported to the modern and crazy sixties.
What produced the most impact was the bodywork.
"The mechanics contrast with the age of the exterior assembly, especially with those exhaust pipes that come out to the rear and up the side," an observer described it.
It stood about 1.74 meters above the ground, with the windshield and radiator straight, a position that was beyond aerodynamics and which
earned it its first nickname: "The Woody Bird Cage"
.
El Cuadrado, an unusual car that competed in Turismo Carretera.
Peduzzi, meanwhile, was described as "a boy with a lot of courage and who takes it well [to the car], although to the limit."
Later, Carlos Pairetti, another idol of El Chivo, agreed: "A good driver, but a little crazy
.
"
Over time, Tola knew how to generate discomfort due to maneuvers at the limit of what was allowed, among others with Pairetti himself, Gastón Perkins and Héctor Gradassi.
"He endangers his life and that of the other competitors," warned a
Clarín
chronicler .
For that, the same, it was missing.
Now it was the turn of the debut.
Despite doubts, the car placed second in its qualifying heat.
On March 13, 1966, for the fourth date of the TC calendar, he went to circuit no. 1 of the Buenos Aires Autodrome.
Luis José Di Palma (Dodge) finished 14th, penultimate, due to mechanical problems, five laps away, winner of a test in which another unique creature had action: Eduardo Copello's Gordini, who was baptized “Scandalous Mouse”.
Again to fight against the ridicule, although this time with the antecedent of that qualifier.
The rematch was on April 10 of that year, in Río Cuarto
.
It had only 11 participants.
A race without figures or candidates.
A race to ask for from Cuadrado, not without accidents: he set the best time in qualifying, a broken clutch pushed him to last place at the start and a puncture by Héctor Sanmartino gave him first position.
He didn't let go of her anymore and climbed to the top of the podium.
El Cuadrado, an unusual car that competed in Turismo Carretera.
Peduzzi completed twenty tests in the category, with second and third place in Buenos Aires in 1966 and another third position in the Harvest Award in 1968. "You can't ask for more (you have to keep up with progress)" , was evaluated by a specialist after a tenth position at the Buenos Aires racetrack.
By then, the car -
which was also labeled "Untouchable", due to its resemblance to Elliot Ness's car
- had already been painted gold.
In addition, he had tested an Oreste Berta Tornado engine;
in Don Félix's opinion, a sacrilege that he managed to correct after a while, just before the time of the end.
Decline and resurrection of a car without equal in the TC
The regulatory changes implemented by the ACTC at the end of 1968 sentenced the fate of the '29 Chevrolet
.
The requirement that the participating vehicles be model '36 or later took it out of competition.
With the intention of raising money to continue in the category, Ricardo tried to sell it.
There was no buyer, so his career faded after an incursion with Torino in TC and with the Garrafa Dodge in the Argentine Sport Prototype category.
Carlos Grammatica, cousin of Tola Peduzzi, with a replica of the Square that he put together in 2015. Both died.
Disheartened, he migrated to the TC del Oeste, a regional competition, in which he won the title in 1970 and 1971. Eight years later, on May 12, 1979, the patriarch Félix Peduzzi died, and with him went a part of the years of Chevrolet's endurance.
At the beginning of the 1980s,
Tola (cousin of Eduardo Cadillac, one of the best point guards in Argentine basketball, to whom he gave up his nickname)
sold the historic jewel that he had in his garage and with the money he put together a Chevy that, however, , did not give him the results or the glory that the picturesque "Cage" did.
He returned to the West, where his death surprised him on October 14, 1990: in the middle of the competition, a heart attack stopped his heart at the age of 49.
He did not get to see the second life of the legendary car.
In 2015,
his cousin and sporadic co-driver Carlos Grammatica put together a replica of the car in the
usual San Martín.
"When we left the Autodrome on top of it, everything fell apart, it aroused a unique passion", who died in 2017.
El Cuadrado, an unusual car that competed in Turismo Carretera.
The one who did manage to find the whereabouts of the original Square was the companion Luis Alberto Fabbro.
He knew his most private hallmarks and helped identify the hero, whom an enthusiastic fan found on a driveway to the capital of Formosa.
Recovered, today he walks his story in exhibitions, as anachronistic as the first day, that Sunday in 1966 when he surprised at the Buenos Aires racetrack.
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