Motorsport: 60 years of Ecurie Basilisk

After all, 79 people were present at the gala evening in Basel, where the Ecurie was founded on January 11, 1956. Today, it has 151 members, around two-thirds of whom are active in some capacity in Swiss racing. At the 60th General Assembly, Beat Wetzel, a garage owner from Aesch, was elected as the new president.

The seven founding members include the three-time European mountain champion Heini Walter and the constructor Kurt Sauter. The oldest members still alive today are Fredy Bisang (joined in 1957) and Wolfgang Wassermann (1959). Fredy Bisang, soon to be 80 years old, also attended the anniversary celebration, and his schedule is still full of events with his Alfa club "tempi passati" from Lausen.

Amusing anecdotes in the 50-year chronicle
With Dr. Hans Kühnis, who was one of the first and most influential customers of Peter Sauber's real sports cars in the early 1970s (C2 and C3), Ecurie Basilisk provided a second European mountain champion in the GT category in 1962. While Heini Walter also became Swiss sports car champion four times (from 1957 to 1960), Kühnis took two SM titles in 1965 and 1967. In 1976, the club celebrated two Swiss champions in one season with Hansjörg Appenzeller (production car) and Fritz Straumann (special car), who died in 2014.

The most successful members of the modern era are Giuliano Piccinato, who has been club champion without interruption since 2010, and Bruno Ianniello, who dominated hill climbs for many years. In rallying, the team Ruedi Schmidlin/Erich Götte (3rd SM 2014) represents the club colors. Amusing anecdotes about the interesting history of Ecurie Basilisk, which once held its own races in Lignières and Hockenheim, can be read in the chronicle written for the 50th anniversary by AutoSprintCH editor Peter Wyss. This can be obtained from their homepage.

www.ecurie.ch
Photos: Peter Wyss