STORY OF THE DAY: Klinger Brings the 1500 Home

On 29 June 1930, Umberto Klinger drove the number 72 Alfa Romeo 1500 SS in the Circuito delle Tre Province, a demanding Italian road event connecting territory in three provinces. He completed the course in thirteenth place. The race carried no championship status, but its long public-road layout rewarded endurance and judgement as much as outright speed.

Klinger’s result was a lesson in persistence rather than a contest for victory. Against larger and faster machinery, bringing the 1.5-litre Alfa to the finish required careful use of its performance over changing surfaces and gradients. Thirteenth place preserved a result on a type of course where mechanical trouble, accidents and delays frequently removed competitors before the end.

The 6C 1500 Super Sport was derived from Vittorio Jano’s compact six-cylinder Alfa Romeo design. Its inline-six employed twin overhead camshafts, and the Super Sport competition form used supercharging to extract greater performance from 1,487 cubic centimetres. The light chassis and responsive handling were valuable on a course combining climbs, descents and uneven public roads.

Umberto Klinger was an Italian driver who competed extensively in sports-car and road races during the interwar period. He became one of the regular figures in Scuderia Ferrari’s early Alfa Romeo campaigns and later held an important administrative role in Italian motor sport. At the Tre Province event, his measured finish demonstrated the versatility expected of drivers who raced across widely differing formats.