Antonio Lago

Antonio Franco Lago was an Italian engineer and motor-industry entrepreneur, born in Venice on 28 March 1893 and died in Paris on 1 December 1960. He graduated in engineering from the Politecnico di Milano and served in the Italian Air Force during the First World War. After a violent dispute with Benito Mussolini over fascism he fled to France. He worked for Pratt and Whitney in California and settled in England in the 1920s, where he changed his name to Anthony, represented Isotta Fraschini and became a director of Self-Changing Gears Ltd, which made Wilson pre-selector gearboxes. In 1933 he moved to France to manage the failing French subsidiary of S.T.D. Motors, Automobiles Talbot S.A., and in 1936 he bought the business from his employers and founded the motor-racing marque Talbot-Lago. His rescue plan combined cost cutting, light sporting cars and racing for development and publicity. He kept the company running through several receiverships until he sold it to Simca in 1958, and France awarded him the Legion d'Honneur.