"Memory of a Mirage: The Pegaso Sports and Competition Cars of the Fifties"
2001-03-21 until 2001-06-04
Centre Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona
Barcelona, , ES Spain

Visitors to the exhibition will be able to see eleven of the Pegaso sports and competition cars created by the Barcelona engineer Wifredo Ricart in the fifties, post-war years when a ravaged Spain offered the world the image of a rural country which was equally backward in terms of economy, industry and culture. Yet despite the odds, this thoroughly discouraging context produced the Pegaso Z-102 and Z-103 sports cars, magnificent automobiles with undreamed-of technology and industrial quality for the time. The exhibition underlines the unknown aspects of this story, contrasting it with the social, economic and political situation of post-war Spain.

A spectacular montage will show eleven of the eighty-six automobiles which were manufactured, of which only a third seem to have been preserved in the world. The exhibition will also include technical drawings, documents and posters about union activity at ENASA (later known as Pegaso), and graphic, press and advertising material will be used to place the appearance of Pegaso and Ricart in the context of the period from 1951 to 1957, the years during which this singular automobile was manufactured.

The exhibition is curated by the artist Francesc Torres, who sees his task as curator as a natural extension of his work, which is constantly marked by a strong desire to recover historical memory. This intersection should lead to a new relationship between creation and public.

IMAGE:
The Thrill: Pegaso Z-102 saloon car,
body designed by Touring.

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