Nationality Swiss Name Benoit Musy | Role Race car driver Parents Jean-Marie Musy | |
 | ||
Died October 7, 1956, Montlhery, France First race 1949 Swiss motorcycle Grand Prix | ||
Benoît Nicolas Musy (December 13, 1917 – October 7, 1956) was a Swiss Grand Prix motorcycle road racer and Maserati race car driver.
Contents
Biography
Musy was born on December 13, 1917 in Bern, Switzerland, the son of the Swiss president Jean-Marie Musy. He received an agriculture engineering degree from L'institut agricole de l'Etat de Fribourg in Grangeneuve / FR - Switzerland, and served in the air force during the Swiss military mobilisation World War II. During 1944 he rescued a large number (1,200) of Jews from the concentration camp Theresienstadt with his father. He also received one of the first Swiss parachute jumper licenses in 1947.
Motor Sports Champion, part 1: motorcycle
He acquired further fame as a motorcycle racer, winning six Swiss championships with Moto Guzzi motorcycles. He also competed in the 1949 Swiss motorcycle Grand Prix, part of the inaugural Grand Prix motorcycle racing season. He competed in three more Swiss motorcycle Grand Prix races, finishing as high as fourth place.
Motor Sports Champion, part 2: motorcar
Later he moved to racing cars. He had various ones, all Maserati. Musy started in May 1954, with a 1953 Maserati A6 or A6GCS (#2040), a Maserati factory race car, formerly used by Giletti, the official Maserati pilot. With this car he has won several races, including some record laps, on different tracks. He sold the car in 1955 to Pietro Pagliarini.
At that time, Benoît Musy was already part of the semi-official driver of Maserati. He took part of several races with very little success on Maserati 150, Maserati 200S and Maserati 200Si. He even participated at a race in Dakar (Sénégal) with a Maserati 250. He did not finish.
After a test drive in the Swedish Grand Prix, he bought a Maserati 300S (#3057) in 1955 with which he earned several podium results.
Musy died in a racing event at Autodrome de Montlhéry, France, on October 7, 1956, crashing a factory Maserati 200S (#2047) over an embankment after a steering column breakdown. Ejected from the car, he died immediately. In total, he attended eleven mid-1950s European sports car championships, of which he won five.