Photography courtesy Gassmann Cars
What’s a Veritas? The short version is that it was a West German builder of racing and sports cars in the late 1940s and very early 1950s.
As for this specific Veritas, it’s one of the company’s earliest models, the RS.
Starting with a prewar BMW 315/1 chassis, the car was fitted with a tuned, two-liter inline-six engine from a BMW 328 and then covered with an all-aluminum body.
Johnny Claes, co-founder of the famed Équipe Nationale Belge racing team, was the first owner of the Veritas. Under his care, the car competed in the 12 Hours of Paris in 1948 (finishing fourth in its class) and the 1949 Formula 2 Brussels Grand Prix.
In 1952, under new ownership, the RS was shipped to the U.S., where it raced in various SCCA events on the West Coast.
Walter "Watsie" Roach is then noted to have acquired the car in 1954 and continued to compete in SCCA events in California, up until the 1957 SCCA National race in Palm Springs–the last race the Veritas participated in. (During this time, Roach also swapped in a Siata 8V engine, though the original BMW powerplant has since put back in the car.)
It wasn’t until the 1990s that the RS would undergo restoration work, which saw the original body removed for preservation and a new, identical body built and fit to the car. The original body is included in the sale.
Most recently, the Veritas participated in the 1994 Mille Miglia and the 2006 Silvretta Classic.
Find this 1948 Veritas RS for sale from Gassmann Cars, with an asking price of €690,000 (approximately $788,000 USD).
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Price
$788,000
Color
Silver
