[DeTomaso] What is the Jolly Club?

[MikeLDrew at aol.com]

Hi guys,

Many of you have probably seen photos of the factory Gr4 race Panteras 
which were campaigned by Team Jolly Club in Italy in the 1970s.   I had a 
general idea that this was a privateer team of Italian playboy drivers, but I 
recently stumbled across an ad for a Ferrar F40 GTE factory race car for sale, 
which was a Jolly Club car.   The ad has a little team history:


Jolly Club entered and supported racing Ferraris from the 1950s through the 
1990s on behalf of the Jolly Hotel chain in Italy. The Jolly Hotel chain is 
owned by the Figli fabric empire which was founded by Count Gaetano 
Marzotto, patriarch and father of the very successful racing brothers Paolo and 
Gianni Marzotto. Indeed, Jolly's Ferrari sponsorship dates back to 166 Inter 
Spider Corsa 0121 in 1950.

There is also a small Wikipedia entry clearly written by a non-native 
English speaker, which talks mostly about the team's Rally background:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jolly_Club

FWIW....

Mike