barnfound in Russia : ex Baron Wrangel 1913 Fiat Tipo 5. (UPDATE: more about Wrangel)

when you say 'found,' what do you mean by that ? Was Jan on holiday in old Yugoslavia and come across it while buying eggs, or did he search for it having heard a story of its whereabouts ?

editor: "found" is a widely recognised phrase for laying your hands on a certain car that is not known to the market. Cars like this rarely are parked in a vineyard or along the road with a 4SALE sign on them. As far as I know Jan Bruijn heard a rumour aout the car and went chasing it.

Words in the hobby have a weight and meaning depending of by whom they are used. There are also people who say "I restored this car" while they have never seen a spanner from close-by in their entire life...

Absolutely Amazing!
Wrangel was an engineer who gave up his profession to enter the army during the Russo-Japanese War. His memoir of the Russian Civil War, "Always With Honor," was published in 1957 with a foreword by Herbert Hoover (who was then teaching at Stanford). I'll have to read it again and see if the car is mentioned. By an amazing coincidence, I met Mr. Bruijn many years ago when he bought 2 cars from me... and I had another friend, now long gone, who served in Baron Wrangel's Body Guard...

It is very strange that Vrangel` Fiat "is discovered in Russia" because Vrangel leave Russia in 1920. If it`s mentioned that Fiat "never been used after 1928".

The car couldn`t be "first used in St. Petersburg in Russia" because there are no Vrangel`s name in the list of car`s owners from 1913-1914. If the car is really from St-Petersburg it`s no problem to find the owner because only 34 Fiat cars was in the city that time.

Probably the car was really "a gift of King Alexander I of Yougoslavia to Wrangel" but it was made in emigration between 1920 and 1928. There are Soviet Power in Russia in that time.

King Alexander I of Yougoslavia graduated the Page Corps in 1904 in St.Petersburg. Petr Vrangel graduated the Rostov Technical High School in 1896 and the Institute of Mining Engineering in St. Petersburg in 1901. Later Vrangel volunteered for the cavalry and was commissioned a reserve officer in 1902 after graduating from the Nikolaev Cavalry School.

They never "studied at the same time at the Russian military academy in St. Petersburg".

But from 1922 to 1927 Vrangel lived in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the King Alexander I patronized him and russian emigrants.