For 1968 a new championship was announced for 3 litre / 183 cui prototype sports cars called Championnat Internationale des Marques. A lack of entries for the series led to a late change in the rules which extended the life of the Ford GT40 and Lola T70 for four years and inadvertently gave Ferrari and Porsche a window in which to build the 512S and 917 models respectively.

For 1969 Ferrari built it’s first 3 litre / 183 cui prototypes using detuned V12 engines from it’s Formula One programme. In all three 312P’s were built by the factory two open top Spyders and the closed top Berlinetta chassis #0872 featured today.

Although the 312P’s are not remembered as being a match for the Porsche 908’s that ran in the same class they did take several class wins when they finished. #0872 won it’s class at Daytona in 1970, 4th overall, driven by Mike Parkes and Sam Posey, and again at Sebring driven by Parkes and Chuck Parsons who replaced Posey.

In 1971 #0872 appeared with Spyder bodywork and Luigi Chinetti and Garcia Veiga took another class victory at Daytona in the 24 hour marathon.

When #0872 was first raced by Chris Amon and Peter Schetty at Le Mans in 1969 carrying the #19 the car was a last minuet substitute for chassis #0868, which had crashed a couple of weeks earlier at Monza, and was raced with the #0868 identity due to the difficulty in getting the correct international travel documents for #0872 ready in time.

Chris Amon hit a fuel tank from the fatally disintegrated Porsche 917 of John Woolfe on the opening lap, causing #0872 to catch fire and it’s subsequent retirement without injury to the New Zealander.

In the spring of 1971 #0872 was dismantled, the engine, transmission, suspension and steering were subsequently fitted to a brand new chassis known as the Chinetti Special / Flying Shingle, a car which did not finish at Daytona in 1972 and manged 9th overall 6th in class at Le Mans in 1974 driven by Jean-Claude Andruet and Teodoro Zeccoli.

In 1980/81 all the parts of #0872 were reunited along with it’s original Berlinetta body, and the Flying Shingle has been reconstructed without any of the original parts from #0872.

Thanks for joining me on this “Class But No Championships” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !