Tag Archives: Nuvolari

Monterey ALFAs – Rolex Monterey Motorsposts Reunion

For our fifth visit to this years Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion I’ll be looking at some of the ALFA Romeo cars present snapped by kindly snapped for us by Karl Krause.

ALFA Romeo Monza, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

From 1932 the battle worn 8 cylinder ALFA Romeo Monza, of the type that won the 10 hour 1931 Italian Grand Prix driven by Giuseppe Campari and Tazio Nuvolari, the #31 seen here is owned and driven by Peter Giddings.

ALFA Romeo 6C 2500 Super Sport, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

Seven years later ALFA Romeo built the 120 hp 6C 2500 Super Sport owned and driven by Conrad Stevenson, the development and production of the 6C 2500 continued after the 1939-’45 hostilities until 1952.

ALFA Romeo Guilia Spyder, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

ALFA Romeo introduced the Giulia Spyder alongside the Giulia Saloons / Sedans in 1962 although they were actually more closely related to the Giulietta’s that remained in production from 1954 to 1965, the 1963 Giulia Spyder above is owned and driven by Peter Inshaw.

ALFA Romeo TZ1, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

In 1963 ALFA Romeo launched the Giulia TZ also known as the TZ1 to replace the Giulietta SZ, unlike the Giullia Spyder the Giulia TZ was based on the chassis pan and running gear of the Giulia Saloons / Sedans, pay attention at the back I shall be asking questions later ! The #3 ’63 Giulia TZ is owned and driven by Joe Colasacco.

ALFA Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

The sinuous curves and dihedral opening butterfly doors all made the 1968 ALFA Romeo Tipo 33 Stradale one of the worlds most expensive cars in 1968, which maybe why the one seen above is one of only 18 built.

ALFA Romeo GTV, Rolex Monterey Motorsports Reunion,

Jon Norman started racing ALFA’s in 1968 and in 1971 started racing this 1971 ALFA Romeo GTV in the Trans Am series 44 years later he is still racing it in historic events.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for organising these photographs for me and to Karl Krause for their execution.

Thanks for joining me on this “Monterey ALFAs” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a turbocharged Formula One Lola. Don’t forget to come back now !

Turning You Into Nuvolari – Ford Mustang 2+2

When Ford announced the Mustang 2+2 in 1965 they claimed, quite rightly that Europe no longer had the monopoly on “four wheeled flair”.

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

This particular vehicle was advertised as a 1965 ‘Stang at Goodwood Revival a few years ago.

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

It was described as having had a full restoration in 2002, the same year it was first registered in the UK.

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

Among the upgrades it received were a 5 litre 302 cui ‘blue printed’ motor only a Mustang option from 1967, replacing the original 4.7 litre 289 cui unit and uprated disc brakes.

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

This vehicle was described as having been fitted with a ‘Tremec TKO’ 5 speed manual gearbox.

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

The ride was described by Ford in their contemporary advertising as like “a little cloud” a description which seems at variance with Fords advice to …

Ford Mustang, Goodwood Revival,

“Don’t forget the looks: that’s what turns Main Street into Via Veneto … and you into Nuvolari.

Thanks for joining me on this “Turning You Into Nuvolari” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Modern Elegant Fiat. Don’t forget to come back now.

4 Pot Square Bore – Maserati 4CL #1566

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Fed up with the German Silver Arrow’s from Mercedes Benz and Auto Union stealing their thunder and pride the Italian Motorsports Authorities decided to cut Alfa Romeo and Maserati some slack by announcing that all of the Grand Prix run on Italian soil in 1939 would be for 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui Voiturettes which would exclude the German monsters that had been sweeping all before them in the top European open wheel series since 1935.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

To take advantage of the new rules Ernesto Maserati designed a new 4 cylinder motor with bore and stroke dimensions roughly equal, known as square bore though the cylinders were of course round, and with four valves per cylinder to replace the 6 cylinder 12 valve motor fitted to the previous moderately successful 6CM.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

To handle the extra 30 hp of the new motor the 6 CM ladder chassis was moderately upgraded; with more use of aluminium, repositioned suspension to lower the chassis and the track was nearly 2″ wider.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

For the Tripoli Grand Prix, effectively on Italian soil since Lybia was an Italian colony at the time, Maserati produced one 4CL with a streamlined body for Luigi Villoresi to drive. Luigi qualified on pole in the race, generally regarded as having the finest field of voiturettes ever seen.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

However both Luigi and the other two 4 CL’s including #1566 seen here, driven in Tripoli by Giovanni Rocco retired leaving, Mercedes Benz to an uncontested victory with two W165 cars they had built in secret, much to the dismay of the Italians.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

Fortunately the W165’s, having made their point, were never to race again leaving Jonnie Wakefield in a private 4CL to score 3 victories to which the works team added 2 more before the outbreak of hostilities in the 1939/45 war. Luigi Villoresi driving a 4CL won at Targa Florio against opposition only from Axis aligned countries in 1940 and Giovanni Rooco driving #1566 finished third in the same race to record his best result in the car before the war.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

After the cessation of hostilities #1566 found it’s way to France where it was acquired by Robert Mazaud, a driver who set a lap record in the Le Mans 24 Hours, on his debut there, aboard a Delahaye in 1938. Robert would score his best result aboard #1566, 3rd at St Cloud in Belgium, a few weeks before being killed after an accident at the wheel of #1566 in the Nantes Grand Prix in France.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

Raymond Sommer, Tazio Nuvolari and Giorgio Pelassa all drove 4CL’s to victory in 1946, but it was 1947 when the 4CL really came on song with 10 victories to the models credit. Luigi Villoresi won 6 races with; Nello Pagani, Reg Parnell, Yves Giraud-Cabantous and Christian Kautz each winning one a piece.

Maserati 4CL, HGPCA Test Day, Silverstone

To the best of my knowledge Jean Judet entered #1566 in at least six events between 1946 and 1950 recording at least five retirements.

In all 15 4CL’s were built between 1939 and 1946, I believe #1566 seen in these photographs, at the HGPCA Test Day at Silverstone last year, has belonged to the family of the late Rodney Smith since 2004.

Thanks for joining me on this “4 Pot Square Bore” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again tomorrow for a look at a Bugatti. Don’t forget to come back now !

Sig. Nuvolari’s Replacement – Maserati 8CM #3018

On the 9th of July 1933 Tazio Nuvolari made his Maserati debut at the Belgium Grand Prix driving a Maserati 8CM chassis #3007. He continued to race the #3007, scoring two more wins, at Ciano and Nice in 1933, until mid way through 1934 when he broke his leg in it at Alexandria.

Maserati 8CM, Donington Park Museum

By June 1934 Maserati had supplied Tazio with today’s featured 8CM chassis #3018 which he drove in the Eifel GP at the Nurburgring where he retired. Two more retirements followed until he scored a 4th place finish in the 1934 German Grand Prix which was followed by successive 3rd and 2nd place finishes at Vivorno and Pescara respectively.

In August 1934 the original 3 litre / 183 cui 8 cylinder motor was replaced with a 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui 6 cylinder unit for voiturette races, making the car the first Maserati 6CM a full 18 months before the 6CM went into production in 1936. Tazio drove #3018 in voiturette spec to victories in the at Modena and Naples.

Tom Wheatcroft founder of the Donington Park Museum where the car is seen here owned the car for over thirty years before he passed away in 2009.

Thanks for joining me on this “Sig. Nuvolari’s Replacement” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will return tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Bugatti built for royalty. Don’t forget to come back now !

Goodwood Revival – #7 Silberpfile

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At the Berlin Motor Show in 1933 Adolf Hitler announced two new projects the (Kraft durch Freude – strength through joy) KdF- Wagen that would eventually become the Volkswagen Beetle and a state sponsored racing programme for Mercedes Benz. Below is a recreation of a 1936 Mercedes Benz racing department transporter based on a 70 hp petrol engine Mercedes Benz Lo 2570 truck complete with a Mercedes Benz W125 racing car on the back.

Once it became clear that Hans Stuck would not be joining Mercedes Benz he got together with Chairman of the newly amalgamated Auto Union Baron Klaus von Oertzen and free lance designer Ferdinand Porsche to make a bid to fund a rival for the Mercedes Benz team. Hitler agreed that two rivals would be better than one and so split the funding he had announced in Berlin for Mercedes Benz with Auto Union much to the disgust of the former. Below is a Büssing Typ 300 of the type used by Auto Union to carry their team.

There are numerous stories about how the Mercedes Benz and Auto Union team cars came to be called collectively the Silver Arrows. Apparently the earliest use to the term was in a 1932 radio broadcast in connection with a streamlined Mercedes Benz SSKL driven by Manfred von Brauchitsch was called a Silver Arrow. When the Auto Unions were prepared in 1934 they were all painted silver and bitter rivals Mercedes Benz, who would probably be loath to admit it, appear to have followed suit.

For 1934 Auto Union built the A-Type with, for the period, a wholly unconventional mid engine layout which featured a 291 hp super charged V16 motor there was no championship that year, Alfa Romeo won the first two of the seven major races before Hans Stuck won the German Grand Prix for Auto Union, René Dreyfus managed an unlikely win at the Belgian Grand Prix aboard his Bugatti and Mercedes swept the last two races of the season in Italy and Spain. Above is an A-Type of the type Stuck used to win the 1934 German Grand Prix.

From 1934 to 1937 Mercedes Benz used the W25 powered by a supercharged straight 8 motor that rose from 300 hp in 1934 to 490 hp by the time the W25 was replaced by the W125. In 1935 Rudolf Caracciola won the European Grand Prix Championship with three wins, Stuck one once for Auto Union and Tazio Nuvolari famously upset the Fuhrer by winning for ALFA Romeo in the 1935 German Grand Prix.

Karl Wendlinger had some problems selecting gears with the W25 seen on the left above and when he got a gear on this occasion the car snaked wildly as the narrow power band of his screaming engine kicked in forcing the 1938 W154 onto the grass.

For 1936 Auto Union introduced the C-Type which produced over 500 hp from it’s supercharged V16. This tipped the scales in favour of Bernd Rosemeyer who won three of the four European Championship rounds to become European Champion in 1936. This left the previous years champion Caracciola with a consolation victory at the start of the 1936 season before the Mercedes Benz team withdrew mid season, after the Auto Unions superiority became obvious, to regroup for 1937.

Five time Le Mans winner Frank Biela is seen at the wheel of the C-type above.

For 1937 Mercedes Benz came back with a vengeance upgrading their supercharged straight eight motor with a swept volume 5,662.85 cc / 345.56 CUI which produced 595 hp and a new W125 chassis as seen being handled by Grand Prix and Le Mans winner Jochen Mass above. After a consolation win at the start of the 1937 season for Rudolf Hasse, Caracciola took three wins from the remaining four rounds of the championship to win the 1937 European Championship title for the second time. Only Manfred von Brauchitsch also aboard a W125 interrupted Caracciola’s progress at Monaco. It was not until the late sixties that circuit racers so powerful would hit the tracks again with the emergence of the unlimited Can Am Series in North America.

For 1938 the organisers changed the rules to bring the speeds down by announcing a maximum swept volume of three litres / 183 cui. Auto Union developed the new D-type with “only” 12 cylinders in a Vee configuartaion that with 24 psi boost from the supercharger developed 478 hp and was still capable of over 200 mph ! The Nuvolari drove the D-Type, like the one seen here, to a single championship victory at the season finale at Monza.

Mercedes Benz built the W154 for the smaller capacity formula using an essentially unchanged chassis from the W125 but with a supercharged V12 giving up to 475 hp. von Brauchitsch and Great Britain’s Richard Seaman won the opening 2 races of the four race series. Caracciola won the third round which was enough to secure him a third European Championship title.

For 1939 there were only four rounds of the European Championship Mercedes again winning three of them Hermann Lang winning the first and last and Caracciola winning the 1939 German Grand Prix all for Mercedes. Herman Paul Müller interrupted the Mercedes domination with a win at the French Grand Prix. Two weeks after the final championship round in Switzerland von Brauchitsch drove the #6 seen here driven by Rob Hall to second place in the non championship Belgrade Grand Prix. That same day the Second World War got underway and the European Championship organisers who apparently had never agreed on the points system to be used for the 1939 championship failed to announce a championship winner. Lang or Mülller would have won depending on the scoring system to be used.

Finally Mercedes Benz built the 1.5 litre 91.5 cui supercharged V8 powered W165, as driven by Paul Stewart above, to compete in the more competitive, or at least varied since nearly everyone had abandoned hope of competing against Mercedes Benz and Auto Union, voiturette (small) class. Two cars were entered for Lang and Caracciola in the Tripoli Grand Prix and they finished first and second in that order. The cars were never to be raced again despite Caracciola being invited to compete at Indianapolis in 1946, he could not get the car out of Europe through Swiss customs.

Without doubt these are some of the most fascinating cars ever seen in motor racing, they dominated races that were often 10 hours long, but in the early years they were not invincible. However great the achievements of the teams and drivers these cars were built in an industrial context with the conscripted help of men and women who were not free to do as they liked, and I would venture to suggest these vehicles should be remembered as a testimony to those who endured unimaginable hardships and in the greater scheme of things some of the greatest inhumanities known to man.

Thanks for joining me on this “#7 Siberpfile” edition of “Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres”, I hope you will join me again for some California Sunshine tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Race Winning Body – MG K3 #K3001/K3003

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In October 1932 MG launched the K-Type Magnette at the London Motor Show, featuring a 48″ track and either a 94″ or 108″ wheel base the chassis was powered by a 6 cylinder 39 hp 1087cc / 66 cui motor with a cross flow cylinder head that originated from the 1930 Wolseley Hornet.The K1 Magnet was fitted with a saloon body on the 109″ wheel base and in all 181 were manufactured up to 1934 in KA, KB and lastly KD specifications which reflected a series of motor upgrades during the production run.

In 1933 the K2 a two seater on the 94″ chassis was launched, 16 were built with KB spec motors and 4 more with KD motors and pre selector gear boxes.

The princely sum of £795 could secure a supercharged K3 racing variant, as seen driven above at Prescott by Brandon Smith – Hillard, at first, as above, fitted with Powerplus superchargers just below the radiator and later with Marshall units. Fitted with pre selector gearboxes three K3’s including #K3001 above were entered into the 1933 where George Eyston and Giovanni Lurani driving chassis #K3003 came in 21st behind Tazio Nuvolari in an ALFA Romeo but took a class victory with Earl Howe and Hugh Hamilton coming in 22nd overall and 2nd in class in #K3001.

Subsequently #K3001 was raced at Brooklands, shared for the Shelsley Walsh by Land Speed Record holder and Mille Miglia class winner George Eyston with MM team mate Giovanni Lurani, raced throughout Europe by Bobby Kolrusche in 1934.

The Mille Miglia chassis #K3003 meantime had been given to the great Tazio Nuvolari to drive in the 1933 Ulster TT which he promptly won outright beating two 8 cylinder ALFA Romeo’s running in the 3 liter 183 cui class.

At some point after 1934 and before the commencement of the 2nd World War the body from the Mille Miglia and Tourist Trophy winning #K3003 replaced that on #K3001 which is how #K3001 appears in the photo above one of just 33 K3’s to have been built from 1933 to 1934.

My thanks to Ed of the Wessex MG Club Newsletter for details about this chassis.

Thanks for joining me on this ‘Race Winning Body’ edition of ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow, don’t forget to come back now !

Automobiliart – Paul Chenard

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One of the amazing things about the internet is the way it brings people together regardless of physical or geographic location, a case in point cropped up last year when I was looking for a photograph of McLaren drivers Denny Hulme and Peter Revson for an ongoing documentary project and found exactly what I was looking for on the Automobiliart blog run by Paul Chenard.

I e-mailed Paul and he kindly put me in touch with the owner of said photograph and thanks to our shared interest in motor racing and Gilles Villeneuve in particular Paul and I have remained in touch ever since.

Paul, who hails from Nova Scotia, trained as a graphic designer and in the 1980’s he engaged his passion for the history of Grand Prix and Sports/GT racing by collecting vintage toy racing cars, books and reference material on racing history.

In 2007 Paul decided to combine his professional work with his interest in motor racing and set up Automobiliart.com to market his works which are made using a variety of media.

Unusually, and this is why I like Paul’s work, he captures the “feeling” I get when spectating at races and looking at racing cars so well I can almost smell them.

In September I had the opportunity to meet Paul at Goodwood, above he can be seen promoting his entertaining “Silver Clouds: 1934 Grand Prix Season” limited edition 40 page hand assembled book, designed written & illustrated by Paul, a book Mercedes Benz thought so good they ordered two, of the only 50 copies to be printed, for their museum.

You can find a fine selection of more of Pauls work, which make excellent seasonal gifts, on this link to the Automobiliart.com website.

Last week I mentioned to Paul that I was compiling questions for a seasonal quiz and he has kindly agreed to donate one of these sets of blank greetings cards to the winner of the Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz which will be running from December 26th to January 2nd.

The cards, which measure 15.24cm x 11.43cm, come in packs of 12 with 3 copies of 4 designs in each set, plus A6 envelopes.

The winner of the Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will get to choose one set of cards from either the SportsGT, Phil Hill Ferrari 156 F1 “Sharknose”, 1934 Grand Prix Season

Grand Prix Engines of the 1950’s or

Mike Hawthorn’s Race Cars sets.

Full details of the Automobiliart GALPOT Seasonal Quiz will be announced with the first questions on December 26th.

Thanks for joining me on this Automobiliart edition of “Getting’ a li’l psycho on tyres” I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !