Tag Archives: Ferrari

Engine Upgrade – Ferrari 365 GT 2+2

Today for Ferrari Friday we are revisiting the Silverstone Classic where I saw this Ferrari 365 GT 2+2.

The 365 series of Ferrari’s appears outwardly similar to the 330 Series apart from some minor details the Pininfarina bodies of the two series can be difficult to tell apart.

However underneath the bonnet/hood the Colombo V12 engine had been upgraded from 4.0 litres / 244 cui to 4390 cc / 267 cui which would become best known for it’s application in the Ferrari 365 GTB/4 launched like the 365 GT 2+2 in 1968.

Between 1968 and 1970 around 800 365 GT 2+2’s were built with leather seats, electric windows and power assisted steering making the model one of Ferrari’s best selling models at the time.

This particular car appears to have been first registered between late 1970 to early 1971 possibly making it one of the last of the 54 Right Hand Drive 365 GT 2+2’s known to have been built.

Thanks for joining me for Ferrari Friday at ‘Gettin’ a li’l psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

The Regency Laundry Pegasus Sprint

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A week last Saturday I got up at 6 am and headed down the hill to meet Mark a fellow member of the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club at 7:15 am to catch a lift out to Castle Combe where we were both volunteer marshalls for a day at The Regency Laundry Pegasus Sprint.

Unlike the Wessex Sprint held at Castle Combe which started from the pit lane earlier this year the start of the Pegasus Sprint was at the entry to Camp Corner with the usual finish line on the straight following Camp meaning the sprint course was just over a lap and measured 2.05 miles.

Participants from an additional twenty clubs, including the Morgan CC were invited to take part around 120 entries were expected to make two practice runs in the morning and two competitive runs in the afternoon.

For the morning sessions I was assigned to the inside of Quarry Corner with fellow members Andy and Lewis. We all agreed that the TVR would probably provide the most entertainment during the day and we were not dissapointed. Matthew Oakley’s #100 6158 cc / 376 cui TVR Griffith sounded like it was running a super charger though this was not marked on the entry list.

At Quarry the morning passed relatively uneventfully no spiners, cars with all four wheels off the track or anything of significance to report from a marshaling perspective. Things were a good deal more exciting at The Esses just down the track from us where several competitors spun, dropped oil and in a couple of cases completely failed to take the Esses and headed safely down the escape road.

After a fabulous courtesy chicken curry at The Tavern I had about ten minuets to take some more snaps in the paddock before joining Andy and Lewis at Avon Rise for the afternoon sessions. Above John Dando driving his magnificent Volvo 144 was the sole representative of the Volvo Owners Club present.

Toby Harris sharing the turbocharged #31 Ford Puma, fitted with what appeared to be carbon fibre bonnet and boot panels, above with Lisa Selby was particularly impressive for it’s neutral handling in the corners making it look smooth and fast.

Tim Painter driving his heart warming Ferrari 360 around Castle Combe for the first time did not have such an easy run of it managing just one clean run.

Appearing with rally spec ground clearance was this 2 litre / 122 cui mid engined Darian T9 shared by Colin Early, seen above and Carole Torkington.

Among the fastest cars of the day was the #79 SBD Westfield S2000 of Matt Hillman seen driving above and Steve Broughton, this car has all the go faster bits including Kevlar steering wheel and sequential gearbox.

Finally as the days track activities drew to a close this Convertible Jenson Interceptor pulled up behind our marshalling post in the hands of a new owner who had just purchased it for a very reasonable £24,000. More on this car on Sunday.

I’d like to thank Mark for saving me a long uphill walk by dropping me off right outside my house.

Thanks for joining me on this Regency Laundry edition of ‘Gettin a li’l psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Vintage Vauxhall. Don’t forget to come back now !

From The Mystery Batch – Ferrari 196 S

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Early in the morning just after I arrived in the car park at the Goodwood Revival a couple of weeks ago I heard the low rev rumble of what was obviously a highly strung racing car, I looked over my shoulder to see a bright red car that looked like a Ferrari, sounded like a Ferrari and even smelled like a Ferrari right behind me. A while later I caught up with the car and mindful of keeping a stock of photo’s of Ferrari’s for Ferrari Fridays here at GALPOT I happily snapped away not entirely sure of what it was I was looking at.

It certainly looked like something from the late 1950’s, an HPI (like Carfax) check of the registration revealed that this car was built in 1958 and had a 2417 cc 147 cui engine an engine size I’d normally associate with a 246 Dino V6 from the early 1970’s.

Yet the car looked like a 12 cylinder Testa Rossa. Searching through Google images I came across another photo of what appears to be the same car labelled as a 1958 Ferrari 196S Fantuzzi Spyder.

I had a look at Barchetta website to see if I could identify the chassis number but could find no 196S model for 1958. There are however two 246S models listed for 1959 and 1960 the first chassis #0776TR owned by Sir Antony Bamford appears to also be known as a 196S, which looks similar to today’s featured car, but has a prominent additional scoop on the drivers side of the bonnet along with a perspex scoop for the carburetors.

The second 246S listed on the Barchetta site is chassis #0784 which I looked at a couple of weeks ago. Having drawn a blank as to which car 415 UXY was I tried asking at Ferrari Chat and was surprised to learn from Ed Niles and tx246 that this car is one of a batch of 12 196S replicas built more or less from scratch possibly in Modena possibly by ‘”Old Timers” that worked for Fantuzzi. Due to risk of these people losing their pensions, they work in secret.’

Searching ‘Ferrari 196S Replica’ in Google revealed two more cars from this mystery batch of around 12 which appear to have been built in the 1990’s, one yellow and one red the latter lists the name of the first owners as Mecanic – Import a specialist vehicle dealer in Belgium whom I have tried to contact and asked for more details about the ‘”Old Timers” that worked for Fantuzzi’ as of the time of writing I have had no reply.

My thanks to Ed Niles and tx246 at Ferrari Chat for their help unraveling today’s mystery car.

Thanks for joining me on the trail for another carcaeoloy hunt, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at a Lotus open wheeler. Don’t forget to come back now !

Road Legal Ferrari’s A Brief History – Niello Serrano Concours

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For Ferrari Friday GALPOT continues yesterdays perusal of vehicles on display at the Niello Serrano Concours thanks to Geoffrey Hortons photographs.

First up a Ferrari 250 GT/E 2+2, one these models was Enzo Ferrari’s daily driver, early GALPOT readers may remember such a vehicle appearing in a previous blog, albeit modified into a replica 250 GT SWB Competizione.

More exclusive, one of just 200 models built between 1965 and 1968, is this Ferrari 275 GTS powered by a 3.3 litre / 201 cui V12.

The V6 Ferrari Dino had been in production for two years and two distinct series from 1969 to 1971 before the first Series III Dino’s were manufactured for the US market, this is one of 1,431 Series III Dinos produced between 1971 and 1974.

Manufactured between 1971 and 1972 the Ferrari 365 GTC/4 is a 2+2. One of the 500 examples produced appeared in the 1977 film Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo alongside several other Ferraris including a slightly more powerful 365 GTB/4 Daytona with which the GTC/4 shares a common chassis.

Representing Maranello’s prancing black horse for the 1980’s at Niello Serrano was this Ferrari 328 GTS of which some 7400 were manufactured between 1985 and 1989.

Ferrari returned to manufacturing motor cars with the engine in front of the driver in 1996 with the beefy 550. With a boot / trunk large enough to carry a set of golf clubs the Ferrari 550 was turned into a handy racer at Le Mans by the likes of Prodrive.

Twentieth model in Ferraris catalogue of street legal exotics is the Ferrari 360 a model produced from 1999 – 2005 which you may remember from an earlier blog was made available with an optional Tubi Style exhaust to provide extra horsepower and amplify the sound.

With a 200 mph top speed the Ferrari F430 that replaced the 360 in 2004 arguably had no need of gimmicks like optional Tubi Style exhausts. It looks good, sounds good and goes fast, pretty much everything one could want from a Ferrari except of course it’s replacement the F458 Italia.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing the delights of the California Concours season with us at GALPOT, I look forward to seeing what motoring delights he will find next year.

Thanks for joining me for Ferrari Friday, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be looking at an innovative Lotus with a body designed by Peter Kirwan-Taylor. Don’t forget to come back now !

Dino Remembered – Ferrari 246S #0784

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At the end of 1955 Alfredo ‘Dino’ Ferrari proposed the idea of building a twin over head cam 1.5 litre / 91.5 cui V6 motor for use in second tier open wheel Formula 2 racing to his father Enzo. Soon afterwards ‘Dino’ was hospitalised with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, while in hospital ‘Dino’ discussed the technical details of his idea with legendary engineer Vittorio Jano.

Jano translated his disscusions with ‘Dino’ into what would become the first ‘Dino’ V6 which was used in Formula 2 races in 1957, by which time ‘Dino’ had fatally succumbed to his illness.

The motor had the two banks of cylinders unusually inclined at 65 degrees by 1958 a larger version of the ‘Dino’ V6 had been installed in Ferrari’s Grand Prix cars and used by Mike Hawthorn to win the 1958 World Drivers Championship.

A 2 litre / 122 cui version of the ‘Dino’ engine was installed in a sports car, s/n #0740, for Peter Collins to drive at Goodwood in the 1958 Sussex trophy where he came 2nd. The sports car was indistinguishable from the older Fantusi bodied 250TR apart from the 3 twin choke carburetors sticking out of the bonnet /hood where the larger engined 250 TR had 6.

Several more variations of the Dino V6’s were built and raced including single over head cam versions with 60 degree inclinations between the cylinders. #0784 seen here in the hands of Bobby Verdon Roe at the Silverstone Classic was the last of the 246S models to be built in 1959.

#0784 was fitted with a twin cam V6 and uniquely with Formula One derived independent rear suspension. On it’s debut Phil Hill and Graf Berghe ‘Taffy’ von Trips drove this chassis into second place in the 1960 Targa Florio. This would remain the cars best result despite the best efforts Richie Ginther, Ludovico Scarfiotti, Ed Hugus, Alan, Cornell jr, Ricardo & Pedro Rodriguez, and Bob Grossman.

In 1962 the car was fitted with the high tail body seen on the car today. Among it’s many owners since the 1960’s was Nick Mason’s friend and Pink Floyd Manager Steve O’Rourke who was briefly the custodian of #0784 in 1997. More recently in 2009 Bobby Verdon Rowe and Nick Leventis took this 246S to victory lane in a one hour race at the Goodwood revival in 2009.

Thanks for joining me on the Dino V6 edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

Goodwood RAC TT Celebration – Ferraris

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The RAC TT or International Tourist Trophy is a more or less annual award given to the winners of a selected motor race. It was first awarded in 1905 making it the longest lasting trophy in Motorsport. Among the many venues that hosted the RAC TT is Goodwood which ran TT races from 1958 to 1964. Below are 9 of the 10 Ferrari’s that took part in the Revival Celebration TT practice sessions a couple of weeks ago.

The #14 Ferrari 250 GT Drogo started life as a 250 GT SWB (Short Wheel Base) Competizione chassis #2445GT in 1961, it was supplied to Garages Francorchamps in Belgium and is known to have won at least seven European races in the hands of Robert Crevits in the 1961 and ’62 seasons. At Le Mans in 1962 Robert Darville crashed the car and it was subsequently sent to Piero Drogo in Modena where the current bodywork was fitted. Apparently James Coburn briefly owned this car in 1964. Dutchman David Hart shared the #14 with 2006 RAC TT winner Michael Bartels at Goodwood.

Readers from Rowdy.com may remember my blog on the Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan, I’ll repost the whole blog here if I find myself getting short of Ferraris to write about, chassis #2819 is a bastard in so much as it also started life as a 1961 250 GT SWB, but Count di Misurata had his car upgraded by Giotto Bizzarrini, the man responsible for designing both the Ferrari 250 GT SWB and the later 250 GTO. The ‘Breadvan’ was driven at Goodwood by Nicholas Minassian and Max Werner.

One of my all time heroes Art Merzario shared the #19 250 GT SWB/C with Kilian Koenig. This 1960 model chassis #1811GT was another car originally supplied to Garages Francorchamps and in the hands of Robert Crevits won 3 races outright in the 1961 season.

Conrad Ulrich shared his #20 250 GT SWB chassis #3107GT with Frank Stippler at Goodwood. This chassis was originally supplied to M. Auregli in Italy and has no race history, that I can discern, until the current owner acquired it in 1999.

This light weight 1961 250GT SWB Compitizione was originally entered by the North American Racing Team in the Paris 1000 kms for the Mexican Rodriguez brothers who won on the cars debut race. Subsequently it was sold to Doug Thiem in the USA who succesfully campaigned this chassis #3005GT in 1962. The #21 car now belongs to Lukas Hueni who shared it with Carlo Voegele at Goodwood.

Gregory Whitten’s #23 250 GTO chassis #3413 was originally used as a spare car and tested by Graham Hill and engineer Mauro ‘Fury’ Fogheri on the Targa Florio in 1962, later that year #3413 was acquired by Edoardo Lualdi who scored numerous overall and class wins hillclimbing with it. In 1963 Gianni Bulgari raced it scoring a class win on the Targa and an overall win at Monza. In 1964 the car was fitted with ’64 GTO bodywork at the Ferrari factory for new owner Corrado Ferlaino who promptly took another class win on the Targa and at least two more hillclimb class wins. In 1967 Jack Le Fort acquired #3413 for £6000 /@ US$ 15,000 after several further changes of ownership Gregory Whitten acquired it in 2000 for US$ 7 million ! Greg shared his car with 6 time Le Mans winner Derek ‘Dinger’ Bell at Goodwood.

The #24 Ferrari 250 GTO chassis #3767GT was raced with the #8 by original owner David Piper to 5th place in the 1962 Tourist Trophy at Goodwood. David won races in Angola and South Africa with this car in 1962. In 1963 David shared the car at Sebring with the cars next owner Ed Cantrell who clocked up further class wins with the car through to the end of 1964. Since 1974 #3767 has been the property of heavy plant magnet Anthony Bamford at Goodwood his son Jo shared the drivng duties with Alain de Cadenet.

Jose Albuquerque, of Portugal brought his 250GT Compitizione to Goodwood and shared it with Barrie Williams. Chassis #2159GT was originally supplied to Garage Montchoisy, Geneva, CH and Gérard Spinedi won on his debut in the 1000m sprint at Cern, Spinedi scored numerous overall and class victories in races, rallies and on the hills up to 1964. Mr Albuquerque has been the custodian of this car since 2001.

Finally Garage Francochamps appears to have acquired this 1960 steel bodied 250GT SWB Berlinetta chassis #2069GT from Baron de Fierlant in 1962, apart from a 2nd place in the 1962 Ardenne hillclimb with Robert Crevits at the wheel, the car has no discernable competition history until the turn of this century when Vincent Gáye acquired it. Vincent was sharing #2060GT with former national hillclimb champion David Franklin in the RAC TT celebration.

My thanks to PauloSF at Ferrari Chat for his contribution to todays blog.

Thanks for joining me on this RAC TT edition of ‘Gettin a lil’ psycho on tyres’, I hope you will join me again tomorrow. Don’t forget to come back now !

SOT Thanks to a strong alignment of favourable planets I’ll be attending the Bill Boddy Tribute Day at Bill’s spiritual home Brooklands tomorrow, if I had not picked up a copy of Motor Sport, edited by Bill Boddy, in January 1973 I’d never have been bitten by the passion I still have 38 years later for all things motoring.

Goodwood Revival #5 – Ferrari Open Wheel

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Last Friday I managed to get photo’s of many of the Ferrari’s on track and just the one off track at Goodwood. In order to break these photo’s down into manageable blogs today I’ll be looking at five of the single seaters present at last weeks Revival meeting.

Oldest of the open wheelers present was this 1952 Ferrari 500/625 chassis #0482, this type started life as a 2 litre / 122 cui Formula 2 vehicle for the 1952 and 1953 World Championship seasons and was then upgraded for the 1954 season to 2.5 litre / 153 cui for the 1954 World Championship which was run to new Formula One regulations. I am not entirely sure what the exact history of this particular chassis is.

So far as I can tell this Lancia Ferrari is a recreation of the 1956 D50a type, as used by Juan Manuel Fangio to win his forth World Championship in 1956. This particular car, built by Jm Stokes who has manufactured six such vehicles, has Alain de Cadenet operating the loud pedal of the throaty V8, by some considerable margin making the best sound of the day on the track.

This V6 powered 1959 #33 Ferrari Dino 246 owned by Ian Wade and driven by Rick Hall is also a recreation,

while the #12 1960 Dino seen here driven by Tony Smith is genuine with a history. The chassis number was originally #0007 Phil Hill led a Ferrari 1-2-3 victory at the 1960 Italian Grand Prix with this car. This was Phil’s first ever Grand Prix win and the last ever recorded for a Formula One car with a front mounted motor. Genesis and Metallica manager
Tony Smith can be seen talking about and driving this car on this link.

Finally the 1961 Ferrari 156 #0002R, above with Jan Biekens at the wheel, is a recreation of the type of vehicle that Phil Hill drove to become the first American World Drives Champion. This car is a recreation, again by Jim Stokes, of 156 chassis #0002, with a 65 degree V6, as used by Oliver Geneblen to finish 4th in the 1961 Belgian GP, Geneblen’s car was painted yellow in deference to the Equipe Nationale Belge team which entered him into the race.

Thanks for joining me on this open wheel edition of ‘Gettin’ a lil’ psycho on tyres’ I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I’ll be taking a look at some of the fashion that graced the Goodwood last weekend. Don’t forget to come back now !

Gettin' A Li'l Psycho On Tyres

Art Tidesco blogs on all things motoring

Tag Archives: Ferrari

Engine Upgrade – Ferrari 365 GT 2+2

The Regency Laundry Pegasus Sprint

From The Mystery Batch – Ferrari 196 S

Road Legal Ferrari’s A Brief History – Niello Serrano Concours

Dino Remembered – Ferrari 246S #0784

Goodwood RAC TT Celebration – Ferraris

Goodwood Revival #5 – Ferrari Open Wheel