Post by David Mitcham on Jun 16, 2015 14:24:25 GMT -5
My choice for the 1950’s 2.5 litre category of the VRAA is the Ferrari 801 entry to the 1957 Pescara Grand Prix – the subject of the Richard Williams book the “The Last Road Race”. The 801 was the last iteration of the Lancia D50 design which Enzo Ferrari had acquired when Lancia quit GP racing.
The Pescara circuit was 25 km/16 miles and is the longest circuit long ever used for a post war grand prix – Fangio’s pole time was 9 minutes 44.6 seconds. It used public roads, closed for the event. It was extremely dangerous with some very fast sections. Ferrari did not send a works team - partly because the World Championship had already been won by Juan-Manuel Fangio and partly in protest against Italian government moves to ban road racing, following Alfonso de Portago's accident earlier in the year in the Mille Miglia. Luigi Musso managed to convince Ferrari to lend him a car and entered the race as a privateer. Musso was third on the grid behind Fangio (250F) and Moss (Vanwall). He led the opening lap but Moss took the lead on the second lap and won the race. Musso retired on lap ten with an oil leak – the oil tank was parting company with the rest of the car as can be seen in the photograph below.
I don’t have a strong reason for choosing this car other than I had acquired a PreWing 801 a few months ago and the VRAA provided a good opportunity to build it. I chose the Pescara race because of its interesting history, and Musso to avoid the more obvious choice of driver – Collins or Hawthorn – and I like his yellow helmet. He also has quite and interesting history!
The following photographs show progress so far. I’m taking a less detailed approach than usual – partly through pressure of time given I’m building two other cars in parallel. The Pre-Wing shell is very good and, other than opening up the nose and the bonnet air intake, and deciding to make my own exhaust from aluminium rod, I haven’t done anything to it. The chassis it very simple and uses Richard Mack front and rear brackets, which are very high quality laser cut steel. The motor is a Mark Thomas Mk1 and I’ll be using a Slot.it offset gear. At the moment the intention is to use Pendle wire wheels and tyres but the rears are going to need a little tweaking to meet the dimension restrictions (and the axles need shortening!).
Regards
David
The Pescara circuit was 25 km/16 miles and is the longest circuit long ever used for a post war grand prix – Fangio’s pole time was 9 minutes 44.6 seconds. It used public roads, closed for the event. It was extremely dangerous with some very fast sections. Ferrari did not send a works team - partly because the World Championship had already been won by Juan-Manuel Fangio and partly in protest against Italian government moves to ban road racing, following Alfonso de Portago's accident earlier in the year in the Mille Miglia. Luigi Musso managed to convince Ferrari to lend him a car and entered the race as a privateer. Musso was third on the grid behind Fangio (250F) and Moss (Vanwall). He led the opening lap but Moss took the lead on the second lap and won the race. Musso retired on lap ten with an oil leak – the oil tank was parting company with the rest of the car as can be seen in the photograph below.
I don’t have a strong reason for choosing this car other than I had acquired a PreWing 801 a few months ago and the VRAA provided a good opportunity to build it. I chose the Pescara race because of its interesting history, and Musso to avoid the more obvious choice of driver – Collins or Hawthorn – and I like his yellow helmet. He also has quite and interesting history!
The following photographs show progress so far. I’m taking a less detailed approach than usual – partly through pressure of time given I’m building two other cars in parallel. The Pre-Wing shell is very good and, other than opening up the nose and the bonnet air intake, and deciding to make my own exhaust from aluminium rod, I haven’t done anything to it. The chassis it very simple and uses Richard Mack front and rear brackets, which are very high quality laser cut steel. The motor is a Mark Thomas Mk1 and I’ll be using a Slot.it offset gear. At the moment the intention is to use Pendle wire wheels and tyres but the rears are going to need a little tweaking to meet the dimension restrictions (and the axles need shortening!).
Regards
David