BOOK TWO
1945-2014
M a serati T H E FA M I LY S I LV E R NIGEL TROW
Pinin Farina 1500 Coupe seen from above as bystanders admire its elegance. Note the sun roof.
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past occurred with the death of Ettore Bugatti, leaving his son Roland in complete control of yet another business disrupted by war. News emerging from Paris suggested that a new Bugatti 1.5-litre single-seater was in small scale production, but from the description it offered little fresh thinking. The British, too, marked time. ERA had their latest ‘B’ type cars ready for Parnell and Brooke, but it was becoming clear that most of the ideas were coming from Modena. Out at Maranello, Busso continued to work steadily on Ferrari’s V12, now opened out to two-litres and re-designated the Tipo 159S, and in the viale Ciro Menotti the A6GCS was approaching completion, its first outing set for the Modena meeting at the end of September. Ferrari, too, had this in his sights, determined to impress his fellow citizens with the speed of the 159S, and Modenese fans anticipated the coming grudge match with relish. For Villoresi and his protégé, Ascari, it was a time of continuous travel and activity. Both had been signed by Maserati to drive the new sports cars at Modena, and before the race were considerably involved in testing. At the same time, their Squadra Ambrosiana racing programme took them in various directions - Strasbourg for the Grand Prix d’Alsace in early August, which Villoresi won, and a week later, St Gaudens, for the Comminges Grand Prix. This race, won by Chiron in a 4.5-litre Lago-Talbot, was by all accounts an ordeal. Motor Sport’s sub editor noted laconically that ‘it seems that crashes and fires put many of the cars out......’, but this was an understatement. The preceding motorcycle race had seen three riders killed, and in the Grand Prix, run under unpredictable and extreme weather conditions, half a dozen spectators died when a car crashed through the barrier. Of the Maserati drivers, Villoresi crashed in the rain after an overnight engine rebuild following a blow-up in practise, de Graffenried kept going to take fifth place and Ascari finished seventh. Dorino Serafini, eventually to make his name with Ferrari, crashed and was injured when his 4CL’s steering broke at 190kph, catching fire as it came to rest against a tree. None of which attracted serious attention. Motor racing was risky, worse had happened in the war and public attitudes had hardly changed since the sport began. Cars had no cockpit harness and few drivers wore crash helmets, each believing his skill would save his skin, particularly if he were Italian. For those like Giovanni Bracco, who won the Aosta-Grand San Bernardo hill climb on 10 August in his Maserati Fiat special, this was a matter of pride and image. Bracco had a great sense of balance, enabling him to feel precisely how the car was upon the road. It made him a fine wet weather driver, who felt always in control, but with the car often at the edge of its adhesion it took little to send it off the road. For those without this fine control - or lacking a sense of self- preservation - racing cars were perilous machines, but this did not prevent most who drove them from being filled with self-confidence.
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16 In 1957, Juan Manual Fangio
In 1957, Juan Manuel Fangio became World Champion in a 250F, and Maserati finished at the top of the manufacturers’ table. Had there been an official championship for makes, it would have been theirs. As it was, the year of their triumph was also their Grand Prix swan song. The Manufacturers’ Championship started a year later, but before the season was half-run the grand old name was floundering in the wash of Vanwall, Cooper and Ferrari. With no works team, no money and an elderly car, the brave 30-year struggle was almost lost, as bankruptcy loomed. Four years earlier everything had seemed quite different. A new race formula, a new single-seater that customers queued to buy, new sports cars, glamorous road cars and the Maserati name in lights. What went wrong? Once again, as happened 20 years before, the cost of racing had spread the company’s resources too thin, but this time, in addition, there was an enormous overhanging debt from a failed machine tool contract with Argentina. The spark plug and battery company, ostensibly separate but closely linked, was collapsing too, after a brief venture into motorcycle manufacture had failed to revitalise it. Money from other pockets could no longer subsidise racing. The thin ice on which Maserati had frequently skated was about to break. When the 250F was conceived in 1953, it was planned as a customer car. This was wholly in keeping with Maserati traditions, and equally in keeping was the initial concentration on designing and building the engine: power first. It is probably true to say that Colombo was responsible for this, since his redevelopment of the two-litre A6GCM engine led directly to its expansion to 2.5-litres for the new Formula One regulations. Unfortunately, he left the company without taking the
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21 After buying Maserati’s machine tool business
Three years after buying Maserati’s machine tool business, Oerlikon left Modena and moved production to Switzerland. Immediately they were gone, the wall within the factory came down, and for the first time the Viale Ciro Menotti factory was wholly dedicated to building motor cars. It was a symbolic moment, the more so because the Orsis had pulled Maserati out of debt and the company was beginning to revive. In many ways it was stronger than before. The directors, in general, now concentrated on the task of building commercially successful vehicles, trying to stick to their priorities and make use of the firm’s long history of motor sport. Equally important, the civilised family atmosphere of the factory had not been destroyed. The artisan tradition on which the firm depended still survived, allowing cars to be largely hand-built at a time when mass production by semi-skilled labour was beginning to invade many aspects of Italian and European industrial life. 1960 was the start of the Italian economic revolution, and in a world of new money the elegant, potent name of Maserati would find many new customers prepared to pay for distinction. With Giulio Alfieri now a director, Aurelio Bertocchi assumed responsibility for production and Aurelio Pollio took charge of the design department. His new role did not keep Alfieri away from the drawing board, however, and he devoted much time to both the further development of the 3500GT engine, and the preparation of yet another sports racing car, the rear-engined Tipo 63. Because of the pressure to increase production of the road car, on which the company’s survival now depended, Maserati’s first rear-engined racing car was of longer gestation than the Tipo 60. Despite the fact that Ferrari’s road car sales in America, and elsewhere, were plainly driven by
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Sergio Marchionne, the banker who was to revive Maserati, became CEO of Fiat Spa in 2004.
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Quattroporte
Ghibli
GranCabrio
GranTurismo
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Gentleman racers, off on a spree......
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