GTO/64 The Story of Ferrari’s 250GTO/64
SETTING THE SCENE 1
IN THE THIRD WEEK OF MARCH, 1962, in a downmarket hotel at Sebring, Florida, Phil Hill – then Ferrari’s reigning World Champion Driver – was even more uptight than usual. Discussing the situation with his long-time team-mate and frequent sports car co-driver, Olivier Gendebien, just seemed to confirm the unpalatable situation confronting them.
To be chewing his lip, worrying, bothered, to have a lightningstorm of thoughts and doubts blitzing through his mind, was nothing unusual for America’s Santa Monica-based World Champion. In stark contrast, his urbane, sophisticated, always elegant Belgian team-mate was usually a languid oasis of calm, of assuredly patrician confidence within the Ferrari pits and garages around the racing world.
But that day in Sebring the Ferrari team’s forthright and officious new racing director, Eugenio Dragoni, had just confirmed Mr Ferrari’s required driver assignments for the coming weekend’s punishing 12-Hour endurance race.
Consider the background: Phil had first won this American qualifying round of the Sports Car World Championship back in 1958, co-driving a works Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa with his English teammate – and firm friend – Peter Collins. In 1959 he had promptly won Sebring for the second time, sharing an updated works Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa /59 with Gendebien, backed-up by fellow Americans Dan Gurney and Chuck Daigh.
Any hopes that Phil might then have entertained for a threein-a-row hat trick of Sebring victories just evaporated in 1960, when 12-Hour race promoter Alec Ulmann signed an exclusive fuel supply contract for the race with the American oil company Amoco. Since Ferrari had a long-standing exclusive fuel supply agreement with Shell Oil, and Porsche one with British Petroleum (BP), neither of these great European works teams entered that 1960 12-Hour race. Instead the
Opposite March 24, 1962 – Sebring 12-Hours, Hendricks Field, Florida. The beginning of the GTO story, with the white-striped metallic blue Ferrari ‘3387GT’ in the centre of this atmospheric panorama. The cars had lined up in order of engine size, allowing the 5-litre Chevrolet Corvettes to lead briefly off the startline, but Phil Hill/
marques were to be represented by independent entries. Porsche used the device of ‘leasing’ two current cars to works driver Joakim Bonnier for him to make race entries in their place.
Olivier Gendebien in the Ferrari would go on to dominate the GT category, finishing 2nd overall and launching the GTO legend.
Right above America’s reigning World Champion Driver Phil Hill – of Ferrari – was honoured on the 1962 Sebring 12-Hours programme cover.
Phil Hill was particularly dismayed to learn that Mr Ferrari had not made any such arrangements for the 1960 Sebring race, and would also take a dim view of his leading drivers accepting alternative rides there. Earnest Phil was a very straight shooter. He had ignored The Old Man’s instructions in the past, but he would not do so this time. He would recall: “I went into the winter of 1959-60 in quite an unsettled state of mind. I’d just completed my first full season as a Formula 1 driver, and hadn’t – by my own judgement – done well. Our Ferrari team had been outclassed by the new rear-engined cars, and even our sports car programme had failed. For the first time since Mercedes-Benz in 1955, another make [Aston Martin] had beaten us to the Sports Car World Championship, and had also won Le Mans. That had really upset
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« The backbone ‘250’ series of 3-litre V12engined cars proceeded, with the developed 250 Mille Miglia model launched in chassis form at the 1952 Paris Salon.
The Ferrari 250S Berlinetta prototype actually won the 1952 Mille Miglia driven by Giovanni Bracco – famously fortified during the 1,000 miles by his bottle of brandy – and he followed that success by winning the Pescara 12-Hours before dominating much of that year’s Mexican Carrera Panamericana road race – in each case driving a Ferrari 250S.
This backbone ‘250’ series of 3-litre V12-engined cars proceeded, with the developed 250 Mille Miglia model launched in chassis form at the 1952 Paris Salon. The new model’s V12 engine, with single overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, drove via a 4speed manual gearbox mounted in unit on the rear of the engine. The basis used was the short-block ‘Colombo’-series design, with roller cam followers and individual 12-port induction. Breathing through three four-choke Weber downdraught carburet-tors mounted within the valley of the engine vee, these units in 250MM tune developed some 240bhp at 7200rpm. Just over 30 Ferrari 250MMs were produced, including Pinin Farina-styled Berlinettas, Vignalestyled Spiders and a single coupé.
The 1953 Paris Salon then saw a pair of new Gran Turismo Ferraris launched – both sharing a 2800mm wheelbase chassis and the latest ‘Lampredi’-series ‘long-block’ V12 engine. One variant was displayed with 3-litre engine as the Ferrari 250 Europa, the other with big 4.5-litre power unit as the Ferrari 375 America. A 250GT Europa – also described as a ‘Series II’ Europa – followed at the Paris Salon of 1954, the Lampredi long-block engine of the previous year’s ‘Series I’ having been replaced by a version of the Colombo-designed ‘short-block’ unit. It was offered in a detuned ‘Tipo 112’ specification compared with the engines of the parallel 250MM sports-racing cars, while a new design Tipo 508 chassis – with its wheelbase reduced to 2600mm from its predecessor’s 2800 – was also adopted.
That chassis frame’s main longeron members on each side passed above the rear axle, while Ferrari’s formerly traditional transverse leaf-spring front suspension was replaced by a much more modern fully independent system with coil springs and doublewishbone location. The Colombo-derived engine was usefully shorter than the Lampredi design, so permitting cockpit space to be maintained despite the shortened wheelbase.
Opposite above May 11, 1947 –Circuito di Piacenza. Franco Comotti corners the brand-new Ferrari 125S prototype on the new marque’s racing debut. After leading, the car suffered a fuel pump failure and Comotti retired just three laps from the finish. Two weeks later Cortese and the new Ferrari would win the Rome Grand Prix, initiating the marque’s Albo d’Oro, ‘golden book’.
Opposite below Giovanni Bracco’s Ferrari 250S Vignale Berlinetta takes the chequered flag at the end of the 1952 Mille Miglia, mechanic passenger
Rolfo beaming with delight at the marque’s fifth consecutive win in the world’s greatest road race – and the first with a 3-litre V12-engined Berlinetta
Above The 3-litre V12-engined family of Ferrari 250GT Berlinetta designs grew through the mid- and later 1950s, its nominally Pinin Farina body styles –heavily influenced by both factory and later Scaglietti input – evolving each year. This is the late-1957 ‘three louvre’ Tour de France Berlinetta, which was perhaps one of the most dramatic.
All but one of the 250GT Europa cars produced up to 1956 would wear handsome Pinin Farina closed-cockpit bodywork, the Torinese coachbuilder having entered into a fruitful partnership with Mr Ferrari to manufacture ‘production’ Ferraris, while Maranello would eventually handle The Old Man’s beloved racing variants in-house. In reality, Ferrari only ever saw production of road cars for customer sale as being a straightforward means of funding his core racing ambition – for him a raging fire, utterly unquenchable …
In 1955 a line of Ferrari 250GT Coupé or Berlinetta cars was launched by former Pinin Farina employee Mario Boano’s new carrozzeria, compensating for a break in Pinin Farina production created by their need to build and commission new factory space. Boano would
Below February 24, 1962 – Ferrari Press Conference, Maranello. Part of the team line-up for the journalists’ and photographers’ benefit, with the ‘Sharknose’ Formula 1 and works’ sports-prototypes lined up ready for the new season. The prototype GTO was parked just behind them.
Right Ing. Carlo Chiti making a typically emphatic point to an apparently sceptical Mr Ferrari, in the pit lane, during practice for the 1961 Italian Grand Prix.
So it would prove, but not before plenty had gone seriously wrong at Maranello, where the winter months of 1961-62 had been riven by a near palace revolution and almost literally by blood up the wall, and bodies in the cellar …
As if the death of poor Von Trips accompanied by so many innocent tifosi at Monza had not been a sufficiently brutal blow, Mr Ferrari found himself being issued with an ultimatum by a group of his senior engineering and administrative staff.
For many months they had all suffered from the increasingly unpredictable and troublesome attention of Mr Ferrari’s powerful wife, Signora Laura. Now they banded together in mutual agreement to tell their employer, frankly, that either they should be given absolutely clear guidelines as to whose orders they should obey – and that ‘The Lady’ should be encouraged to leave them alone – or they would resign en masse. They miscalculated badly.
Mr Ferrari had always fostered strength in depth. He viewed engineers, drivers and administrators alike as being equipped with bayonet-fittings – if one failed, unscrew and discard it, and replace instantly with a spare. He was not a man who would accept a threat from anyone and, more importantly perhaps, nor was he about to take his employees’ side against his formidable wife – he suffered quite sufficient earache from her as it was …
Having received the deputation in tense silence, he promptly dismissed them all. Chief engineer Chiti, team manager Romolo Tavoni and commercial manager Girolamo Gardini headed the group ejected from the Maranello factory gates, followed by development and test engineer Bizzarrini, his GTO development programme having been completed and its design pretty much finalised in parallel by his colleagues.
Right Star of Ferrari’s 1962 Press Conference was for many the first Ferrari 250GTO ‘3223GT’, displayed in its near definitive form though devoid, at that time, of a lateral tail spoiler. It was – and remains – a breathtaking beauty.
Opposite centre Mr Ferrari’s wife Signora Laura accompanied the works team to several GPs during the 1961 season, and her presence and often outspoken commands had not been appreciated by many, including team manager Romolo Tavoni – here studiously concentrating on his paperwork (right). It would all end in tears …
Chiti’s place as chief engineer of the racing department was handed instead to young lion Mauro Forghieri. He was intense, bespectacled, dynamic, ambitious and energetic. He was also well qualified in aeronautical engineering and, under his direction, the 250GTO would be developed through its racing career.
After this bloodletting at Maranello, the new team was introduced to the assembled media during the 1962 Press Conference. But as the 1962 racing season was poised on its starting blocks, so Mr Ferrari had had to address yet another new problem. In the new GTO his company was offering for sale a Gran Turismo car of inflated performance potential. He was aware such performance could surely only be unleashed safely in the hands of well-qualified and talented drivers. Here was a car that might only be manageable by a select few. Only the finest professional racing drivers could be considered absolutely safe with such potential under the control of their hands and feet, and yet numerous private owner-drivers were clamouring for
the new car – amateur sportsmen who in several cases were regarded as possessing far more money than sense – “… with more ambition than driving talent”
In the febrile internal Italian atmosphere of vilification and criticism following the Monza tragedy, the last thing Mr Ferrari needed was another disaster, perhaps caused by an irresponsible and underqualified driver being let loose in the new GTO. So initially he decided that the early 250GTOs were to be campaigned only as factory team entries, to be driven by the professional works team drivers. But here he was torn, because he saw no advantage in dominating the new GT Championship with professional star drivers – instead it was vital that the most talented private owners should be shown to be capable of achieving great success by buying their cars from Maranello. Consequently, it was made plain that the house of Ferrari would carefully vet would-be private customers before accepting any application to buy the new model.
tight street circuit or on the public road and in rallying. Each ‘D’ intake could be closed off by an alloy panel secured by push-andtwist fasteners. On some GTOs there were rectangular slots opened into the nose-edge on either side of the central elliptical radiator air intake, accommodating inserted Marchal fog lights. Circular and occasionally oval apertures sited outboard of these lamp mounts then accommodated indicator lights or, in race trim, provided brake cooling intakes, which could also assist in controlling damper temperatures when in action on really bumpy surfaces. Every centimetre of the new model’s design and specification reflected Ferrari’s hard-won years of experience – a large proportion of which had been fed back from the 250GT-line’s many private customers to the factory via the Assistenza Clienti department.
On top of the nose just ahead of the opening engine cover panel – the hood or bonnet – was another small Dzus-fastened
Left Ferrari 250GTO ‘3387GT’ completed as a painted body/ chassis unit at Scaglietti, ready for final engine installation, completion and preparation at Maranello. This is the car which made the model’s racing debut in the 1962 Sebring 12-Hours, co-driven by Phil Hill and Olivier Gendebien to finish a resounding 2nd overall.
Opposite Masterly British cutaway artist Tony Matthews’ depiction of ‘Series 1’ Ferrari 250GTO ‘3757GT’ – the Ecurie Francorchamps 3rdplaced car both at Le Mans and in the Tour de France, 1962. British enthusiast – and Pink Floyd drummer – Nick Mason bought the car in 1978 and has preserved it into the 2020s …
Opposite below This evocative 250GTO display piece demonstrates the Modenese coachbuilder’s favoured filoni or filoun framework of welded wire rods used to define the required form against which freshly beaten or hammered aluminium panels would be finalised.
hatch, which hinged open to access the radiator filler cap. Near the trailing edge of the engine cover panel were two small plastic scoops deflecting airflow down into ducts providing cabin ventilation and cooling. Early GTO bodies as delivered from Scaglietti featured two raked air-exit ducts on each side between the front wheel-arch and the leading edge of the doors. Competition experience then persuaded several owners to have an additional third slot opened alongside these two, often during repair after earlier accident damage. In later versions these were cut in from new. There was also a classic large ‘D’-shaped air-exit duct opened abaft each rear wheel-arch, in this case relieving high-pressure airflow accumulation from within the bodywork there.
Laminated glass was used in the steeply raked, wraparound windscreen, while the door windows on each side were just
sliding Perspex panels. Tail treatments then differed in detail. The first prototype, ‘3223GT’, when featured at the February 1962 Ferrari Press Conference lacked a tail-top spoiler of any kind. But one was speedily added, initially in separate riveted-on form as an afterthought. These spoilers later grew in proportion, first to full-width dimension and then, late in 1962, becoming supplanted by an integral spoiler that was fashioned into the tail body panelling from new.
On March 10, 1962, the second GTO – chassis serial ‘3387GT’ – was test driven by works drivers Willy Mairesse, Giancarlo Baghetti and new recruit Lorenzo Bandini. They reported – rather disappointingly – that in high-speed curves the GTO was “disturbingly unstable”. This added to Mr Ferrari’s political concerns about selling this potent new Gran Turismo to just anyone who called at his door, but it was a concern that was speedily addressed – both technically, and politically.
Above May 1962 – Targa Florio. Two of the new Ferrari 250GTOs made their public debut here in Sicily, the first-off ‘3223GT’ – seen here upon delivery pre-event – being used as the works team’s reconnaissance and training muletto, while the first customer car, ‘3451GT’, actually ran in the race itself, bearing number ‘86’ and entered under the Scuderia San Giusto banner for Giorgio Scarlatti and Pietro Ferraro. This ‘pro-am’ duo exceeded all expectations by finishing 4th overall and comfortably winning the GT category.
Right Studio study of perhaps the longest and hardest-raced Ferrari 250GTO of them all (‘3851GT’), signedoff in September 1962 to French Olympic skier Henri Oreiller in partnership with Jo Schlesser, and 2nd in that year’s Tour de France Automobile. Twice heavily crashed, the car was hillclimbed extensively by Sandro Colombo and Ernesto Prinoth 196364, before being acquired by hyperactive collector and racer Fabrizio Violati of the Ferrarelle-brand mineral water family, who owned it for the next 45 years..
… an older technician working with us was Edmondo Casoli. He had trained as an aerodynamicist and had come to us from Reggiane, the aircraft company. His work was so precise we called him ‘Millimetro’ – such was his eye – and he was great for modelling too.
Mauro Forghieri
Chinetti and Ferrari went way back, having first met as hopeful new recruits at Alfa Romeo in 1918-19, then having worked for the racing team together into the mid-1920s.
North American Racing Team – USA
Luigi Chinetti was a most remarkable man. Born in 1901 in Jerago con Orago, near Milan, his father Giuseppe had been a master gunsmith, so Luigi’s interest in things mechanical was almost an inevitability. At 18 he joined the emergent Italian Air Force as an engine technician, before becoming an Alfa Romeo factory machinist, fitter and racing mechanic. After the French Grand Prix of 1925, in which team leader Antonio Ascari had crashed fatally in his works-entered Alfa Romeo P2, Chinetti stayed on in France and settled in Paris. By that time Benito Mussolini’s Fascist regime had been in power in Italy for two years, and was tightening its grip on all aspects of national life. Chinetti’s personal politics were anti-Fascist – and he saw life in Paris as infinitely more
Left Wealthy Paris-born motoring enthusiast Lucy O’Reilly would become a prominent figure in 1930s motor sport, together with her Geneva-born husband Selim Laurence ‘Laurie’ Schell.
Below Luigi Chinetti on the way to winning the great Grand Prix d’Endurance for the second time at Le Mans in 1934, this time sharing his privately entered Alfa Romeo 8C-2300 (‘2311249’) with Philippe ‘Phi-Phi’ Etancelin.
congenial than a return to authoritarian Italy. So he settled there and opened a small garage business specialising in work on Alfa Romeos and other high-end automobiles.
He then began racing Alfa Romeos and would go on to co-drive the Le Mans 24-Hour race-winning Alfas of 1932 and 1934, and would be only narrowly beaten into second place there in 1933. That was still a superb result when the driver who beat him in the closing stages was none other than Tazio Nuvolari, regarded then and since, no less, as a motor racing god.
Chinetti later got to know enthusiast/driver Laurie Schell who, with his American-born wife Lucy O’Reilly Schell, ran their Ecurie Bleue racing team using Delahaye cars in the late 1930s.
After her husband was killed in a road accident in 1939, Lucy O’Reilly Schell wanted to continue the family racing operation in his memory. The outbreak of the Second World War in September 1939 ended racing in France, and she looked instead towards entering the May 1940 Indianapolis ‘500’ in America.
Luigi Chinetti was one who talked her out of funding Delahaye development of a V12 car for that race, and helped introduce her instead to Maserati. She bought two 3-litre supercharged straight-8 engined Maserati 8CTFs, engaged French drivers René Dreyfus and René Le Bègue to campaign them, and sailed to New York, and Indianapolis beyond, at the start of May 1940 … with Luigi Chinetti as a team engineer.
On May 10, 1940, German forces invaded France. Mussolini had aligned Italy with Hitler’s Germany under the Axis pact, and if Chinetti had then returned to France he would have
Above The North American Racing Team badge in its original form.
Above June 25, 1949 – Le Mans 24Hours. Luigi Chinetti talks to co-driver
but thanks to his experience and stamina, they would win on this, the event’s post-war revival. It also marked Luigi’s third victory at Le Mans … and Ferrari’s first.
been treated as an enemy alien. He had no wish to return to Italy, so he settled in the USA, initially working for a Pratt & Whitney aero engine subcontractor and then for J.S. Inskip, the New York Rolls-Royce agency. There he worked alongside another Italian émigré mechanic who would become immensely prominent within the post-war American racing world, Alfred Momo – future engineering advisor to Briggs S. Cunningham.
Early in his American sojourn, Chinetti met and married his wife Marion, with whom he had a son, Luigi Jr, born in 1942. Immediately post-war, in 1946, he revisited Europe and considered restarting his Paris business. He also visited Enzo Ferrari in Modena, Italy. He and Ferrari went way back, having first met as hopeful new recruits at Alfa Romeo in 1918-19, then having worked for the racing
team together into the mid-1920s. Their paths had continued to cross during the Scuderia Ferrari days of the 1930s, and now their relationship was renewed.
Ferrari told Chinetti of his plans to become a substantial postwar manufacturer of advanced racing, sports and high-performance cars. His emphasis was on racing, but Chinetti urged him to produce sports cars that he could help sell to a wealthy new market then emerging, not only in war-shattered Europe, but also within the barely damaged and now burgeoning American economy.
While working towards that end, Chinetti resumed racing in Europe. He had found an English buyer-cum-backer in Peter MitchellThomson, the second Baron Selsdon, whose father William – made the first Baron in 1932 – had been a British Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for Croydon in south London. One of the first Baron’s claims to lasting fame was that, starting in May 1934, he chaired a Government committee which explored the establishment of a public television service, subsequently entrusting it to the British
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Lord Selsdon beside their Ferrari 166 Barchetta – Lord Selsdon was, in fact, unwell for most of the race, leaving Chinetti to drive long consecutive stints,
Opposite August 24, 1963 – RAC Tourist Trophy, Goodwood. Perhaps the Ferrari 250GTO’s most emphatic victory was scored here by reigning Formula 1 World Champion Driver Graham Hill, in the Maranello Concessionaires-entered example, ‘4399GT’. This car would be rebuilt to become the British team’s 250GTO/64.
Below August 29, 1964 – RAC Tourist Trophy, Goodwood. Graham Hill scored his second consecutive Ferrari victory in the TT, this time in Colonel Hoare’s Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330P ‘0818’. Two months earlier, Graham and Jo Bonnier had co-driven this 4-litre V12 home 2nd at Le Mans.
The combined Equipe Endeavour/Maranello Concessionaires team’s Ferrari 250GT (chassis ‘2119GT’) was the ex-Rob Walker/ Dick Wilkins car in which Stirling Moss had won the 1960 RAC TT at Goodwood. It made its debut as an Equipe Endeavour entry at Snetterton, Norfolk, on March 25, 1961, in the Lombank Trophy Intercontinental Formula meeting. That Endeavour’s organisation was not yet fully au point was demonstrated in the saloon car race, as Parkes and Sears led 1-2 in their Jaguars only to run out of fuel –enough had been loaded for 12 laps, but this was a 15-lap race. The 12-lapper that day was actually the GT event, in which Parkes had no such problems in the Maranello-supplied dark-blue and white Endeavour-liveried 250GT.
However, the sometimes partner, sometimes rival, Sopwith and Colonel Hoare Ferraris went on to make a considerable impression in British GT events and, by 1964, the Colonel’s Maranello Concessionaires company was safely established as a successful importer to a rapidly growing British Ferrari market. Excluding competition cars, the company’s sales record showed eight vehicles supplied in 1960, rising to 14 in their first season of racing during 1961, 18 in 1962, and 24 in 1963, while the 1964 total made a dramatic and explosive leap forward to no fewer than 51.
In that very first year of 1960 the Colonel’s ‘wildly optimistic’ estimate of selling four cars had been doubled – and more so if the competition cars were taken into account. The United Kingdom was to become Ferrari’s third-largest export market and Mr Ferrari responded in kind – as the Colonel recalled: “The four concessionaires who raced Ferraris regularly … were all offered roughly equal terms – the loan of a sister car to those used by the works to be maintained and prepared by the factory on a fixed tariff irrespective of how little or how much work had to be done, and we each had an option to purchase at the end of the season.
“Although the cars were prepared by Ferrari, they were in the care of Gaetano Florini’s Clienti Assistenza rather than the works racing ’shop. That did not make very much difference and their preparation was almost invariably absolutely first-class.”
The Colonel’s first choice as his team’s leading driver would be 1962 Formula 1 World Champion Graham Hill – of BRM – and in August 1963, he would win the most important British endurance race of the period, the RAC Tourist Trophy at Goodwood, driving the Maranello Concessionaires team’s Ferrari 250GTO ‘4399’. That car – delivered new for the 1963 racing season on May 29, 1963 – had already won at Whit Monday Goodwood and in the Martini Trophy at Silverstone, driven by Michael Parkes; it had placed second and then fifth at Mallory Park and Silverstone respectively in the hands of Jack Sears; and had retired from the Guards Trophy at Brands Hatch when first driven by Graham Hill. But Graham then won the all-important Tourist Trophy with it, while back in Parkes’ hands this historic Ferrari was narrowly beaten into second place in the Coppa Intereuropa at Monza. It then placed second again in the ‘Autosport’ 3-Hours at Snetterton.
It was after that September 28 day-into-night race at Snetterton that the Colonel consigned the car to Ferrari, and to Carrozzeria Scaglietti, for its conversion into GTO/64-bodied form for the coming season of 1964 …
Left June 19, 1964 – preparation for the Le Mans 24-Hours. Graham Hill sits in a typically thoughtful pose in the Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330P (‘0818’), which he will co-drive in the coming weekend’s 24-hour race with his Swedish friend Jo Bonnier. They will finish 2nd overall. The decor
in the British team’s rented workshop at a local Le Mans garage speaks volumes about the period.
Only the leading car of each individual make within each individual GT Championship capacity category would score points towards the Championship. Yet the FIA’s ‘weighted’ system meant that the overall winner of the Daytona 2000Kms scored 9 points to be multiplied by that race’s official coefficient of 1.3, which totals 11.7 points towards the World title. And so would the 2-litre class winner.
Despite the Daytona winner completing that race’s prescribed distance in 12 hours 40 minutes, the winner of the later-in-the-year Reims 12Hours would have his 9 points multiplied by the coefficient of 1.0 – so 9 points only. Similarly, the winner of the Paris 1000Kms would have his 9 points multiplied by 1.6 – thus earning 14.4 points by winning a race widely considered to be less prestigious and gruelling than the Reims event. Le Mans, of course, stood alone with the winner scoring 9 points x coefficient 2.0 – 18 points in that one big hit. Organising club politics and ‘pull’ within the FIA’s corridors of power really seemed to have influenced the coefficient factors applied to each race – the higher the coefficient applied, the greater the event’s attraction for entrants.
To finish among the top three in the Challenge Mondial de Vitesse et d’Endurance general classification was to be rewarded by the prize fund of 35,000 French Francs, to be divided FF20,000 for the winner, FF10,000 for second place and FF5,000 for third. In 1964 the conversion rate from French Francs to one US Dollar was 4.9. So winning the Challenge Mondial paid barely US$4,080 – at that time only £1,140 sterling – or by 2020 values US$33,744, or GB£22,114
For a major manufacturer such reward alone was hardly worth the trouble. Of far greater value to all interested constructors was the publicity and sales promotion promised by such racing success.
After the January 1964 Ferrari Press Conference, five weeks passed before that year’s FIA GT World Championship series commenced, at Daytona, Florida. The stage was set …
The NART entry at Sebring for Piper/Gammino/Rodríguez survived to finish seventh overall and winner of the 3-litre GT category, even though they had completed only 201 laps during the 12-Hours compared with the outright-winning Parkes/Maglioli Ferrari 275P sports-prototype’s 214. More to the point, the overall GT and 5-litre category-winning Cobra co-driven by Bob Holbert/Dave MacDonald placed fourth overall behind the sports-prototype Ferrari 1-2-3 triplets. It had also completed 209 laps, eight more than the GTO/64 – a distance advantage of over 41 miles (66kms).
David Piper recalled: “I always enjoyed driving for Chinetti and his NART team. Nice people. I know it became fashionable to say they were disorganised and not the most efficient team around, but Luigi always got good cars from the factory, he had all the right
contacts and support, and I seldom had a problem with their GTO for example. As far as I was concerned there wasn’t any great difference between the early-type GTO and the GTO/64. It might perhaps have had a tiny bit more slippery shape at really high speed, but as a driver one didn’t really identify that. The GTOs all just steered beautifully, were well balanced and more or less bullet-proof on reliability. The really big step change in Ferrari GT design was really between the 250GT Short-Wheelbase and the GTO; the five-speed gearbox also made a huge difference in using everything that glorious V12 engine could offer. But when we came up against the V8 Cobras, and particularly the Daytona Coupe, on fast open circuits the 3-litre Ferrari was vulnerable – still powerful, but no longer quite powerful enough.”
Opposite March 20, 1964 – Sebring 12-Hours. The Floridian Round 2 of the GT World Championship offered more than a fight only between Ferrari and Shelby American Cobra – GM also had a say by proxy with the privately entered Chevrolet Corvette Sting Ray Grand Sports. This is the Roger Penske/Jim Hall car entered by McKean Chevrolet, which finally disappointed by finishing only 18th, and 4th in the sparse over 4-litre Prototype class.
Above All dressed up and ready to run.
NART’s 250GTO/64 for David Piper/ Mike Gammino wore this white tail-transom stripe in addition to the lateral white band across its hood and fenders up front. Pedro Rodríguez would join the original pairing later in the race.
Below right Bob Holbert in the Sebring pit lane with the Cobra Daytona Coupe that he co-drove with Dave MacDonald to finish 4th.
Shelby American and its Ford backers had certainly struck back after Daytona to hit Ferrari where it hurt most – by inflicting this GT World Championship-round defeat on American home soil … where for years Ferrari racing and GT cars had been the marque of choice to fulfil a vibrant, and immensely money-rich, market. And so, outside the sports-prototype category overall, and within the Grand Touring category, where – for Ferrari – had it all gone wrong?
While the Italian factory team’s fleet of three open-cockpit rear-engined sports-prototypes had dominated the 12-Hours overall to finish first, second and third, Shelby Cobras had actually filled the next three top spots – the Daytona Coupe finishing fourth and two open Roadsters 5-6 – so the new American marque took not only the GT category overall but also achieved its own 1-2-3 finish in the 5-litre GT class. Attentive enthusiasts throughout the ballooning American sports car market paid rapt and happy attention …
What’s more, it was not just Ford Detroit who confronted Ferrari at Sebring. General Motors was also represented there. What
was then described as “the mightiest industrial combine on earth” had in June 1957 enacted the Automobile Manufacturers’ Association ban on racing involvement, to calm what some had seen as an uncontrolled horsepower war. The ban sought in part to “… encourage owners and drivers to evaluate passenger cars in terms of useful power and ability to provide safe, reliable and comfortable transportation, rather than in terms of capacity for speed”.
One immediate effect had been GM’s Chevrolet Division decision to abandon its Corvette SS competition programme. While GM officially respected the AMA racing ban, dozens of enthusiastic American privateers continued to compete in assorted Corvettes, dominating the SCCA A- and B-Production classes. Then, in 1963, Bill Mitchell’s striking new Corvette Sting Ray production model “opened a new era in Corvette history ”.
However, when retired frontline racing driver Carroll Shelby – co-driver of the 1959 Le Mans-winning Aston Martin DBR1 – had approached GM with his idea of fitting a big-bore American V8 engine into a good-handling and relatively lightweight European sports car chassis, his idea had been summarily rejected. But while GM continued to say ‘No’ through 1962-63, the Ford Motor Company said ‘Yes please’. Shelby’s marriage of the initially 4.2-litre Ford V8 engine and the British AC Ace sports car chassis – with its now so-familiar body
vs FORD – The 1964 Targa Timings
GTO/64 – No 114
C.Ferlaino/L. Taramazzo
Start – 08.19 + 30s
44m 22.0s
43m 55.1s
43m 38.4s
46m 15.3s
44m 54.0s
44m 40.1s
46m 23.1s
44m 39.0s
44m 58.4s
44m 38.1s
7h 28m 25s overall
5th overall 1st in class 3-litre GT category
GTO/64 No 118
G.Facetti/J. Guichet
Start – 08.20
42m 34.1s
41m 51.4s
41m 36.0s
44m 53.2s
42m 57.3s
DNF – retired on lap 6
3h 33m 53s to end of lap 5
Shelby Cobra No 144
P.Hill/B. Bondurant
Start – 08.23
42m 35.0s
42m 41.0s
42m 37.3s
46m 25.3s
42m 28.2s
47m 17.3s
62m 52.0s
56m 12.0s
DNF – retired on lap 9
6h 23m 10s to end of lap 8
Shelby Cobra No 146
D.Gurney/J. Grant
Start – 08.23 + 30
42m 23.0s
42m 16.0s
42m 36.4s
46m 35.1s
44m 00.8s
44m 11.0s
44m 21.4s
56m 55.2s
51m 20.3s
7h 38 05s overall
8th overall 1st in class over 3-litre category
Left The tail-on aspect of the ‘longroof’ Ferrari 250GTO/64 (‘4675GT’) as shared in Sicily by works driver Jean Guichet and Scuderia Sant’ Ambroeus’s own Carlo Facetti. Geoff Goddard’s camera captured them here on the climb away from Cerda towards Caltavuturo in the high Madonie mountains.
Opposite Screaming past the enthusiastic and knowledgeable Sicilian tifosi, the Ferlaino/Taramazzo 250GTO/64 ‘3413GT’ heads towards fifth place overall and GT category victory.
Shelby Cobra No 148
I.Ireland/M. Gregory
Start – 08.24
45m 16.0s
45m 18.4s
53m 41.3s
45m 18.3s
47m 20.1s
44m 03.4s
Shelby Cobra No 150
V.Arena/V. Coco
Start – 08.24 + 30s
44m 19.0s
42m 53.2s
42m 09.0s 47m 50.4s 44m 55.4s 44m 16.3s 47m 31.2s
DNF – retired on lap 7
4h 40m 59s to end of lap 6
Shelby Cobra No 152
Z.Tchkotoua/T. Hitchcock
Start – 08.25
DNF – retired on lap 8 5h 13m 56s to end of lap 7
DNF – retired on lap 8 7h 07m 36.4s to end of lap 7
Below Targa timings, April 26, 1964 –the true record of Ferrari versus Cobra
FERRARI
Despite the failure of the preferred Guichet/Facetti car, back home in Modena Mr Ferrari would have been well satisfied with this defeat of the Cobra Ford challenge. His faith in his Direttore Sportivo Dragoni’s former Scuderia Sant’Ambroeus team had paid off.
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The necessary paperwork – forms, forms and yet more forms – detailing the entry details of three of the four Ferrari 250GTO/64s entered for the 1964 Le Mans 24-Hour race. The ‘Demande de Participation’ is the initial entry form, while the ‘Verification de Cylindrée’ is the engine capacity verification usually carried out by the entrant’s national scrutineers at the preparation factory or workshop. Here we see the vital paperwork for the Equipe Nationale Belge’s ‘5575GT’ for Bianchi/‘Beurlys’
(opposite top); the ‘Engagement’ confirmatory document for the Maranello Concessionaires ‘4399GT’ for Ireland/ Maggs – incorrectly registered as an entry by Scuderia Sant’Ambroeus –(opposite); and on this page the necessary ‘Demande de Participation’ and ‘Vérification de Cylindrée’ (above and right) for NART’s ‘5571GT’ – to be driven by Hugus/Rosinski – plus the correctly attributed engine-size certificate for the Maranello Concessionaires Ireland/Maggs car ‘4399GT’ (above right)
October 11, 1964 – V Paris 1000Kms, Montlhéry Autodrome, Île de France, France
129 laps of 7.78kms/4.83 miles – 1,003.62kms/623.07 miles
Repeating their Reims 12-Hour success, Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier won this truly tragic race, though this time in Colonel Hoare’s Maranello Concessionaires-entered open-cockpit Ferrari 330P sports-prototype (‘0818’). The mid-race accident which claimed the lives of drivers Peter Lindner and Franco Patria, and of three luckless French marshals, overshadowed all else. More happily, as Gregor Grant wrote of the winning duo in the following week’s issue of ‘Autosport’ magazine: “Theirs was an exhibition of the real
professional approach to motor racing, with Hill establishing an early lead on a dry track, and Bonnier showing commendable restraint when rainstorms swept the circuit”. He continued, “… professional is also the word for Jackie Stewart, who shared the same stable’s 250LM with Ludovico Scarfiotti, and set up a new Montlhéry lap record of 2 minutes 45.1 seconds (105.48mph), 7.2 seconds under the figures established by Willy Mairesse in 1962”. The mercurial little Belgian driver had, in fact, returned to racing for this event – sharing an Ecurie Francorchamps- entered Ferrari 250LM with ‘Beurlys’ (Jean Blaton) after recovering from injuries sustained in his German Grand Prix accident when driving a works Ferrari the previous year. Grant then
Opposite October 11, 1964 – Paris 1000Kms, Montlhéry. The shapely ‘longroof’ 250GTO/64 (‘4675GT’) – its distinctive blue-and-white centreline stripes the result of Amoco sponsorship – was entered by Scuderia Sant’Ambroeus and shared by Oddone Sigala/Edoardo Lualdi, who finished 12th overall and 4th in the 3-litre GT class.
Right Seen here on the historic Autodrome banking, this flat-8 engined works Porsche 904/8, co-driven by Colin Davis
and Edgar Barth, placed 3rd overall and won the 2-litre prototype class.
Right below Veteran Ferrari entrant Luigi Chinetti prowls the Montlhéry pit apron during a stop for his Ferrari GTO/64 ‘5573GT’. with drivers Pedro Rodríguez/Jo Schlesser going on to win the GT category and finish 2nd overall.
Chinetti had won the Paris 12-Hours here back in 1948, driving his early Ferrari 166 Spider Corsa solo.
added, “runners-up and GT victors were Pedro Rodríguez/Jo Schlesser in a Ferrari GTO, less than a lap ahead of the remarkably rapid flat-8 Porsche of Edgar Barth/Colin Davis …”.
In fact Scarfiotti had crashed the Maranello Concessionaires
250LM during practice and Col. Hoare’s mechanics worked all night to repair the damage in time for the race next day. While Graham Hill had qualified the blue-striped red Ferrari 330P on pole position, with a best practice time of 2m 43.6s, the Nino Vaccarella/Jean Guichet 250LM entered by the Scuderia Filipinetti took second place on the front row of the starting grid, fully 1.9 seconds slower than the sports-prototype.
More Ferrari 250LMs filled the next three grid places, while the Lucien Bianchi/Gérald Langlois van Ophem Equipe Nationale Belge
‘Series 1’ 250GTO (‘4153GT’) set the quickest front-engined Ferrari time during practice, to line up sixth overall. Their time of 2m 52.9s compared to the 2m 53.0s – just a fleeting tenth-of-a-second slower –set by the NART-entered Pedro Rodríguez/Jo Schlesser GTO/64 (‘5573GT’), seventh on the grid.
Luigi Chinetti’s team had shipped ‘5573GT’ – its rear bodywork badly crushed in John Surtees’ violent Goodwood crash –back to the factory where a new set of tail panels were skilfully grafted onto the straightened chassis. At Montlhéry six weeks after the accident, evidence of the repair could be seen in prominent new diagonal body seams that extended from the top rear corner of each door aperture back to the top-rear junction of the quarter (or sail) panel and roof.
The Equipe Nationale Belge GTO/64 (‘5575GT’) – fresh from its Tour de France success in the tender hands of Annie Soisbault/ Nicole Roure – was entrusted to Gustave ‘Taf’ Gosselin and Claude Dubois. They qualified 14th, with a best-timed lap of 2m 58.3s – 5.3
seconds slower than Rodríguez’s in the NART-entered sister car.
Qualifying 19th overall was the Scuderia Sant’Ambroeus ‘long-roof’ GTO/64 (‘4675GT’), which Italian owner Oddone Sigala was sharing with compatriot and multiple hillclimb Champion Edoardo Lualdi Gabardi.
On a cold, grey and threatening Sunday morning, race secretary Raymond ‘Toto’ Roche led the rolling-start lap in an open Ferrari, flagging the field away promptly at 10.30am. Graham Hill tore away in an immediate lead, pursued by the LM pack of Vaccarella, Müller and Stewart. After a gap came Mairesse and Bianchi, while Pedro Rodríguez wailed ‘5573GT’ past the pits to complete that first
August 30, 1964 – Chamrousse hillclimb, Col de Chamrousse, Rhône-Alpes, France
4.8kms/2.98 miles – rising 336 metres/1,102 feet
Situated barely 10 miles south-east of the major city of Grenoble, the village of Chamrousse had become, each winter, one of France’s major and most accessible ski-resorts. And from 1962, the Col de Chamrousse roadway had become the venue of a French national hillclimb, which was also often used as a timed stage of the Tour de France Automobile.
It had become regular practice for the Tour crew’s codriver/navigator to drive the Chamrousse climb. Thirty-year-old Annie Soisbault had been French cadet and junior category tennis champion seven times, playing in the French Tennis Open in 1953 then 1955-56. Her father Robert would serve as President of the French Tennis Federation. This daring and talented woman had taken to motor sport in 1954, competing mainly in rallies, and she proved so fiercely competitive that, in 1957-58, she became the first female French Rally Champion. Driving a Triumph TR3 she won the Coupe des Dames in the 1957 Tour de France, and won the 1959 Paris-St Raphaël Rallye Féminin. In April 1964, she also won her class in the Dakar 6-Hours endurance race, behind the wheel of a Porsche 904.
Annie Soisbault had married the Marquis Philippe de Montaigu. They would run the Mirabeau Garage business in Paris as an Aston Martin agency, and in later life she would work in luxury real estate. For media consumption her motto was ‘Danger, mon plaisir ’.
Her husband, Philippe de Montaigu, was 19 years older. His Second World War service had seen him awarded the Croix de Guerre, the Médaille de la Résistance, and the Médaille des Evadés (PoW escapees award). He and his wife based themselves in Paris and St Tropez, while his aristocratic family seat was the spectacularly picturesque Château de la Bretesche, at Missillac in Brittany. Early in 1964 the Marquis had become a discreet sponsor of Jacques Swaters’ Francorchamps activities, connected most notably with the team’s ‘Series 1’ Ferrari 250GTO (‘4153GT’). Crewed by Lucien Bianchi and Georges ‘JoJo’ Berger that car would actually win the 1964 Tour de France, while that same majestic event saw Philippe de Montaigu himself co-driving with Claude Dubois in the ‘Series 1’ Ferrari 250GTO ‘3607GT’ – an early example owned and driven by Italian hillclimber ‘Nando’ Pagliarini during 1962, and acquired by the Marquis via Swaters in time for the 1964 Tour. Simultaneously, the Belgian Ferrari concessionaire provided Annie Soisbault – the Marquise de Montaigu – with his ex-works, ex-Equipe Nationale Belge -entered Ferrari 250GTO/64 (‘5575GT’), which she would drive in the Tour with her friend Nicole Roure as ‘navigatrice’. So the Marquis and his feisty wife became a two-GTO couple. Perhaps their sale of the family Château de la Bretesche in 1965 was a consequence …
In any case, the de Montaigus’ GTO/64 ‘5575GT’ was entrusted to Nicole Roure for her to gain experience in the French national Course de Côte de Chamrousse here on 30 August 1964 –a mission she competently accomplished – while FTD in the event overall fell to Alpine-Renault works driver Jean Vinatier in one of the Dieppe company’s Formula 2 single-seaters.
The astonishing challenge of the 3,500-mile Tour de France Automobile itself would get under way just two weeks later, from the Foire Internationale de Lille in northern France.
Opposite The Château de la Bretesche in Brittany, France, family seat of Annie Soisbault’s husbandPhilippe, Marquis
Below Actually photographed during September’s Tour de France Automobile, Nicole Roure (in dark shirt behind the car) acquainted herself with the GTO/64 (‘5575GT’) of codriver Annie Soisbault – seen here leaning into the cabin – by driving solo on the Col de Chamrousse hillclimb.
Annie Soisbault had taken to motor sport in 1954, competing mainly in rallies, and she proved so fiercely competitive that, in 1957-58, she became the first female French Rally Champion.
de Montaigu.
Left Accelerating across the stone bridge into the town of Firenzuola is Corrado Ferlaino in his GTO/64 ‘3413GT’, heading for a third place finish overall behind former GTO owner, Roman jeweller Gianni Bulgari, in his victorious 2-litre Porsche 904, and ‘Kim’s 1.6-litre Alfa Romeo TZ. Firenzuola is regarded as Tuscany’s most war-damaged town, with 98 per cent of its buildings totally destroyed. Here were happier times.
Dragoni, who was by then the Ferrari works team’s Direttore Sportivo, Sigala finally agreed to buy the freshly overhauled Ferrari GTO/64. The haggling had started at 10,000,000 lire and he closed the deal for 9,400,000. Mugello was to prove a daunting stage for his expensive big-car debut.
Saverio Ciattini’s race report in ‘Auto Italiana’ described how the race proved to be a “monologue” by the triumphant Porsche 904GTS owner-driver Gianni Bulgari. Ciattini wrote, “the Roman driver took the lead on the first lap and ended the race in the same position, without any of his direct opponents – Sigala, Nicolosi and then Ferlaino – being able to disturb him in any way. After the initial outburst that allowed him to build a significant advantage over the pursuers, Bulgari was able to slow down the charge so much that the average, which in the first and second laps had been 106km/h, then dropped slightly”.
Above The programme for the 11th Coppa Emilio Materassi, bearing a map of the entire 41-mile road course on its Italian racing-red cover.
In fact, the Roman jeweller tore home to complete the five tremendously challenging laps in 3h 7m 58.3s, having averaged 105.651km/h (65.66mph) for the entire 200 miles. Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ driver ‘Kim’ (Sergio Pedretti) came home in second place, over 17 minutes adrift, but his nimble 1600cc twin-cam Berlinetta had beaten off Ferlaino’s GTO/64, which finished third – the Neapolitan ownerdriver’s time for the full distance being some 7 minutes longer still, at 3h 22m 13.4s.
Unfortunately, Oddone Sigala’s early second place was marred by ignominious retirement in a roadside ditch, after he had collided with Sergio Bettoja’s Mercedes 220SE while trying to lap him.
June 28, 1964 – X Predappio-Rocca delle Caminate, Emilia-Romagna
4.0kms/2.49 miles – rising 230 metres/754 feet
One week after his fellow GTO/64 privateer had been road racing at Mugello, Edoardo Lualdi reappeared in the Italian Trofeo della Montagna hillclimb series at Predappio, near Forli – barely 18 miles from the Adriatic coast near the eastern end of the Emilian plain. Driving his GTO/64 (‘4091GT’) among 97 starters, he emerged triumphant, setting FTD overall with a time of 3m 20.0s at an average speed of just 72.0km/h (44.74mph), which becomes understandable when one considers that 19 hairpin bends were packed into those 2½ miles climbing up to the Rocca delle Caminate castle, Mussolini’s
but in second place was Ernesto Prinoth’s ‘Series 1’ Ferrari 250GTO (‘3851GT’). While the 2-litre Porsche hairpinned to the finish line in 4m 35.4s, at a mere 91.497km/h (56.85mph), Prinoth’s best was 4m 36.3s. Colombo had also won this event the previous year, driving a Ferrari 250GTO. Apart from arguably the Porsche works team, the most exotic and entrancing attraction on the hillclimb scene was provided by the fleet of privately owned and campaigned Ferrari Berlinettas – with the GTO and GTO/64 its flagship models.
September 6, 1964 – Coppa Intereuropa, Monza, Lombardy
1-Hour race on the 5.75km road circuit
As had become customary by 1964, the Formula 1 World Championship-qualifying Italian Grand Prix was preceded by a substantial endurance race programme for Gran Turismo cars – the Coppa Intereuropa. This particular race’s history had started in 1949, when it was won by Bruno Sterzi’s early Ferrari 166S (‘0005S’), while the 1963 edition had seen the then 3-Hour race feature a stupendous battle between Roy Salvadori (English but of Italian extraction) in a very British Aston Martin Project 214, and Michael Parkes (very British indeed) in the very-Italian, but Britishentered, Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 250GTO (‘4399GT’), then still ‘Series 1’-bodied but which would be rebodied as a
Above Home to the IV Trofeo Amoco, the Cividale-Castelmonte hillclimb provided the second outright victory there in successive years for Paolo Colombo – 1963 in his Ferrari 250GTO (‘3851GT’), the ex-Henri Oreiller ‘Series 1’ car, and in ’64 in his replacement Porsche 904GTS. In 1965, Colombo’s GTO was acquired by Fabrizio Violati who owned it until his death in 2010.
Opposite September 6, 1964 –Coppa Intereuropa, Monza. One of the curtain raisers to that Sunday’s Italian Grand Prix, this thin field con-
tested the 1-Hour non-Championship race for over-2-litre GT and Prototype cars – thus accommodating the FIA’s problematic rear-engined Ferrari 250LMs. Looking lonely at the back of the grid is Oddone Sigala’s 250GTO/64 (‘4675GT’), while ahead of him are the four 250LMs of Roy Salvadori, David Piper, Nino Vaccarella and Léon ‘Eldé’ Dernier, and the two ‘Series 1’ GTOs of Ernesto Prinoth and Egidio Nicolosi. Prinoth ended the race inverted in Monza’s trackside shrubbery.
GTO/64 at the end of the season. Salvadori won, defeating Ferrari on home soil, while the ever-enthusiastic Milanese crowd roared in triumph despite Roy’s metallic-green car, many believing him to be a hitherto unknown fellow Italian …
The Coppa Intereuropa of 1964, however, would not witness such pulsating drama. Two races were run that day – the first being an FIA World Championship-qualifying 3-Hour race for 1600 and 2000cc cars, followed by a 1-Hour non-Championship event for over-2-litre GT and Prototype cars – the latter being the rear-engined Ferrari 250LMs, so unloved by the governing body that
As had become customary by 1964, the Formula 1 World Championshipqualifying Italian Grand Prix was preceded by a substantial endurance race programme for Gran Turismo cars – the Coppa Intereuropa.
they remained unhomologated for international GT racing – much to Mr Ferrari’s displeasure – and were instead competing in a fudged Gran Turismo Nazionale class of their own.
Five Porsche 904GTS coupés totally dominated the 3-Hour race overall, finishing 1-2-3-4-5 driven respectively by the Dutch team-mates Rob Slotemaker and Ben Pon (who both completed 96 laps), the Swiss Heinz Schiller, the Italian Paolo Colombo and a little-known Swiss, Hansueli Eugster. His compatriot Silvio Moser completed 92 laps in an Alfa Romeo Giulia TZ to win the concurrent 1600cc class by a margin of 22 kilometres (more than 13 miles) from the sister cars of Antonio Nicodemi and Rinaldo Parmiggiani – the ‘Tee-Zees’ placing 6-7-8 overall.
May 16, 1965 – III Grand Prix de Spa 500Kms, Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium
36 laps of 14.1kms/8.76 miles – 507.6kms/315.36 miles
This high-speed Belgian classic, slotting into the calendar between the Targa Florio and the ADAC 1000Kms, at the Nürburgring, formed Round 8 of the year’s FIA World Championship endurancerace series, and it would see an enormously popular home-grown victory for Willy Mairesse in the Ecurie Francorchamps -entered Ferrari 250LM (‘5843’) – his first win since recovering from the serious injuries sustained in his 1963 German GP crash in the second-string works Formula 1 Ferrari 156/63. Michael Parkes had started the 500Kms as pre-race favourite in the Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330P sports-prototype, but he suffered repeated delays due to fuel pump problems and, despite setting fastest race lap, he finished well down the field, ninth overall and two laps behind the Belgian LM.
The race was run in overcast but dry conditions and Mike Salmon in the Dawnay Racing GTO/64 (‘4399GT’) completed the opening lap screaming gloriously past the pits in sixth place, behind Parkes, Sir John Whitmore in Alan Mann’s Cobra Daytona Coupe, Mairesse, Bob Bondurant (in the second Mann-entered Cobra Daytona), Peter Sutcliffe’s ex-Piper Ferrari 250GTO (‘4491’) and then Salmon, sixth, in the Dawnay car. On lap 8 Parkes signalled the Maranello Concessionaires pit crew to warn them he had a problem, and Whitmore’s Cobra Daytona failed to appear, having collided with backmarker Harry Digby’s Cobra roadster just before Stavelot corner.
Whitmore eventually appeared in the pit lane with the Daytona’s right-side nose stoved in, and after some frantic repair work he rejoined but no longer in contention. Bondurant’s V8 engine went on to seven cylinders and began fluffing its way round, well down on power, and the hypercompetitive American headed into the pits to report the problem. A broken pushrod was diagnosed but
Above The race programme for the 1965 Grand Prix de Spa 500Kms.
Opposite May 16, 1965 – Spa 500Kms. Mike Salmon again in Dawnay Racing’s Ferrari 250GTO/64 (‘4399GT’), flicking across the Eau Rouge bridge and about to soar right-handed up the Raidillon hill. The combination would finish 6th overall and 2nd 3-litre GT home after Peter Sutcliffe’s ex-Piper GTO (‘4491GT’).
Above The gloriously high-value starting grid (by 21st-century standards) lines up before the Spa 500Kms, with Michael
Parkes on pole (left) in the faithful Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330P (‘0818’), Sir John Whitmore (21) in the Alan Mann Cobra Daytona Coupe, and race winner Willy Mairesse (2) in the Ecurie Francorchamps Ferrari 250LM (‘5843’). On row 2 are Sutcliffe’s Ferrari 250GTO (‘4491GT’) and Bob Bondurant’s Mann Cobra Daytona, while left on row 3 is the Salmon GTO/64 (‘4399GT’).
there was no quick fix for it, so Bondurant was despatched back into the race to do the best he could “… with only Ferrari power”
At half-distance Parkes had lost the lead to Mairesse, much to the partisan crowd’s intense delight, and by lap 24, after the scheduled refuelling stops, Mairesse led from David Piper’s 250LM, with Salmon’s GTO/64 seventh just behind Bondurant’s stammering Cobra, which itself was being led by Rob Slotemaker’s Porsche 904GTS. But the Porsche had a wheel break up, and Salmon displaced Slotemaker, only
to have one of the GTO/64’s Borrani wire wheels begin to collapse. He had it changed in the pits, and rejoined – before having to change a second Borrani. Just before the finish, Whitmore toured reluctantly into the pits, reporting excessive transmission vibration, which proved to be the engine vibration damper falling apart. It was a major failure and the Cobra Daytona was retired on the spot, before a valuable engine might disintegrate entirely.
And so ‘Wild Willy’ Mairesse brought home the Belgian-yellow Ferrari 250LM to that popular victory, from David Piper’s 250LM second and Ben Pon’s Porsche 904GTS third. Peter Sutcliffe was next up, a delighted fourth and winner of the 2001-3000cc Gran Turismo category in the ‘Series 1’ GTO, from Bob Bondurant’s half-crippled Cobra, with Mike Salmon finally salvaging sixth in the Dawnay GTO/64 – on balance fine performances from both GTOs in the face of the Cobra challenge. Thanks in part to internecine rivalry between Whitmore and Bondurant in their Cobras, they had effectively ruined what should have been a comfortable GT category victory – with the accompanying points – and a satisfying further defeat of Ferrari.
Opposite The sheer sense of proportion demonstrated by Ferrari’s in-house ‘shape man’ Edmondo Casoli for the 250GTO/64 and its rearengined sister, the 250LM, is seldom better demonstrated than in this classic Geoff Goddard photograph, taken below Bivio Polizzi. Here the Ravetto/ Starrabba GTO/64 (‘4091GT’) leads the Toppetti/Grana LM (‘5995’).
Right Clemente Ravetto hammers ‘Pippo’ (‘4091GT’) down the Via Vincenzo Florio in Collesano, under the admiring (and always respectful) eyes of the Carabinieri. Like all good Sicilians they would often urge the red cars on.
Healey 3000 in Sebring trim, its drivers being Paul Hawkins and Timo Mäkinen. They enjoyed the circuit, but as the car was burning up Dunlop rubber at the rate of one set of tyres every two laps, it was obviously going to lose a good deal of time … Fastest was the Filipinetti GTO of Bourillot/de Bourbon in 44m 46s …”.
The Ferrari works team arrived in force with three rear-engined, 3.3-litre V12 275P2 prototypes. On race day to the wild excitement of the huge and partisan crowds spectating all around the long circuit, it was local star Nino Vaccarella who took the chequered flag to score an immensely popular win. He co-drove his works 275P2 (chassis ‘0828’) with Lorenzo Bandini, and they led home four factory-entered Porsches which filled second to fifth places overall. And in 12th place, winning the 3-litre GT category, came ‘Pippo’ – driven well and consistently by Ravetto and Prince Starrabba. While Vaccarella had stopped the clock at 7h 1m 12.2s in winning overall, the Sicilian pair in their GTO/64 completed the full 10 laps in 7h 50m 57.2s. They had covered the full
720kms (447-mile) distance, but it had taken them 49 minutes longer than the works drivers in their sports-prototype.
The Sicilian GTO/64 duo enjoyed duels with any other car they encountered during the long, hot drive around the Madonie mountains, and ‘4091GT’ proved particularly fast along the coastal three-mile-long Buonfornello Straight, its high fifth gear really paying off. When asked if the car’s width made it tricky to place on the often narrow and roughsurfaced course, Clemente Ravetto answered, “… the circumstance provided the advantage of faultlessly keeping the possible pursuer behind …”.
May 9, 1965 – XI Castell’Arquato-Vernasca, Emilia-Romagna 9.775kms/6.07 miles – rising around 260 metres/850 feet
Castell’Arquato is a medieval town folded within the Val d’Arda region of the Piacenza hills, some 20 miles west of Parma. To opera fans it is celebrated as the birthplace of librettist Luigi Illica, who
July 25, 1965 – V Trofeo Amoco, Cesana-Sestriere, Piedmont 10.6kms/6.58 miles – rising 683 metres/2,240 feet
This European Mountain Championship-qualifying event followed two weeks after the Trento-Bondone round so dominated by Ferrari works driver Ludovico Scarfiotti in the 2-litre Dino 206S Berlinetta. But where the Trento-Bondone climb was notoriously twisty, with slow, blind hairpins following one another in remorseless succession, this next climb up to Sestriere flanked the mountains rather than attacking the gradient head on, and so it offered generally faster, more open curves.
Scarfiotti proved equally at home in this changed environment, but his Dino itself was very different from its TrentoBondone form, having been stripped during the intervening period. Its endurance-racing Berlinetta bodywork had been removed and replaced by cut-down, open cockpit panelwork to form a Ferrari Dino 206SP Montagna Spider. This compact and lightweight little 4-cam V6-engined rocket ship was driven beautifully by Scarfiotti – who had previously won the 1962 European Mountain Championship in a works Ferrari 196SP sports-prototype. His winning time of
5m 12.8s slashed no fewer than 20.3 seconds off the late tripleEuropean Mountain Champion Edgar Barth’s previous-year’s hill record for Porsche – poor Eddie having succumbed to cancer on May 21 that year.
At Sestriere the Stuttgart works entry of Gerhard Mitter, in a 2-litre flat-8 Spyder, proved only good enough for second place, while his team-mate Tony Fischaber crashed during his timed run. German veteran Hans Herrmann was third-fastest in the works Abarth.
While such a landmark result – Scarfiotti and his works Dino going on later in the series to demolish Porsche and Abarth hopes and win another European Championship title for Ferrari –the Italian national Campionato della Montagna contest at Sestriere paled into relative insignificance. That hardly bothered Clemente Ravetto, who again won his over 2500cc Gran Turismo class comfortably in his GTO/64 (‘4091GT’) with a time of 6m 18.3s –fully 1m 5.5s slower than Scarfiotti’s lightweight Dino Spider, which had six fewer cylinders and 1-litre less capacity.
But to highlight such disparity is really to compare apples with pears. The GTO/64 was a front-engined horse for a different course, and Ravetto was a gentleman-driver privateer chasing a national title – with little regard for the international scene. Second in class behind Ravetto came Mario Maglione, brother of the better-known driver Antonio, in one of the new 3.3-litre V12 Ferrari 275GTBs … but his time was a full 33.3 seconds slower than Ravetto’s. One must retain a proper sense of proportion.
August 1, 1965 – VI Coppa Agordo-Frassenè, Belluno, Veneto
9.0kms/5.59 miles – rising 473 metres/1,551 feet
The Agordo hillclimb in the Alpine foothills of north-eastern Italy was Edoardo Lualdi’s 11th of that 1965 season, and it yielded his ninth win in the Ferrari 250LM. Otherwise August 1 that year, in the heart of the Dolomites, was not a pleasant day. The lengthy hillclimb course was drenched by rain and clamped down by dense mist in its upper reaches. It was so slippery towards the finish line
Above The simple programme for the Trofeo Amoco hillclimb at Cesana-Sestriere, 1965.
Opposite July 25, 1965 – CesanaSestriere hillclimb. The Ferrari works driver Ludovico Scarfiotti prepares for blast-off on the Cesana startline, before his winning run in the gorgeous little 2-litre V6-engined lightweight Dino 206SP Montagna Spider
Below Same day, same climb. A particularly evocative contre-jour study of Clemente Ravetto on his way to class victory in his ex-Lualdi Ferrari GTO/64 (‘4091GT’).
Far left Dan Gurney test drives ‘5575’ for an article in the April issue of ‘Car and
Left Different times – ‘5575’ offered for sale via a small ad in ‘Road and Track’ magazine, 1965.
Above Rob Walton at the wheel of ‘5575GT’ during the 55th Anniversary GTO Tour from Florence to Maranello in 2017.
Driver’ in 1984.