| |
 |
| |
Case History of the Maserati - Parts III and IV
by Norman Smith - Reprinted from Autosport
The extension of the 1934/36 Grand Prix formula to the end of 1937 had no serious effect at Maserati's HQ, for by the end of the 1936 season they had decided to give the large cars a miss and to turn their attention to 1½ litre racing and the Tipo 6C. This model they raced officially and also sold in large numbers to private owners, three of them actually going to British owners, although they were not raced as a team as was sometimes believed at the time, being owned by different people.
Actually, however, the name Maserati was found in the Grand Prix races of 1937, but all the cars were the old 2.9, 3.3 or 3.7 litre types, and raced by such independents as Soffietti, Biondetti, Hartmann, Mandirola and Pietsch. How ineffective the 1937 Maserati challenge was in the "Classics" may be judged by an ad lib quotation taken from a press preview of the German Grand Prix which read: ". . . there are also a few assorted Maseratis in addition! " Yet in England the Bira-blue, ex-Straight 2.9 and its inscrutable Siamese driver had a fine year, with a win in the Campbell Trophy and two seconds in both the J.C 200 and the Phoenix Park 100, making in the latter race a record lap of 107.28 mph! - a record which it still holds and which, be it noted, is faster than either the present day Silverstone or Goodwood circuits.
For Maserati, however, 1937 proved generally a year of good fortune, the Tipo 6C becoming the No 1 vehicle for any number of scuderia, and there was a terrific revival of interest in this form of organization in 1937, the Scuderia Ambrosiana, the Scuderia Helvetia, the Scuderia Volta and the German "Suddeutsche Retingemeinschaft" (SRG for short! ) being but four organizations who relied on the little fed car with the Trident badge. Naturally many of the better continental independents handled the car, either as private owners or as members of a scuderia, but the best were co-opted into the works team, and that team for 1937 was Trossi, Dreyfus, Tenni and a certain wild man named Bianco whose early season antics annoyed, not only Bira and Chula, but his own countrymen as well.
With 1,500 cc races in abundance from April to October, Maserati victories became a weekly occurrence, despite some defeats from the ERAs, though it was a rare race indeed that saw the British and Italian works cars in direct opposition. The opening round in the R litre class battle (at Turin) fell to an ERA - no less a car than R1A itself! with the works Maserati driven by Dreyfus second, but in the return match at Naples, Trossi's masterly driving turned the tables and the Italian car won, setting off a chain of victories that finally was to total, at a minimum, eight, excluding heat wins and hill-climb classes. The factory drivers took Tripoli (Dreyfus), Florence (Dreyfus), Acerbo (Rocco), and Campione (Rocco again), whilst the independents had the lengthy list of the Targa Florio-but not over the Madonie circuit (Siena), Milan (Siena), San Remo (Varzi), Brno (Villoresi) and the Superba race at Genoa, wnen Marazza won on what was reputed to be the ex-Lurani sports four-cylinder of 1934 vintage. Firsts, seconds and thirds came so frequently in 1937 that they cannot be safely enumerated, although it must be remembered that in reality many of the Italian races were virtually all Maserati affairs. Not all the time, however, for certain E.As and PlaWs old 1927 Talbot raced in that land of sunshine in 1937. |
Towards the end of 1937 Count Trossi used, in the Circuito di Lucca, a newer Maserati than the Tipo 6C, a four-cylinder of presumably 69mm x 100mm, which in retrospect looks an odd thing, for these measurements are identical with the four-cylinder-engined car that de Graffenried, the then young Swiss unknown, used at Donington and Douglas in early 1937, and which was supposedly an older type than the 1936 Tipo 6C! Incidentally, this 69mm x 100mm bore/stroke ratio has always been a popular one chez Maserati, for the 1933-34 2.9 had these dimensions, as did the recordbreaking four-cylinder "saloon" used by Furmanik for his 148 mph F/Kilo on the Florence autostrada. Actually Furmanik's engine was later transferred into a road racing chassis used by Trossi in the 1,500 cc Florence Grand Prix (he was second to Dreyfus), and it is possible that, later still in 1937 at Lucca and the Crystal Palace, the four-cylinder that Trossi drove may have had the ex-Furmanik engine in a modified chassis. At the Palace the Trossi Maserati had reversed quarter elliptic springs which kept the rear end in closer contact with the road than was usual on earlier Maseratis.
The English-owned Tipo 6Cs had a poor season in comparison with the performance of the car when in continental hands, their sum total amounting to two thirds and two seconds, Johnny Wakefield being the pre-eminent man with third at Picardie, and second in the Phoenix Park 100 and in the JCC 200.
Thus 1937 ended with the Maserati as nonentities in the Grands Prix but as stars in the Voiturette class, and as a new Grand Prix formula was due on Ist January, 1938, Bologna decided to make a fresh onslaught upon the highest realms of motor racing - the Grand Prix, with a car specifically designed and built to recapture their old glory.
Maserati's decision to return to the sphere of Formula racing in 1938 aroused much interest and speculation, and hopes of successful participation by a team from Bologna gave the advent of the 1938 Grand Prix season added spice. Bindo and Ernesto, still running the factory and still racing enthusiasts, promised that the GP car, when it appeared, would be good, good enough at least to hold the Germans, and with Trossi, Zehender and, it was said, Achille Varzi as drivers they had quite a powerful line-up on paper. But only two new GP Masers came forth for 1938's first major Grand Prix at Tripoli, being revealed as eight cylinder supercharged jobs of three litres capacity, that have since become known as the Tipo 8CTF, and which in looks were as beautiful a car as had ever come from the Maserati factory. In practice for the Tripoli race they proved to be fast, too, for Varzi and Trossi each equalled the other's time, only four cars - three Mercedes and an Alfa-being faster. Trossi was particularly quick in the race, making the second fastest lap at 135 mph, but it availed him naught as both his and Varzi's car suffered a similar fault in the transmission system which ended their race long before the distance was completed.
As the new 3 litre Maserati was in effect a "scaled up" version of the 1½ litre, its promise on its first outing was partially explainable, the engine being basically two "fours" placed end to end (69 mm x 100 mm bore and stroke once again!) in a chassis very similar to the 1½ litre, with its IFS and quarter elliptic rear springs. The 8CTFs second race was eagerly awaited, and when one of the two entries (Trossi actually) made the fastest lap in practice for the Coppa Ciano, three tenths of a second better than the best Mercedes, hopes were that the sought-after reliability may have been found. But once more in a race the Maseratis failed, although Count Trossi did shake the complacency from the German team by gaining first place in no time at all - but not, alas, for long.
Another try was made at Pescara, and there Luigi Villoresi had his first drive in a Grand Prix, at the wheel of the 8CTF, and, to the surprise of many, he made the fastest lap. That was the day's only Maserati honour in that race, and it was eventually left to Trossi to be the first to coax the 1938 GP Maserati through a Grand Prix. This he did in the Italian GP at Monza, finishing fifth in the race won by Nuvolari in an Auto Union.
One final attempt was made in 1938 to win a Grand Prix with the 8CTF, but as always that year failure was their lot, for Villoresi (a very welcome splash of red amongst the German "Silver Arrows") retired after 18 laps of the Donington circuit in the final 1938 Grand Prix, a retirement that was a great disappointment to two Mancunians present (myself and my brother!) for the Maserati was just coming to grips with the Mercedes and Auto Unions.
Despite the Grand Prix car's unfortunate habit of flattering to deceive, the Maserati marque nonetheless had a great year. The 1,500 cc car in four and six cylinder version, was one of the mainstays of voiturette racing, and the factory operated a works' team in this class, supported as always by vast hordes of privately owned cars in varying forms. By this time many of the smaller Italian races had become the exclusive prerogative of the Maserati, and interest resolved more around drivers' individual skill than inter-marque rivalry, although their wins must not all be shrugged off as worthless or empty.
For example, the Swiss Armand Hug ran a four cylinder which was to amaze the British and gratify the people of his native land, when he broke the stranglehold on the Prix de Berne by winning at 81.88 mph, chased home by another four cylinder Maserati driven by E Bianco, who himself had collected a good, if unexpected, second in the Picardie GP a month or two earlier. Hug went on very quickly after his Berne success to win the GP de la Baule in the same car, and then to follow the new Alfas into third place in the Prix de Milan at Monza on the same day that Trossi got the 8CTF through the full distance of a Grand Prix for the first time. Hug's last 1938 success was a well deserved second place in the Modena street race.
The German Paul Pietsch, too, used a four cylinder Maserati extensively in 1938 and he, as a matter of interest, made three quite outstanding shows with the car, finishing second at Pescara in the 1,500 cc race, winning Heat 1 of the Grand Prix de Berne, and gaining third spot in the Circuito di Lucca in a Maserati 1-2-3-4. Pietsch's four cylinder timed at Pescara and doing "6,200", recorded 137.99 mph over the "Kilometre Lanciato" to Villoresi's 134.67 in the Tipo 6C, the German's speed being some 3 or 4 mph slower than that of the new 158 Alfa which was running in its second race.
For comparative purposes the timed kilometre on the Montesilvano straight at Pescara has been extremely illuminating, revealing unsuspected speed ratios between the cars from one factory in either the same or even different years. Pietsch did, as quoted, 137.99 m.h in 1938, a mere 20 mph gain in four years over the quickest 1½ litre Maserati of 1934 whose speed was 118.4 mph! Villoresi's 6C made a speed of 134 mph, and this, too, was also 20 mph faster than its predecessor of 1936 - which had only done 114 mph! - this 1936 speed of the Tipo 6C being actually slower than the 1934 car. Of course, gear ratios and weather conditions must enter into an assessment of the true value of these speeds, but the bare figures make a pretty framework on which to start theorizing, especially when it is recalled that the single seater 2.9 of 1934, Nuvolari driven, recorded 155.2 mph over the identical straight.
However, to return to 1938 and the 1,500 cc Maserati Tipo 6C, which, though two years old, was used in such abundance by the private owner as well as the factory and the Scuderia and which could, unlike the 8CTF, be relied upon to finish a race well up the field before the Alfa came on the scene. A few of the 6Cs were actually seen in full Grands Prix - under the terms of the 1938/40 formula they were eligible - but, naturally, they were outclassed and it was the 1,500 cc race proper that suited them best and which, in all in 1938, they claimed seven major wins in these "minor" races.
In successive order these were the Tripoli 1,500 cc class (Taruffi - are you surprised, you who saw him at Aintree, and wondered who he was?), Targa Florio (Rocco), Naples (Marazza), Albi (L Villoresi), Acerbo (L Villoresi), Lucca (Villoresi) and Modena (Franco Cortese), and many of these wins could additionally be listed as 1 and 2, or 1-2-3, or even 1-2-3-4! were it not for fear that the boredom of repetition would dull the due appreciation of success. Almost at the end of the season Maserati's most promising youngster, Aldo Marazza - who had graduated from the ex-Lurani sports Maserati to the works team in a year - was killed in the Milan Grand Prix at Monza. With his death, much of the glory of the season's results was badly tainted, for Marazza was highly thought of as a future ace, and he would doubtless have been in the forefront in 1939 when the 16-valve car made its first appearance.
The concentration on GP and 1,500 cc cars in 1938 left no time for sports car racing, and with Furmanik for once failing to make his annual record attempts, these two phases of motor racing fell completely out of the orbit of Maserati activities. However, in England the marque had a few minor successes, Bira's glorious old 2.9, for instance, capturing second place in the Cork Grand Prix (run to the GP formula!) and the 200 Miles race, thus completing a season's racing that marked a definite upgrade in the firm's standing after the serious decline of 1935 and 1936.
To maintain that increasing prestige, the Maserati brothers (Bindo and Ettore) early laid their plans for 1939 and, aided by Italy's decision to limit all her classics to 1½ litres (too many German victories weren't good and cost too many lire!) they devised during the winter months yet another Maserati racing car, a car that was to provide in the early postwar years the bulk of entries in Grand Prix racing. The 1938 3 litre was not entirely dropped, however, as one new 8CTF was built and sent to the United States where Wilbur Shaw, driving it under the pseudonym "Boyle Valve Special", won the 500 Miles race at the Indianapolis Speedway - a great success indeed. In European races the 8CTF ran at the N¨rburgring (the German GP) and at Berne (the Swiss GP), and with a little smattering of luck the 8CTF might have actually won at Nürburg, for although Villoresi's car retired, Paul Pietsch finished third - and at one time he was in the lead ahead of all the German cars! A month after the German race the Ecurie Bleue had 3 litre 8CTF cars running in the Swiss Grand Prix, the last genuine pre-war classic, but even René Dreyfus' polished skill was not enough to bring them up to the forefront, and they eventually finished nowhere. The machines run at Berne by the Ecurie Bleue were actually the same two that Pietsch and Villoresi had at the Nürburgring, and which eventually found their way to America to become, in the course of time, the "IRC Inc" and "Bennett Bros" Specials!
The new 1939 1,500 cc Maserati (not currently termed the 4CL - that designation was adopted after the war) was ready for racing in May 1939, and in the same identical weekend one raced at Brooklands (Maseratis were still true to the private owner and sold up-to-date racers) whilst a works team ran at Tripoli, an excursion that was a major disaster, for all three new cars failed to complete a single lap - surely a unique achievement for any team in any form of motor racing! Fortunately the British driver, Reggie Tongue, saved Maserati's pride with his third place in the JCC's International Trophy at Brooklands, so that the true debut of the Tipo 4CL Maserati (the British race was run one day earlier than the N African epic) was in effect moderately successful.
Mechanically, the 4CL Maserati was largely a scaled down version of the 8CTF, but in the engine department the 4CL had square dimensions (78mm x 78mm) which at long last broke away from the more usual 69mm x 100mm measurements. Provision was originally made for two-stage supercharging, a feature not used on this car until 1947, and the use of four valves per cylinder gave the car a distinctive place in the Maserati hierarchy, for the nomenclature "the 16 valve Maserati" automatically calls to mind the 4CL and its developments up to and including the "San Remo" type of 1948. Another English driver, the late Johnny Wakefield, was the second private owner to get a 4CL Maserati, and he it was who mainly kept the car in the winners' circle until September's dark days wrote "finis" to real International racing for so many long, weary years.
Wakefield, who previously raced a Tipo 6C, went to, Italy to collect his car, and once in possession of it he had a grand tour of Europe's 1,500 cc races during which he got three clear-cut victories (at Naples, Picardie and Albi), a second (at Rheims, and he really should have won!) and a third, in the Prix de Berne where he could hardly have been expected to subdue the little Alfettes. Smiling Johnny's victory march in this last summer of peace was decidedly popular, and when the Swiss driver Armand Hug (using a 1939 16-valve engine in his 1937/8 chassis) beat him in the 1,500 cc race at Rheims the disappointment was very great, the failure of the Englishman's braking system alone giving the hybrid Maserati of Hug its win-a win which was, in any case, a feather in the Maserati cap.
In the two chief Italian races, the Coppa Ciano at Leghorn and the Coppa Acerbo at Pescara (the Italian GP was cancelled because of the war) the works 4CLs met the official team of 158 Alfas, the Alfas triumphing easily over both circuits, the best Maserati could do being the second and fourth places, by Cortese and Taruffi, at Leghorn. Once more the speeds registered at Pescara showed a further improvement in the Maserati maximum, for Villoresi did the kilometre at 147 mph, the best yet with a 1,500 cc Maserati in road racing trim. The car that Gigi Villoresi had driven at Tripoli - a streamlined all-enveloping bodied 4CL - was, however, reputed to do 170 mph, but that was under the ideal conditions of the Mellaha circuit and not on the Pescara road course.
Apart from the new 4CL, many older-type Maseratis were operated in 1939, but only in the South African winter season (the pre-war parallel of the present day South American races) did these earlier types score a win, the Ambrosiana stable from Milan sending a team of 1938 four cylinders that returned to Italy with the South African and Grosvenor Grands Prix in the bag, Villoresi winning the former with Cortese second, and Cortese winning the latter. As a matter of interest, in the 1937/38 winter races Villoresi, Lurani, Siena and Taruffi had all been out with Maseratis, Siena and Taruffi each getting a second place in the same two races.
Italy being non-belligerent early in 1940, she was able to run a Tripoli GP and a Targa Florio that year, and in these two events Maserati was the predominant marque, providing 99 per cent of the entry lists but it was an Alfa that won at Mellaha. In Sicily, in the Targa the 4CL finished 1 and 2, the most significant feature of these two events being, perhaps, the identity of the young Italian pilot of a Tipo 6C which finished eighth at Tripoli - Alberto Ascari!
America, too, was not involved in the European conflagration in 1940, and so she held her annual 500 miles race at Indianapolis, Wilbur Shaw repeating his performance of 1939 in winning in the same car - the Boyle Valve Special, the 3 litres s./c. 8CTF Maserati delivered to him in 1939 and with which he so nearly did the hat trick in 1941 "500", leading until he turned wall smacker after 151 laps. However, greater interest was displayed in this country, probably more so than in the States, in the car that Raoul Riganti entered and drove in the 1940 "500" for it was still another new Maserati, albeit a fusion of ideas from the 8CTF and the 4CL. Chief difference from the 1938 8CTF was in the engine, the 1940 edition having 32 valves and a bore and stroke of 78mm x 78mm - in other words, the 16-valve 1½ litre "doubled up", the 8CL-type number being in consequence self-explanatory! Riganti's Indianapolis effort ended after 60 miles, and his car finally finished under an alias in post-war American racing, as had the 8CTF of Shaw, and the two one-time works cars which the Ecurie Lucy O'Reilly Schell left behind after their vain-glorious visit of 1940.
At the beginning of the war, either in 1939 or 1940, the Maserati factory was moved from its original home at Bologna to new premises in Modena, and as with engineering works of every description in all the countries involved, war work was doubtless carried out in their new home, but by all accounts a certain amount of new car construction was (or must have been!) undertaken for the Scuderia Milano cars (4CL Maseratis) that raced in 1946 on the resumption of International motor sport were new machines, and they were usually believed to have been built during hostilies, giving the Italians a real first class start in the post-war racing era.
The first post-war Maserati racing success was gained, however, by a private owner, for Henri Louveau drove a Tipo 6C to victory in the Coupe des Prisonniers in the Bois de Boulogne in Paris in the first postwar race meeting in 1945.
(Reprinted from Autosport)
These articles first appeared in the Summer and Autumn 1978 issues of Trident
|
Maserati enthusiasts and collectors who may be interested in acquiring back issues of this highly collectable magazine may do so by contacting Adam Painter of the Maserati Club at
adamkpainter@uk2.net
BACK TO ARTICLES
|
|
|
