Info about this car may have been posted previously but I was curious about the present status. I worked on it when Carle Conway owned it back in the 80s. #0744 as I recall. I never drove it but rode in it quite a bit, especially on the Watkins Glen track. Carle was an excellent driver and the spirited driving was exciting to say the least! Before being converted to a single seater, was the chassis that which was involved in the crash that killed Portago in the Mille Miglia? Bob Z.
Yes, #0744. It was the engine, not the chassis, that had been in the de Portago 335S #0646 in which he was killed at the '57 Mille Miglia, but had also been in the 412 MI single seat racer before going into #0744. #0744, originally a 312 S first had a 4 cam (DOHC) 3 litre engine in it. Correct title for #0744 is said to be 412 S, not 412 MI.
Carle had the car at either the 1979 or 1983 FCA Annual Meet at Road America and Fon du Lac (1979)/Koehler (1983).
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Excerpt from "The Beast": "The unimaginably loud Ferrari V12 can be heard above all of the other 42 starters, its radical firing order based on that of Maranello’s four-cylinder engines" What is meant by "radical firing order"?
Bob: I was the caretaker of this car for many years and have literally hundreds of miles behind the wheel (greatest Ferrari ever built). I passed all my records on to the current owner when we sold the car. However, I retained some copies and find nothing regarding firing order, nor do I recall anything special. My memory is it had the standard Ferrari V-12 firing order. It was the combination of cam timing, carb set up and exhaust system that made the 412 MI sound so awesome. By the way, you can "flip" the cams and change the firing order of the single cam engines. I have tried that on the dyno and found no gains.
