Ferrari Sport Cars Thread

Thanks Cyril for this photo of my old car, had not seen it before!

Best regards,

Robert

 

I’ve got to believe it’s a rare event to come across a photo of your old car you hadn’t seen. Part of what makes this thread so great.

 

Flat cowl makes me think of the Scaglietti renumbered as 0424MD. Had a wide windscreen and twin headrests installed for 1955 Liege-Rome-Liege already! 0498M was already in the US.

 

Paint is cheap, you can always find me another mid-series car having a flat cowl in 1955! I recently looked into it and couldn't.

 

Dear Cyril, I believe Kare is referring to the wiindscreen mounting. The early cars had windscreens attached to a flat cowl and the later cars had the windscreen faired to the cowl. Will post couple of pics in a little while.

Best regards,

Robert

 

Dear Cyril,

Attached are two examples of the two windscreen attachments. All of the 1955 500 Mondial Series 2 cars had the faired mounting to the cowl..
Best regards
Robert

Faired
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flat
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Seventy years ago with a credible performance Gino Munaron in his 2 liter 1955 500 Mondial S2 was holding down second overall behind Castellotti in a 750 Monza in the 10 Hour race at Messina. With less than half an hour to go, the control fork in the transaxle sheared and the result was a very disappointing DNF.

Twelve years later I was driving this same car at a required refresher driving school conducted by the SCCA on 14 May 1967 at the brand new sports car race track at Bryar Motorsport Park near Loudon and Concord, New Hampshire wearing number 75. At this event I broke the same transmission shifter control fork attempting to shift into third gear, leaving me only with 1st and reverse gear. The part which sheared was responsible for selecting 2nd, 3rd, 4th and 5th gears. In those days I would drive my car to and from the various race tracks, so I had to drive the 75 miles back to Cambridge, Massachusetts by starting in 1st gear at each stop light, then shifting with a big screwdriver stuck down into the transaxle filler plug opening picking any gear other than 1st.

Shortly thereafter Gui Menoni who was Chinetti’s NYC parts manager found a replacement control fork for me which was beefier than the original, so I suspect that Ferrari figured out the weak point. Photos attached. I replaced the part but thanks to Navy assignments the car then went into hibernation for 41 years.

Fast forward to 2009 at the FCA National at Road America when driving on track I had difficulty selecting third gear from second. Same thing happened on track at Millville in 2010 and Elkhart again in 2013. I finally disassembled the transaxle one more time and discovered that there was inadequate clearance between the brackets on the gear control rods which created interference for the control fork when attempting to move into position for third gear. Obviously this was a problem from the beginning in 1955. Two minutes with a grinder and clearance created and for the glorious two hours on track at Laguna Seca in 2015 shifting from 2nd to 3rd was slick and easy.

Sorry for going off topic!

Best regards,

Robert

broken control fork on left replacement on right
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5/14/67 at Bryar Morosports Park
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Yes, and this absolutely isn't one of the early "flat cowl" cars in chassis number range 0428M-0470MD - eventually followed by the first version of 0486M.

I think 0498M and 0502M were hurried through production saving some hours in production to make it in time for Sebring in March 1955, so 0498M was also built with "flat cowl" and 0502M was built sans headrest.

I have struggled to find another mid-series car with flat cowl and can only think of 0424MD with the exceptional wide windscreen conversion done in 1955. Most such conversions were done much later when appendix C-ruling was introduced for 1957 and among other things a full width windscreen was required in order to reduce the top speed

Mancini's car does not seem to have any fairing for the windscreen.
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