These are some of my favorite kinds of photos: I've always felt that the beauty of these cars has to do with designers' individual "conception" of aerodynamics back then rather than the actual science of it now. These photos (and those beautiful models!) show the beginning of the transition. Bravo.
Ed fantastic photos! Do you have more? I had heard of that basic old windtunnel but it is great to see it. That engine must have had fairly rounded pistons by the time they were done with it! best regards, Marc
Ted Walker using a scanner!?!?!?! But Ted that would be the end of the British empire would it not? Just kidding, hope you are well, Marc Sonnery
Always fantastic photos Ed... Here's another one that I found in a magazine. But where are all the models now? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Yes. The wires are called 'manichinos'. Most Italian protoype bodies were made up in wire forms and then the panels made from them. It always struck me as a much more sensible system than making the rather more time consuming wooden bucks for one-offs.
Thanks. I have seen them before, but for the life of me can't figure out what part of what car this would be for.
How do you mean? Maybe we're talking about different things. The wire frames I'm looking at are the shapes used for making the body panels.
Some of the models are definitely clay; brown surface. The others with color may also be clay with color film or paint on the surface. The clay is a special formulation that never hardens so is always workable. This workability would have allowed changes to the shape to be performed during the wind tunnel testing. The same workability also makes it completely susceptible to being damage from handling and getting bumped by other objects. For permanency one would have made molds from the clay and then a fiberglass model. Yes, it would be very interesting to still see these today but much more likely is that the models were ultimately thrown away and/or the clay stripped and reused for other models. Jeff
To quote giotto: That's #0510M with Phil Hill at Pebble-Beach in 1955. The photo is from Road&Track magazine. -cr
Fantastic pictures Ed, thanks for sharing. Do you recall what scale the models were? Could be 1/5th or 1/4 scale? And as Napolis pointed out, interesting that the 275 Nart Spyder model was there since it's thought that the car was done "undercover" by Scaglietti at Chinetti's request.
Thank you for the clarification, Jeff. Here are some survivors... Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The CR25 is definitely a wood model. Interesting on the CR25 was that shortly after it had been introduced on the auto show circuit I was with a GM designer that was do wind tunnel work on production cars (using the Cal Tech wind tunnel). His comment was that the CR25 did nothing special as an aero design study; just standard solutions wrapped together. Interesting to see the 250 LM model and then think of how the final car differed. One can see from this model how the intakes in the rear body had already been changed from the original s/n 5149. The sharp peak on the rear fenders is not evident in the model though. Jeff Just noticed behind CR25 is the Pininfarina F1 study.
Great article on Peter Revson, Alfa Romeo and the 1972 Daytona 6-Hour Continental race also includes a few pictures of the race winning Ferrari 312 PB. http://www.sportscardigest.com/archives/7266 Image Unavailable, Please Login
Fantastic photo! Ferrari mechanics. Could be nice to have an entire thread about those guys. They are an important part of the Maranello history.
