Why RHD on early Ferrari's ???

I"m not sure exactly when it ended, but in Italy in the 1920s, they drove on one side of the road in the city, and the other side in the country. This, plus the fact that when you drive on the right hand side of the road and pull to the curb, you can step out onto the curb and not into traffic.

 

In fact they were all race cars with stradale bodyshells. As all the race cars were RHD at this time, the stradale cars were RHD too. Why RHD ? Quite simple, most tracks are running following the way the clock hands are running and then the cars were built for the driver the be the closest possible to the side of the track to have a better view in the curves and negociate better trajectories. Nowadays, most tracks are still following the clock hands except a few ones wich turn in the opposite way (like SPA if I'm not mistaken).

 

I was told the same by some "old-timers". Race cars were RHD because tracks in Europe ran clockwise and you wanted the weight on the inside of the turn. In theory, a Clockwise track will have more right turns (or longer ones) than left turns.

Steve

 

That must have been interesting at the city limits...

 

That must have been interesting at the city limits...

 

That must have been interesting at the city limits...

 

In the 1960's, Sweden changed from left rule of the road (favoring RHD cars) to right rule (favoring LHD cars). It took a year of planning, but went pretty smoothly. All the new signs were put in place and covered. They closed the country to all but emergency vehicles for 24 hours, went out and swapped the covers on the road signs to reveal the new ones and cover up the old ones. Cities were closed a bit longer, except for public transport and taxis.

 

In the very early days, more than ever, Ferrari's whole operation was geared for racing and the road cars were built on race car platforms. Thus, the Inters were basically built on the same platforms as the Exports. This is why most Inters are RHD.

Starting in early 1950's the Europas and Americas came along with platforms of their own which were somewhat different from their contemporary MM's.

john

 

All cars were right hand drive untill Ford came along, Race cars stayed right hand drive becouse the old road races were done clockwise, Le Mans for instance. The 917, Gt-40, and of course the Ferrari road race cars etc. all stayed right hand drive. Ferrari and the other manufactures went along with street cars left hand drive. I do not know but the story goes that Ford went left hand drive for maunfacturing ease of the shift linkage. Fritz

 

Horse-drawn carriages obviously pre-date cars.

In the USA, Pennsylvania was the first state to enact a law requiring carriages to keep to the right in 1792. New York followed in 1804 and New Jersey in 1813. Cars simply followed this convention.

 

there was once a man named enzo ferrari and in 1945 he hired a man named colombo to design him a car with two requirements [1] it must have a V12 engine[2] it must be RHD. the reason for the RHD was that mr ferrari's theory was that, to promote his cars to wealthy people,these cars must win on the race tracks. the great drivers preferred RHD because the majority of the turns on the race tracks were right hand bends. this remained in tack into the early1950s and started to change when chinetti and other dealers suggested that the market for the road cars was taking off and many of these drivers preferred LHD. the competition cars [even numbered] remained RHD though the buyer of a new car could request LHD. an example of the preference for RHD in the competition cars is that only one of the 250 TRs was built with LHD. what enzo wanted, enzo got and if you didn't like it, you might not get it at all.. [email protected] george

 

yes i know there were more than one LHD 250 TRs. many of the customer cars were LHD. about seven i believe. what i should have said was there was only one 375MM with LHD #0472. sorry about that. tongascrew george