The Chicane

Keep your eyes peeled for car #14. It’s the Scuderia Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa piloted by Phil Hill and Peter Collins, 1958’s winning car.

Don’t get me wrong, I like Rosso Corso as much as the next guy. Isn’t it a bit refreshing though, to see a classic Ferrari in a color other than red? This French racing blue 250 GT LWB on offer from Symbolic Motors looks fantastic with it’s tri-color French racing stripes. The long wheel base cars don’t seem to get as much respect as the ridiculously popular 250 SWB, the 250 GT California, and the later GTO; but the extra 8 inches hardly seems worth quibbling about when a car looks as absolutely fantastic as this.

Like all 250s, the Tour de France draws power from the Colombo designed 3-liter V12. Although restricting engine size in the wake of the tragedy at the ‘55 Le Mans was a bit unpopular at the time, the engine is still impressive, drawing 240 hp in the early Tour de France configuration. This, coupled with the very lightweight body, allowed to 250 Ferraris to be strong GT competitors.

This car, chassis 508, is the 8th Tour de France of 9 bodied by Carozzeria Scaglietti using the original Pinin Farina designed body style. True to its name, gentleman racing driver Jacques Peron and his co-driver, Jacques Bertrammier, debuted #508 in the 5th annual Tour de France Auto, placing 8th. Peron continued to track the car, largely in mainland Europe, for another 2 years with fairly high levels of success. Notable races include wins at the ‘56 Rallye des Forets, ‘56 USA Cup at Montlhéry, ‘57 Grand Prix of Paris, and what must have been an exotic rally indeed, the 1957 Rallye Allier in Algier.

After Peron returned the car to it’s lessor (who knew you could lease Ferraris in 1956?), the car was sold to Bruce Kessler in the States and dropped out of competition. Damaged in the 1970’s the car sat dormant until a series of restorations in the 80’s and 90’s brought it to the concours quality you see today. 508 took 2nd in it’s class at the 2003 Concours at Pebble Beach and since then has been bouncing around from auction to auction.

There’s no question that the car is beautiful; and a 250GT is an impressive addition to any collection. I’d prefer the car’s interior was kept the original black in the restoration. And the current climate of 250GT sales is atmospheric, even for cars without long racing provenance (the ridiculous price brought in by the ex-James Coburn 250GT California comes to mind). I say that, of course, but if I had the funds I’d be jumping on the opportunity to put this amazing car in my garage. The car last sold for $4.5 Million; certainly a princely sum, but given recent 250 prices, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it breaks that price.

Here’s some footage of the ‘56 Tour de France Auto. Keep your eyes peeled for #75—the number this car wore for the race.

As you may have read recently, Life Magazine has dug up thousands of images from its archives and released them as hosted content for search on Google’s image search. With such a deep bounty of vintage photography, I’ll be posting a few images at a time over the next few weeks.

Take this crop from the 1953 LeMans 24 Hours race. This was, of course, before the disastrous crash in ‘55 in which Pierre Levegh careened off the course, killing more than 80 spectators. So you’ll notice the immediacy and danger that led to such tragedy—and made spectating much more interesting—in this photo of Alberto Ascari’s and Luigi Villoresi’s Ferrari 340MM Berlinetta. That little fence and hay bales wouldn’t hold in a horse, especially not this prancing one. Ascari and Villoresi DNFed that year, completing 229 laps.

Here’s a shot of the start of the race—how thrilling that classic running Le Mans start must have been to see. Missing from this shot (unless that’s it peeking out from behind Fangio’s Alfa Romeo #22) is Tony Holt and Duncan Hamilton’s #18 Jaguar C-Type that won the race that year.

And here is the sprint for the start itself. Prominent in this shot are the cars of the Briggs Cunningham team in the foreground bearing racing numbers 1, 2, and 3. Phil Walters and John Fitch took the #3 car to third place.

I’ll close with a couple of fantastic shots of the Nash Healey pits. First, just this lovely atmospheric shot of the calm before the 24 hour storm.

And here’s a shot of Nash Healey #10. Bad luck for Pierre Veyron and Yves Giraud-Cabantous that year, the car DNFed at lap 9. I don’t think Yves even got behind the wheel. But look at that tail! What a marvelous, almost whimsical extravagance; predating the long-tail Porsches by a good 15 years.

There you have it, Life Magazine’s archives of the 1953 24 Hours of LeMans. Excellent photos, and I’ve only just begun to dip my toe into the archive. Look for more in the coming weeks.

I must admit to giving up a week of my life to Tom Yang’s Ferrari restoration journal. A wonderful story of a sound engineer who undertook the daunting task of restoring a Ferrari 330 America purchased in boxes. We often throw the term “basket case” around when discussing cars that require a huge amount of effort — but when the project literally comes in baskets; well, that’s something else.

Something that should be applauded.

Having brought myself up to date on Tom’s site — and the remarkably victorious restoration of his beautiful, driven, Ferrari 330 — i dug a bit deeper into his site and came upon Tom’s collection of audio conversations with other vintage Ferrari owners telling their own rescue stories. I love stories like this, and even if these were videos, they wouldn’t capture the twinkle in the eyes of these proud rescuers any better than hearing them tell their stories does.

One story stood out in particular, of a very early rescue. Admiral Robert Phillips was a humble Lieutenant in 1960 when a series of happy circumstances brought him in contact with a broken down and neglected Ferrari 500 Mondial racer. In an era when people paid cash for their cars, he took out a loan of most of a years’ salary to purchase the wreck, and slowly brought it back to life on his own. No workshop manual, no reliable parts supplies, no local aluminum body shop.

Give the story a listen: here.

Thanks, Tom, for collecting these stories. And thanks to Admiral Phillips for sharing his with us.

Update: Admiral Phillips showed his restored Mondial at Pebble Beach this year. read more at Tom Yang’s site.