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Maserati sports car career


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#1 Doug Nye

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Posted 17 February 2007 - 17:21

Might anyone here happen to have any career notes on Maserati 250S chassis '2431' - probably in the USA?

DCN

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#2 Loren Lundberg

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Posted 18 February 2007 - 02:05

Do we have a typo here? My stuff shows that 2501 was the first 250F.....if it is #2531 instead, my information shows the car owned by Stephen Griswold in Berkley CA back in the 80's...

#3 Gerr

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Posted 18 February 2007 - 05:45

2431 is/was a 200S

http://www.maserati-.../alfieri190.htm

#4 raceannouncer2003

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Posted 18 February 2007 - 05:56

Or was it a 250S, as Doug says? Other sources say so. Or was it a 200SI with a 2.5 engine fitted?

In the 1959 Sebring race, Jim Hall/Hap Sharp apparently raced a 250S entered by Carroll Shelby. Would that be 2431? Photo in Competition Press, April 11, 1959, page 4. Have you asked Carroll Shelby, Doug?

Vince H.

#5 David McKinney

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Posted 18 February 2007 - 07:37

I believe the Hall/Shelby 250S was 2432

The 200S, 200SI and 250S were all numbered in the same sequence

#6 Bjorn Kjer

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Posted 18 February 2007 - 08:03

Tabuchi says it was only an engine! Pritchard says 4 cars build 58-59 and sold plus more engines ,none with that no. Crump/de la Rive Box says 4 cars build , non with that no.

#7 robert dick

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 09:54

According to
http://www.schloss-d...otorKlassik.PDF
no. 2431 was a 2.5-liter engine.

Loose translation of the German text :
Chassis no. 2409/with 2.5-liter engine no. 2409 was completed on February 28, 1957 - used as factory test car.
In September 1957 a new 2-liter engine numbered 2409 was mounted into chassis 2409 and the car sold to Antonio Negri Bevilacqua.
The original 2.5-liter engine was renumbered 2431 and sold to Shelby in 1958.

#8 Doug Nye

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 13:23

Thanks chaps - now you appreciate the problem...

Any further information/views/thoughts on unravelling this particular mystery would be gratefully received. There was a car identified as 250S '2431' in the Rosso Bianco Collection, but what is its background?

DCN

#9 Jerry Entin

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 15:16

Doug: This may help or confuse the issue even more. Basically without access to the order books of the Dallas sportscar agency of Dick and Jim Hall of which Carroll Shelby was a partner until early1958, then he was bought out but the Hall brothers kept his name for publicity reasons. I am afraid the issue is unlikely to be resolved. The Hall brothers ordered several 200Sl chassis, as well as a number of seperate 200S and 250S engines. When people blew up the engine in their 200Sl they ordered a new 2.5 liter unit and your car has changed into a 250S. Apart from the engine size, the cars were identical.
Going through his race appearances from late 1957 on. Jim Hall won the Feb 1958 Frostbite Races at Eagle Mountain in a 200S. But soon after he appears at Texas and Louisiana tracks with two 250S models. Were they ordered as such from the factory or were they originally 200S models, with updated 250S engines? After finishing third with a 250S in the Sunburn Races at Eagle Mountain in June of 1958, Hall sold this car, chassis 2430, to Alan Connell. Unfortunatley, Connell's archives do not reveal whether this was an original 250S or an updated 200Sl. Both are distinct possibilities.
Other 250S models around that time were being raced by Bobby Aylward and Hap Sharp. Sharp's car started out as a 200S. but he used a 2.5 liter engine at Sebring in March of 1959. Again, Sharp's Sebring car had nothing to do with Carroll Shelby himself, but it was an entry submitted unter the retained agency name of Carroll Shelby Sports Cars. Later on Sharp put a 3 liter Ferrari Monza unit in his 200S/250S, winning the Independence Races near Kansas City in October of 1959 with this hybrid.
Enus Wilson also raced a 250S. starting with the Independence Races. Aylward was there with his 250S, so was winner Hap Sharp with his Monza-engined 200S/250S. Connell did not attend, otherwise there would have been four of those Maseratis at the event. My suspicion is that the Wilson 250S started life as the Jack Hinkle 200S, updated with a new 2.5-liter engine. However, there is no way to prove this.
All of the above cars/engines were imported by the Hall brothers/Shelby agency, but sadly-apart from the Connell car's chassis number, not necessarily it's engine number-no information seems to have survived about their chassis/engine numbers.
all research Willem Oosthoek.

#10 Gerr

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 16:00

Helping to confuse even more:

The page one cover car here is identified on page two as '2431'.

http://www.iwebhosti.....Fall 2006.pdf

On page 20, however it is described as a "Tipo 150-250S, telaio 1655, with engine #2431. Originally raced by Claude Bourrilot and eventually found its way to the US...."

Crump/Box have 150S #1655 original owner as Tony Parravano.

#11 David McKinney

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 18:17

My reccords show two 1655s in the 1990s, one with 250S engine
They also show Bourillot's car as 1660

#12 Jerry Entin

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Posted 19 February 2007 - 19:53

David: You are absolutely right. The 150S that Claude Bourillot raced in the 1956 Mille Miglia and LeMans 24 Hours that year was chassis #1660. Moreover, it's body was quite different from chassis #1655, the 150S that Tony Parravano recieved in 1956. However, both cars featured short noses.
Which brings us to the #1 entry at Monterey Historics, entered by Andrew Cannon as a 1956 Maserati 250S with chassis number 1661. This according to the Monterey program. According to the files of Willem Oosthoek this chassis number belonged to a 150S which was displayed at the 1956 Geneva Autoshow. Obviously nothing to do with the above two cars. Based on it's completion date of April 4, 1956 it is likely to have been a short- nosed car as well.
So a couple of things are possibly working against this car. It has a 1957 long-nose body and it claims to have a 2.5 liter engine number 2431. A rebody by the factory is always a possibility, but what unit is currently sitting in the engine bay of the former Rosso-Bianco 250S, chassis #2431?
all research provided by Willem Oosthoek.

#13 Wolfi

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Posted 21 February 2007 - 18:47

Hi,

#2431: According to a letter I have from Ermanno Cozza, the "official" Maserati historian, #2431 was delivered to Shelby/Hall as a 250SI CAR!. The engine in #2431 is #2435, a 2.5 litre engine delivered iust as an engine to Shelby/Hall.

Regarding the history of #2431: March 8th and 9th 1958, Mansfield Races, La., the SCCA magazine shows Hall in a "2.5 Maserati made especially for him in Italy" with which he won race four. In race seven Hall drove "a different 2.5 Maser (sic!) from the fourth race". So Hall brought two 250S (or one 250S and a 200S with a 2.5 litre engine) to Mansfield.

BTW: #2431 still has the windscreen wiper.

#1655: There are two cars currently carrying this number, I looked at both and I am pretty sure that only one, the short-nose car, owned in the late nineties by a guy by the name of Svedborg and very similar to the pictures I have seen of the Parravano car, is the real #1655.

The car that ran at Monterey last August and labelled #1655 is a 150S chassis with a 200S body and a 250S engine. The car was restored/built by Hall + Hall and was offered by Symbolic for a long time on behalf of McCaw. The current owner himself (I talked to Andrew Cannon recently) is not sure if the chassis number is correct. Orsi thinks likewise.

But: The engine in this car is a 2.5 litre engine showing #2409 overstamped by #2431. Orsi and I looked separately at this number and we both are quite positive that #2409 came first.

#2409 is currently with engine number #2403.

There is another engine carrying number #2431 in the US.

Regards

wolfi

#14 Wolfi

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Posted 21 February 2007 - 18:57

I forgot:

The owner of #2409 who lives in my town told me that he has fax from Maserati that enine #2409 was overstamped by Maserati with #2431 and then sold to Shelby.

Regards

Wolfi

#15 dretceterini

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Posted 21 February 2007 - 19:06

Is there an Italian car manufacturer that didn't play musical chairs with engines and other parts?

#16 Doug Nye

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Posted 21 February 2007 - 19:29

Indeed Stu - I doubt such an animal exists, but Maserati seems to have thrown up rather more conundrums at significant level than most. Thanks for all the input - it confirms much of my original confusion! Glad I am not alone. I had come to think it was time...

DCN

#17 dretceterini

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Posted 22 February 2007 - 02:20

You are FAR from alone. :rolleyes: