37 replies to this topic

[Gary C]

Enzo had all the Sharknose 156's cut up. I presume there are examples around of just about ALL his other Formula 1 cars. Why then, did he have the 156's cut up and not other stuff too???

[WDH74]

A quick glance through Menard's big two volume history of Grand Prix racing tells me that the 156's were used again in 1962, with very few upgrades to the engine or chassis/suspension. Rumor has it that because Ferrari was planning something better to follow up the Sharknose, they just used them up, and they may very well have been past their sell by dates that second season (pictures show them with wire wheels, when most other cars were using alloys of one form or another). I seem to recall seeing a picture in Classic and Sports Car (probably in the early nineties, quite possibly in the Skullduggery column at that!) that showed the abandoned 156 tubs stacked up out the back of the Ferrari race shop, just prior to their destruction. I think they were just used up, and not suitable for any other classes (Tasman, F2, etc.)
Hope this helps-anyone got more details?
-William

[bobbo]

This is a good thread/question. I've heard so many strange or unlikely stories over the years, like, Enzo was so devastated over von Trip's death, that he was seriously pissed over the Chiti, etc. exodus, that he was ashamed of their performance in 1962, etc. Perhaps the truth will eventually come out here at (where else??) TNF.

Bobbo

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by WDH74

...abandoned 156 tubs...

Frames, surely.

[Ray Bell]

Originally posted by WDH74
.....(pictures show them with wire wheels, when most other cars were using alloys of one form or another).....

Did anyone else have wire wheels after the end of 1960? I don't think so...

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by Gary C
Enzo had all the Sharknose 156's cut up. I presume there are examples around of just about ALL his other Formula 1 cars. Why then, did he have the 156's cut up and not other stuff too???

I think the fate of the Sharknoses was shared by most F1 Farraris of the later 50s and early 60s. The Lancia-Ferraris and front-engined Dinos were destroyed. There are some Surtees-era cars around, but not many. This was because he had no sentimentality for a car once its purpose was sereved (some might say he had the same view of drivers).

It may also have been because he didn't want to see the cars fall into the hands of private owners who could not race and maintain them properly. The Sharknoses could have been no use to any serious racing team after 1962.

Years later when Ferrari started building tubs from carbon fibre he apparantly ordered that they should be destroyed when the racing team had finished with them, because of concerns about the long term durability of the material.

[Peter Morley]

The Lancia-Ferraris and front-engined Dinos were destroyed. There are some Surtees-era cars around, but not many. This was because he had no sentimentality for a car once its purpose was sereved (some might say he had the same view of drivers).

It is frequently said that the Old Man had no sentimentality for old cars, but what is surprising is how many early Ferrari F1 cars are still around.

There are pretty original examples of both the Dino and Lancia-Ferrrai.
The Dino has the wrong engine (because it was used in Tasman races) and the Lancia Ferrrai belongs to Lancia (I think they have 2), but there are survivors. And of course there are plenty of 'replicas' of these which have a far more original parts than should be possible if they were all destroyed.

Earlier 50's cars are almost common, but they were almost customer F1 cars so out of Ferrari's hands.
And later cars like the 312 B2 seem to have all survived - there are about 5 around.
And there are quite a few 312 T Xs around.

It may also have been because he didn't want to see the cars fall into the hands of private owners who could not race and maintain them properly. The Sharknoses could have been no use to any serious racing team after 1962.

I heard that someone who bought an F1 car from Ferrari sometime ago was told that they couldn't have the starting equipment, since Ferrrai were worried about the publicity if someone killed themselves in the car.

That attitude has certainly changed - possibly since the Old Man's death, they will sell anything now, and even maintain it for you.

Years later when Ferrari started building tubs from carbon fibre he apparantly ordered that they should be destroyed when the racing team had finished with them, because of concerns about the long term durability of the material.

Possibly at first, but since the Old Man died (possibly before) they have been selling all the cars - many a US Dotcom'er has (had - since the bubble burst possibly!) an ex-Schumacher Ferrari in his living room (Price depended on the cars best result, but you could buy just about any car).

Like most things about Ferrari the story and the facts aren't usually related.
Ferrari certainly destroyed a lot of used F1 cars, but they also sold a lot of them to wealthy people, those people did not use them so no one saw the cars, but as these people die the cars are starting to emerge.

But it is true that all the Sharknose frames seem to have been scrapped - apparently some engines & boxes survive so it is possible that like the Lancia Ferraris some Sharknoses may be revived one day.
Most likely reason for their demise would be the shift from spaceframes to monocoques, presumably no one wanted last years technology.
A few of the later 1.5 litre cars survive, presumably the more exotic engines made them more attractive.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
There are pretty original examples of both the Dino and Lancia-Ferrrai.
The Dino has the wrong engine (because it was used in Tasman races) and the Lancia Ferrrai belongs to Lancia (I think they have 2), but there are survivors.

Nitpicking perhaps, but no Lancia-Ferraris were saved. The cars mentioned are pre-Ferrari examples, Lancias, not Lancia-Ferraris
And apart from the V12 Dino (which, incidentally, never saw a Tasman race), one V6 Dino survived more or less intact after 1960, to serve as a template for numerous replicas

[Doug Nye]

Dave's quite right. Essentially Ferrari would sell his gran'mum if he could find a buyer and it would not, cause too much come-back... until the Lancia-Ferrari period, 1956-57. None of those cars - as distinct from the costly and valuable V8 engines and transaxles - survived. The rolling chassis were all scrapped apart from some body panels which were re-used in the Pat Hoare 4-cylinder Ferrari special sold to New Zealand.

After the Mille Miglia disaster of 1957 Mr Ferrari concluded that his company was at quite enough risk selling sports-racing cars to clienti, without exposing it to additional risk with private stumblies maintaining Formula 1 complexities.

None of the 1958 and 1959 Dino 246/256 V6 cars is known to have survived and none were sold.

One of the 1960 Dino 246 V6 cars went to the Biscaretti Museum and is preserved there. One sister car went to Chinetti initially for the New York Show - sold later to Sir Anthony Bamford - became the model for the Graypaul Motors-built replica 246/60s. A third sister car was fitted with the 3-litre V12 engine for Pat Hoare in New Zealand - 'GTO'-ised in NZ - to Neil Corner in the UK and the car surprisingly lightly damaged in Nigel Corner's horrible looking crash at the Goodwood Revival meeting.

None of the 1961-62 'Sharknose' cars survived - all were apparently scrapped despite persistent insistence (from one not very reliable source) that "they were seen in the cellars at the Biscaretti in the 1970s".

By the end of 1962 the hefty 'Sharknose' cars were woefully obsolescent in frame design, weight, frontal area, technology and especially suspension geometry and configuration. In practical terms Ferrari could not give them away. The 120-degree V6 engines, however, still provided a useable float of parts for the Michel May Bosch fuel-injected 156/63 units needed for 1963. I believe that two of the 1963 cars survive, and from 1964 only severely damaged Ferrari Formula 1 chassis were to be scrapped.

DCN

[ray b]

my guess is mules for testing the other 1.5 v6, v8, and flat 12 motors in many flavors and v-angles
for later F-1 use, was the fate of the ex-shark nosed cars
or maybe dino racer sports car test mules tooo?????
the nose went in pre-62 season rebodys,and they were used up in testing and incendents or their frames were anyway!
ats and the defections were the nose job reason given at the time
boy P HILL blew that team jump in that ats mess

[Doug Nye]

How can I put this politely - nice ideas, but absolutely not the case?

DCN

[WDH74]

petefenelon- well, yeah, frames. But my fuzzy memory has bodywork attached to them, with the sharknose noses. I'm probably imagining it all anyway!
-William

[dolomite]

Can anybody confirm or refute the claim made on this site that the 1961 Sharknose chassis 0003 was still being raced up until the end of 1963? (direct link is here ) Does this car still survive?

[Doug Nye]

Fairly typical of that site - the most fearful tosh...pay no attention to it - very different car.

DCN

[dolomite]

OK, thanks Doug.
They do have some nice photos though!

[masterhit]

The nearest thing left (at present) would appear to be the replica made by the musician Chris Rea for his short film "La Passione".

The man Doug Nye gets namechecked as a reference in one of the websites I visited:

"Nye's excellent 'History of the Grand Prix Car 1945-65'"....

Great stuff.

[Don Capps]

Correct me if I am mistaken, but there seems to be the notion on the part of some -- not here of course... -- that a Tipo 156 carrying a chassis number such as, say '0003,' in 1961 means that a Tipo 156 carrying a chassis such as, say '0003,' in 1963 measn that they are the same machine. The reality is a tad different of course, there being a new run of "Tipo 156s" run off for the 1963 season to be used by Surtees and Mairesse as well as the others who drove for the team that season. Recall that Ferrari hoped to have its "Aero" chassis ready for the 1963 season, but it did not appear until quite late in the year. Which naturally begs the question as to when is a "156" really a "158" for our purposes? When it is a Tipo "579" of course.....

[Arjan de Roos]

The Chris Rea 'replica' was sold to Holland some years ago. I say 'replica' as many original Ferrari parts were used together with many new fabricated parts: body, frame, etc. (remake is a more apropriate name). Engine came from Dino sports car (196?). Through another dutchman, Ferrari specialist with connections in Italy, a genuine 156 F1 engine (Bardinon?) was bought and installed in the car.
I am affraid I do not have the details.

Looking at many other 'genuine' Ferraris, I think this remake is pretty close of what alas does not exist anymore.

Looking at many pictures and other hand made italian bodies (Fantuzzi et al) and discussing it with some people involved in the production of miniature models, the 156 nose looks different from any angle. Its such a pity the real cars no longer exist because I also think that like the GTO, they had differences between them. Not big ones but minor differences obvious to the trained eye.

[Macca]

The suspension and many of the components of the Sharknose F1s of 1961-62 were the same as the 196 and 246SP Dino sports-prototypes, and the engines were re-used in the 1963 new spaceframe F1s, so I've always understood that only the frames of the Sharknoses were scrapped and everything else went into the float of spares.

The Chris Rea replica was bought by John Bosch in Holland. It was built by Caterham 7 expert Paul Harvey at Shoreham, who Chris Rea knows from his own Caterham racing days, and had a Fiat Dino Spider 2L engine. Having seen it many times, including its first public run at Goodwood (when he also unveiled the TR61 replica built on a 330 chassis), and when Phil Hill was first shown it at the FoS (and said he knew it was a replica because it was built better than the original!), the only thing that catches the eye is that it's much slimmer than the originals which were rather portly, especially when seen in company with a Lotus 21.

At the FoS a couple of years ago I was chatting to the bloke who was looking after the 212E Montagna (Bob Houghton?), who told me he was building a further Sharknose replica using a genuine engine that had supposedly been languishing in a cellar in Italy ;) , but I haven't heard anything further. Maybe it was him that re-engined the Rea car.

I'd love to know what happened to the 'disappeared' F1s of the 1963-65 period; I know of two 158s and two 1512s, but what about the 158/246 of 1966 (Bandini 2nd Monaco etc) and the two Aero 156 prototypes of 1963. I've also heard that BCE now owns all the Ex-Albert Obrist single-seaters, including the 1966 Belgian GP winner, but I've never heard of them being seen in public.

PWM

[gdecarli]

Originally posted by Peter Morley
the Lancia Ferrrai belongs to Lancia (I think they have 2), but there are survivors.

At least one Lancia D50 is in Lancia Museum at Torino, Italy (contact details in Auto Museums in Italy? thread)

Ciao,
Guido

[Doug Nye]

Jim Allington - the doyen of racing car cutaway artists - was involved in a project to recreate a so-called 'Sharknose' Ferrari around surviving genuine 120-degree V6 engine parts, although to be the best of my recollection the heads were heavily modified with multiple drillings - and 'pluggings' -during multi-plug/multi-valve experimentation. I believe this project is continuing...

DCN

[Ray Bell]

Any idea why this gent isn't posting here, Doug?

I mean, some of his stray cutaways would go down well on occasion...

[Macca]

See this link:

http://www.racecar.co.uk/thre/

and look in the gallery; there a couple of pics of apparently a 120deg engine being installed in the ex-Chris Rea car (unless Phil Hill has autographed another one).



PWM

[Gary Davies]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
... at quite enough risk selling sports-racing cars to clienti, without exposing it to additional risk with private stumblies maintaining Formula 1 complexities.
DCN

Wonderboldness and deep, deep joy to note that there is another quietly-softly admirer of the tinkly magic of Professor Stanley Unwin here.

[petefenelon]

Originally posted by Vanwall


Wonderboldness and deep, deep joy to note that there is another quietly-softly admirer of the tinkly magic of Professor Stanley Unwin here.

I would've loved to have heard Stanley standing in for dear old Muddly Talker.....;)

[Doug Nye]

Vanwall - - brilliant!

[Graham Clayton]

Nothing to do with WHY the Sharknoses were cut up, but WHERE they ended up.

According to long-time Ferrari engineer Angelo Castelli, they were cut up and put into the cement being used to stabilise the large square of the factory.

http://magazine.ferr...-mystery-156f1/

[Bjorn Kjer]

Why sharknose ? No shark looks like that Ferrari !

[Jimisgod]

Nothing to do with WHY the Sharknoses were cut up, but WHERE they ended up.

According to long-time Ferrari engineer Angelo Castelli, they were cut up and put into the cement being used to stabilise the large square of the factory.

http://magazine.ferr...-mystery-156f1/

What a waste.

Pieces of automotive heritage turned into rebar substitute.

[Tim Murray]

Why sharknose ? No shark looks like that Ferrari !

... or the Super Squalo, another car nicknamed for a shark.

[Glengavel]

I notice the W*k*p*d*a entry for the 156 refers to Chris Rea's 156 recreation as a "meticulous replica", which differs ever so slightly from other descriptions I've seen...

Edited by Glengavel, 21 March 2013 - 07:37.

[Arjan de Roos]

Why sharknose ? No shark looks like that Ferrari !

There is a thread on that. But Ferrari called some of his cars of the 50's Squalo and even Supersqualo (553-555). But compared to the 156 F1 these looked like whales. The 156 was the first F1 with a tip on the nose that in all its shape reminded people of a shark.

[gablet]

I'd love to know what happened to the 'disappeared' F1s of the 1963-65 period; I know of two 158s and two 1512s, but what about the 158/246 of 1966 (Bandini 2nd Monaco etc) and the two Aero 156 prototypes of 1963.

PWM

One Aero car, with the carburator engine, still is at the Galleria Ferrari. Well, at least it was there back in 2009 when I visited Maranello.

[Arjan de Roos]

Nothing to do with WHY the Sharknoses were cut up, but WHERE they ended up.

According to long-time Ferrari engineer Angelo Castelli, they were cut up and put into the cement being used to stabilise the large square of the factory.

http://magazine.ferr...-mystery-156f1/

Good story and quite possibly true. Ferrari was willing to sell cars if it delivered money for racing. But he was not willing to share his best cars (F1 or sports cars) with others that easily.
He even denied some of his best drivers to buy and could get mad when it was even hinted. Parts were stored all over the factory for a possible later use. Reinforcing the cement square a pragmatic approach not unfamiliar in those financial dire years. Dismounting the 156's after the dismal 1962 season was also a reaction on the famous leave of staff as mentioned here. Ferrari was never afraid to start afresh and answered many times when asked what was his best car: "The next."

Cutting up the shark noses was basically cutting up bodywork and frames. Engines, gear boxes, suspension and other parts could be used on other cars.

[Graham Gauld]

Good story and quite possibly true. Ferrari was willing to sell cars if it delivered money for racing. But he was not willing to share his best cars (F1 or sports cars) with others that easily.
He even denied some of his best drivers to buy and could get mad when it was even hinted. Parts were stored all over the factory for a possible later use. Reinforcing the cement square a pragmatic approach not unfamiliar in those financial dire years. Dismounting the 156's after the dismal 1962 season was also a reaction on the famous leave of staff as mentioned here. Ferrari was never afraid to start afresh and answered many times when asked what was his best car: "The next."

Cutting up the shark noses was basically cutting up bodywork and frames. Engines, gear boxes, suspension and other parts could be used on other cars.

This is what happened to the cars. These are the Lancia-Ferraris complete with corduroy covered seats, etc I photographed about two weeks after the 1957 Italian Grand Prix in the scrap yard at Ferrari. He used a local scrappy and the Ferrari Dino that Corrado Cuppelini used to race was built up from parts found in the scrappy's premises which included all the chopped up chassis tubes which Corrado had welded together again but then realised that some of the tubes had rusted on the inside and the chassis would be too dangerous to race and so had a new chassis made. However until relatively recently he still owned the glued-together original chassis to "prove" the cars history.



Uploaded with ImageShack.us

[Gary C]

now that's a picture that paints a thousand words.

[Jan Biekens]

Nothing to do with WHY the Sharknoses were cut up, but WHERE they ended up.

According to long-time Ferrari engineer Angelo Castelli, they were cut up and put into the cement being used to stabilise the large square of the factory.

http://magazine.ferr...-mystery-156f1/

In June 2011 on invitation of Ferrari we visited with our yellow #0002 recreation the Ferrari Classiche Department, before going to race with it at the Coppa Intereuropa at Monza.
Antonio Ghini who was present (writer of the mentioned article) told us that in fact the old chassis were some 50 yards away from the place where we were standing in the Classiche Department. They even drilled holes and with special equipment investigated to see if they could recover them but allas it failed.
Why they were distroyed ? Like in his article we only can guess and never find out for 100%.

Edited by Jan Biekens, 21 March 2013 - 13:21.

[Pullman99]

Nothing to do with WHY the Sharknoses were cut up, but WHERE they ended up.According to long-time Ferrari engineer Angelo Castelli, they were cut up and put into the cement being used to stabilise the large square of the factory.

This seems to be a recurring theme in connection with other iconic vehicles. For many years there were rumours that the sponsons of Bluebird K76 were buried at the Norris Brothers site at Burgess Hill after Donald Campbell's accident in 1967. Despite searches, the conclusion was that they were scrapped. But...you never know!