28 replies to this topic

[Duc-Man]

 

Does anybody know what cars these are? They seem to be from brasil.

The one in the back looks almost like a Ferrari 312PB.

[Radoye]

There's this:

 

https://nadanulla.fi...as-72-35-99.jpg

 

from here:

 

https://v8blog1972.w...tag/interserie/

 

I can't really read Italian but i'm sure someone will help out with the translation.

[sabrejet]

They have to be the two ugliest sportscars I have ever laid eyes on! The only thing they have in common with a 312PB is 4 wheels and paint.

[Sisyphus]

It seems like Gianpiero Moretti is credited (??) with designing the cars if I understand the translation of the first paragraph.

 

The one in the foreground appears to have no side vision with those huge airboxes on either side of the cockpit.

[nexfast]

 

Does anybody know what cars these are? They seem to be from brasil.

The one in the back looks almost like a Ferrari 312PB.

Nothing to do with Brasil. Those cars were the brainchild of Italian Gianpiero Moretti of the Momo steering wheel company and were built in Italy. The reference to a "Brasilian Baptism" in the first article comes from the fact that they intended to have the 5 litre machine race for the first time in a race in São Paulo, Brasil. Curiously, the same article refers that there was a future project for a Interserie/Sports cars powered by a F1 Cosworth engine.

[Duc-Man]

... The only thing they have in common with a 312PB is 4 wheels and paint.

 

Sure?

 

 

Take of the tail fins and...

[f1steveuk]

When you say, "Gianpiero Moretti is credited with designing the cars". Are you sure they were designed, and didn't just happen!!!??

[bill p]

They have to be the two ugliest sportscars I have ever laid eyes on! The only thing they have in common with a 312PB is 4 wheels and paint.

I don't reckon the version in the background deserves such criticism whereas the one in the foreground does.......

[nexfast]

For the record the text does not say that Moretti designed the cars. Actually it states that the 2 litre was projected by a certain Ing. (egniere) Valentini and the 5 litre was a development of the former without the paternity fully assigned.

[Regazzoni]

The designer was the late Ing. Giorgio Valentini.

[nexfast]

And by the way the title of the thread should be changed . This is purely Italian, not Brasilian.

[FLB]

Could the 5l car be based on Moretti's 512M? Did he chop the top off like Herbert Müller did with one of his?

[Regazzoni]

The car on the background, the first to be built, was the Momo 2000, the engine was an Abarth Osella 2 litres. Moretti changed his mind quite soon as he wanted much more horsepower and Valentini had to modify the chassis to make the second car, the one on the foreground, Momo 5000, which had a Ferrari 512 V12 engine. As far as I'm aware, they never raced.

Valentini, among other cars, designed the Osella FA1C, 1981, driven by Jarier, before Herve Guilpin took over as Osella designer in 1982.

[sabrejet]

Sure?

 

 

Take of the tail fins and...

 

Yes you're right: the ugly POS is red. I guess it has an engine and a steering wheel, but apart from that you may as well say it looks like an Alfa 33TT3.

[racinggeek]

 

The car on the background, the first to be built, was the Momo 2000, the engine was an Abarth Osella 2 litres. Moretti changed his mind quite soon as he wanted much more horsepower and Valentini had to modify the chassis to make the second car, the one on the foreground, Momo 5000, which had a Ferrari 512 V12 engine. As far as I'm aware, they never raced.

Valentini, among other cars, designed the Osella FA1C, 1981, driven by Jarier, before Herve Guilpin took over as Osella designer in 1982.

 

 

So, and I know I'm probably oversimplifying, it looks like the team just tacked on the airboxes (and presumably modified the engine bay) for the 5-liter and called it good?

[Regazzoni]

It seems there wasn't much of a team, rather a wealthy client keen to go racing (Moretti obviously then raced extensively in Imsa etc) giving the commission to a well-known engineer to design and build a car. The design of the first car - chassis, bodywork, cooling etc - was subsequently adapted to the much bigger engine of the second. According to Valentini, he recognized that the Ferrari required re-designing the car from scratch. I suppose there weren't time and means to re-think the car from zero for the version with the bigger engine. The perspective of the picture may give the impression the airboxes were "tacked", but seen from the front they look fine. Valentini was a serious engineer, he didn't do patched up work even in the context of "extemporary" initiatives like this one. Both cars, in particular, the 2000, the first one, were designed with proper thought and rationale, so to speak, which he explained in his recollections.

 

I have to correct my previous post. The Momo 2000 was tested on the Casale Monferrato track (now abadoned), in Piedmont. It seems then it raced at Interlagos in the summer 1972 with Moretti and Manfredini and at the Targa Florio entered by the Scuderia Conrero with Giorgio Pianta as driver. Don't know anything more, all that comes from Valentini's recollections..

[raceannouncer2003]

More info at this link:

 

http://www.racingspo...chive/Momo.html

 

Vince H.

[Duc-Man]

Yes you're right: the ugly POS is red. I guess it has an engine and a steering wheel, but apart from that you may as well say it looks like an Alfa 33TT3.

 

@sabrejet: in no offence. What's wrong with you? I wonder if you became

a) too blind to see the similarities?

b) too illiterate to read my post?

c) too stupid to understand my post?

or d) a ignorant f*** that tries to show off?

 

Specially since I read some pretty good posts and comments from you before.

[Duc-Man]

I have to correct my previous post. The Momo 2000 was tested on the Casale Monferrato track (now abadoned), in Piedmont. It seems then it raced at Interlagos in the summer 1972 with Moretti and Manfredini and at the Targa Florio entered by the Scuderia Conrero with Giorgio Pianta as driver. Don't know anything more, all that comes from Valentini's recollections..

 

With knowing this I found some photos online:

 

 

 

 

 

I guess Conrero installed an Opel engine instead of the one from Abarth.

 

And again: to compare it with the 312PB:

Edited by Duc-Man, 16 December 2017 - 13:08.

[Rob Ryder]

@sabrejet: in no offence. What's wrong with you? I wonder if you became
a) too blind to see the similarities?
b) too illiterate to read my post?
c) too stupid to understand my post?
or d) a ignorant f*** that tries to show off?
 
Specially since I read some pretty good posts and comments from you before.

 

Just the sort of gentlemanly post we expect on TNF - NOT!   

 

 

[sabrejet]

I'm lost on the continual 312PB references: Duc-man you think it resembles a 312PB, I don't.

 

But then again I think an MP4/2B looks like and MP4/10 because they're all bloody open-wheelers.

 

Oh I didn't see the other rant: thanks for that Rob Ryder: obviously rattled the cage of someone who dislikes an alternative opinion. Don't suppose it's Trump do you?

Edited by sabrejet, 16 December 2017 - 17:28.

[Duc-Man]

I apologise for my ungentlemanly post.

It was a bad choice of words triggered by two completely unnessecary (and also not very gentlemanly either) resposnes I got to my original question.

That was my reaction to somebody giving out BS that doesn't adds anything to answering my question.

Or as we say: what comes around, goes around.

It has nothing to do with disliking alternative opinions. Disagreeing with an opinion does not mean you have to call the subject in question rudely an 'ugly P(iece) O(f) S(hit)'. That kind of talk might be saved for nights in the pub when one gets pissed with friends.

When somebody tried to make a joke with his comments, sorry it didn't come across like a joke for me. It's the tone that makes the music.

 

Thinking about being gentlemanly...

[Dipster]

Whatever reason might anger posters I would prefer that the tone of posts on TNF is kept polite at all times. That one can disagree violently with the opinions of others can happen but is no reason to reply with harsh and offensive language. This forum has mostly been a very pleasant place to visit. I find harsh language has a very unnecessary negative effect upon forums. 

[sabrejet]

I still think they're ugly! 

[ray b]

 

The car on the background, the first to be built, was the Momo 2000, the engine was an Abarth Osella 2 litres. Moretti changed his mind quite soon as he wanted much more horsepower and Valentini had to modify the chassis to make the second car, the one on the foreground, Momo 5000, which had a Ferrari 512 V12 engine. As far as I'm aware, they never raced.

Valentini, among other cars, designed the Osella FA1C, 1981, driven by Jarier, before Herve Guilpin took over as Osella designer in 1982.

 

  confused on two motors

the car has opel stickers as raced but you say ''the engine was an Abarth Osella 2 litres''

 

I thought the 512 was flat not v motor

a f-car race spec big motor should be worth a big chunk of cash no matter how ugly the car it is in

 

binging up the question do ether car have the original motors with them

or like many old race cars are they long parted ?

[Regazzoni]

I know next to nothing about these cars, I only know the designer Valentini and have been quoting from his recollections - which may well be not fully correct - published before his passing in a monograph about his career.

 

From what I gather the car was entered in the Targa Florio by Conrero who was a Turinese tuner who in the '70s dealt mainly, if not exclusively, with Opel.

 

The 512 engine was a V12, 60°.

[john winfield]

 

 

I thought the 512 was flat not v motor

 

 

Ray, as Rega says, the works 512 in 1970, and presumably all the privateers in 1971, were V 12s. The F1 312B in 1970 was flat, and its 3-litre boxer engine was used as the starting point for the power unit in the 312P (PB) 1971-73. 

Edited by john winfield, 20 December 2017 - 17:24.

[Duc-Man]

  confused on two motors

the car has opel stickers as raced but you say ''the engine was an Abarth Osella 2 litres''

 

I thought the 512 was flat not v motor

 

As I wrote before: I assume Conrero installed an Opel engine. They should have had some from their Opel GT racing program left.

Maybe they got the car without engine, maybe they took the Abarth motor out.

 

There was a flat Ferrari 5.0l engine in the 512BB road car that was a 180° V12. People tend to mix things up with the two different 512s.

[davidbuckden]

1973 Targa Florio - Virgilio Conrero stands alongside the Momo-Conrero.

 

 

As I'm researching a write-up on Giorgio Pianta, I've come across quite a lot more on the relatively unknown 'Momo-Conrero' raced at the Targa Florio, 1973. Referring to the various posts/opinions above, I can confirm that the car was the work of Giorgio Valentini, at the behest of Giampiero* Moretti. It would appear that it raced only twice - initially by Moretti and Corrado Manfredini in '72 in the 500 kms of Interlagos, powered by a 265 bhp Abarth Osella 2.0; then, at the following year's Targa, with Giorgio Pianta and Pino Pica at the wheel, it had an Opel 1.9 engine - as had been uprated by Conrero and deployed in their Opel GTs with class-winning success in the Italian Touring Car Championship in '71/'72.

 

It seems a shame that the car did not have more outings since it had a number of innovative features, especially in the suspension/steering/braking systems.  The chassis was super-lightweight – frame 55 kgs – and featured a quick-change transverse fuel tank.  However, as always when considering the merits of a car ‘on paper,’ results can be unforgiving, and explain just why repeat appearances didn’t happen. On the Targa, this one didn’t get beyond 4 laps.  This photograph shows Moretti shaking the car down at Casale Monferrato in ’72.

 

 

One of the innovations was that the magnesium front hubs ran on ‘thin’ Kaydon bearings.

 

 

Earlier posts made mention of the second chassis which bore a body considered pug ugly, accommodated a Ferrari 5000 cc engine and was intended for Interseries/Can-Am.  I have some better pictures than previously featured here, but, unfortunately, they don’t suggest that the car was any more attractive than the critics contended!

 

 

Valentini is of further interest to me for his work on the earlier, stillborn Bertone Panther.

 

* As often 'Gianpiero' as 'Giampiero.'

 

B&W photos courtesy of Associazione Italiana per la Storia dell’Automobile

Edited by davidbuckden, 23 March 2023 - 20:04.