According to accounts, Moss's times around Monte-Carlo seemed to suggest that the Scarab would happily make it to the grid in the real qualifying session.
Not really - Moss got it to 1m 45, which would have got him 21st, the same position as Daigh managed with a slower time. OK, Moss only had a couple of laps, and doubtless could have lopped a lot more off, but if Moss couldn't get it within 6 seconds of qualifying in a quick go, there was no chance of getting the car on the grid.
Reventlow's expiring after just a solitary lap when a piston broke through the engine block.
Reventlow scared himself - for someone used to US air force circuits, the old Spa on your Grand Prix debut was frightening in the extreme - and blew his engine deliberately.
The starting money thing at Zandvoort was also complex, Daigh apparently set a time fast enough to qualify on merit, which entitled the team to prize money, and anyone else who wanted to start for free could do so. But there was a suggestion that the Dutch had massaged the times to give the Americans a boost and Reventlow pulled out in a huff after there were protests...
But having poured a significant amount of money into the project for little reward, Reventlow decided not to follow F1's switch to 1.5-litre engines in 1960, allegedly starting to lose interest in his racing project.
Also he could write off the project against taxes if he wound it up within five years. And that deadline was coming up, given that his team started by making sportscars before the F1 car.
(Source: Scarab by Preston Lerner)
