21 replies to this topic

[McRonalds]

Can someone help me bring enlightment into the Lancia-Ferrari hotchpotch?

I remember the first time they started was in Argentina 1956, where Ferrari brought a bevy of cars to contest for the GP. Knowing that their Squalos were stable but not fast enough and the Lancias were fast but definitly unstable, they obviously decided to combine the best features of both cars. The result was somewhat confusing:

#30
A Lancia, but with the fuel tank in the tail, reserve tank in the side pontoons. The exhaust pipes passing through the empty sequence of the pontoons. Former modifications unknown to me. I heard it had a deDion rear axle?!

#32
Unmodified Lancia

#34
As #30, but conventional rear end of former Lancia.

#36
Ferrari Squalo with 4 cylinder engine.

#38
Ferrari Squalo with Lancia V8) engine.

Unnumbered??
as #38

Unnumbered??
Ferrari 4 cylinder with short, 'Squalo' wheelbase but no sidetanks. Did not practice.

Can anyone help? Most interesting would be: is that info correct or did someone know more? Who practiced which car and which modifications happened to the cars before the next race (Syracuse - where 4 cars were entered) and of course in view of the fact Monaco GP?

[Rainer Nyberg]

Maybe this thread needs to be renamed to attract more readers...?

[Wolf]

Would this help?

Don's D.50 case history (8W Special)

[McRonalds]

Originally posted by Rainer Nyberg
Maybe this thread needs to be renamed to attract more readers...?

I thin you're right - but can someone tell me how to renamea thread?

[bobbo]

Some of the issues surrounding the Ferrari - Lancia issue were in this thread:

http://www.atlasf1.c...ight=lancia d50

And I get confused by the difference (or lack of) too. But I still think that whatever the name is/was, they are absolutely lovely!

Bobbo

[Roger Clark]

McRonalds,

May I ask what contemporary sources you have? You obviously have the Autosport report of the Argentine Grand Prix. I can probably help with this, but i don't want to repeat what you already have.

[McRonalds]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
You obviously have the Autosport report of the Argentine Grand Prix.

That's true.

But on the other hand I've heard Ferrari has only taken 6 cars to Argentina.

Refering to Don Capps Lancia D50 history, we have...

#30 Fangios car was chassis #0005.
#32 Castellottis car was #0008. I think this car was never used before, though it was an original Lancia.
#32T was not used, #0001.
#34 Mussos car was #0003.

so we have 4 Lancias at Argentina.

I have no exact data about both (or three) Ferrari used in Argentina (#36, #38, #30T????)

[Kaha]

McRonalds,

I'm not sure if I missinterpret your first post, but all the Lancia D50s had deDion rear suspension.

I believe that all the Lancia-Ferrari D50s also had DeDion rear suspension, and that Ferrari tried to use independent rear suspensionon a 801, but it was not successfull.

Speaking of the D50, I had a disussion with my father the other day about the transfer of the D50s from Lancia to Ferrari. He claimed that the Biscaretti car was actually included in the hand-over to Ferrari, and that Biscaretti somehow managed to buy the car from Ferrari soon after the transfer.
Anyone know more about that car?

[Doug Nye]

Just between us chickens - the Lancia factory inventory of material transferred to the Scuderia Ferrari - their official wording - in summer 1955 reads as follows:

CARS
D50A - 0001 Engine No 13
D50A - 0003 Engine No 14
D50A - 0005 Engine No 12
D50A - 0006 Engine No 18
D50A - 0004 Engine No 17
D50A - 0002 Engine No 16

CHASSIS
Quantity 1 - new chassis with aerodynamic body
Quantity 1 - new chassis with normal body

ENGINES
No 10
No 21
No 20
No 1
No 4
No 5

WHEELS
Quantity 12 5.50 x 16 With tyres
Quantity 12 7.00 x 16 With tyres
Quantity 7 4.50 x 16 Bare
Quantity 21 5.50 x 16 Bare

DCN

[Roger Clark]

At Syracuse in april, Fangio drove a car with what became the standard 1956 bodywork in which what had been the Lancia fuel tanks merged in with the main body. Denis Jenkinson said that this was the latest car and most sources say that it was chassis number 0007. Collins drove a car in original Lancia specification, generally quoted as 0008, the same car as Castelotti drove in Argentina. If, as Doug says, the cars handed over by Lancia were numbered 0001 to 0006, does this imply that Ferrari built up a new car to Lancia specification after they had decided on the weight distribution, suspension and bodywork changes? And if so, why?

[Doug Nye]

Remember they had the brand new, un-numbered at time of handover, Lancia frame with 'normale' Lancia body ready fitted as a starting point - the streamlined body frame was another ready-to-go off-the-peg frame for them.

[Roger Clark]

I can see that, but I still can't see why, if they've got six perfectly good Lancias, they would build up a new car from one of the un-numbered frames and modify the existing cars. If they wanted to retain a car in Lancia specification, it would seem more logical to leave one of the complete Lancias as it was and to build the un-numbered frame to the 1956 specification.

and what was the "new chassis with aerodynamic body"? Do any pictures of the body exist?

[Kaha]

On the "classic" picture of the Lancia to Ferrari hand-over there is a D50 that is unpainted (exept for the fueltank lid and the mirrors ), so the unnumbered car was probably very much complete and already assembled. (All of the six numbered cars had been used in races)

I have a picture of the steamliner in Ferrari guise (sorry no scanner). I would however love to see how it looked when Lancia built it.
(As nearly all the streamliner GP cars it proved to be unusable ;) )

[oldtimer]

Was the 'streamliner' body-work the same as the bolt-on pieces that were tried at Rheims in 1956?

[Kaha]

The Reims car is the one that I have seen pictures of.

That car does however look very much like a standard (post Syracuse) '56 Lancia-Ferrari with the normal nose replaced by a streamliner nose. I'm not sure how much (if anything) that came from the original Lancia D50 streamliner (probably just the nose).

[Milan Fistonic]

DSJ's Racing Car Review has a chapter on "The Lancia/Ferrari Experimental"

The cars taken to Argentine were:

32 Standard Lancia D50. Driven by Castellotti

34 Original Lancia with the exception of having a much larger fuel tank in the tail, small reserve ones in the pannier tanks, and exhaust pipes protruding out through the aft part of the panniers and ending in small megaphones. Driven by Musso

30 Modified as car 34 but, in addition, the transverse leaf-spring at the rear had been mounted high above the rear-axle assembly, instead of the Lancia position, below the axle. The telescopic shocks at the rear were replaced with vane-type Houdaille shock-absorbers mounted on extensions to the chassis frame that projected rearwards to carry the large fuel tank. Driven by Fangio.

36 A standard four-cylinder Ferrari Super Squalo as used in 1955. Driven by Collins.

38 Super Squalo chassis fitted with a Lancia V8 engine. Driven by Gendebien.

There was another Super Squalo present fitted with a large tank in the tail, instead of the pannier tanks normally used, but this car was only used briefly in practice and then dropped rapidly.

[Roger Clark]

We should remember that Denis Jenkinson was not in Argetina, and probably based his article on the autosport report. I have no reason to doubt it but it's important to realise where we only have a single source.

[David McKinney]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
We should remember that Denis Jenkinson was not in Argetina, and probably based his article on the autosport report.

Emphatically not!
Jenks would have got his information direct from the factory. Autosport never published anything approaching the detail that DSJ provided readers of Motor Sport, and he would have had plenty of time to revise and update that information before the publication of the Racing Car Review
In fact it would not surprise me if one of our TNF members actually has the notes Jenks took during the year

[Vitesse2]

Slightly OT:

On pp28-9 of Grand Prix Car 1954-66, LJK Setright hints that "there had been some question of Fiat offering assistance to Maserati, and there was some justice in the argument that it had been Maserati that had been doing most to uphold the honour of Italy in racing ... but ... the Maserati engineers were convinced that their own car was better than the Lancia and were reluctant to be saddled with the latter ..."

Not something that I'd picked up before. Can anyone add anything?

[Roger Clark]

Originally posted by David McKinney


Emphatically not!
Jenks would have got his information direct from the factory. Autosport never published anything approaching the detail that DSJ provided readers of Motor Sport, and he would have had plenty of time to revise and update that information before the publication of the Racing Car Review
In fact it would not surprise me if one of our TNF members actually has the notes Jenks took during the year

The report with which McRonald opened this thread was taken almost word for word from Autosport. Motor Sport (March 1956) carried a brief unsigned report on the race and the style suggests that DSJ wrote it. i am sure he wasn't at the race; it was many years before he attended any race he couldn't reach by Porsche or Jaguar. The Motor sport report contains a description of the cars which is very similar to the one in the Racing Car Review. He may have contacted the factory by then but his relationship with Ferrari weren't that good, I believe. He once wrote about a time that PEter collins introduced him to Enzo Ferrari who said "ah, a Maserati spy" and walked off.

On pp28-9 of Grand Prix Car 1954-66, LJK Setright hints that "there had been some question of Fiat offering assistance to Maserati, and there was some justice in the argument that it had been Maserati that had been doing most to uphold the honour of Italy in racing ... but ... the Maserati engineers were convinced that their own car was better than the Lancia and were reluctant to be saddled with the latter ..."

Denis Jenkinson wrote the same in his book "Story of formula 1" which is no doubt where Setright got it from.

[David McKinney]

OK Roger, I'll back down a step or two. Because the reference was to the Racing Car Review I didn't check the weeklies and monthlies in question.
But I still believe DSJ's beavering around the paddock and 'spying' at the factory would have given him a better overview than most other reporters at the time.
Perhaps if I'd started my post with, "I don't think so"...?

[McRonalds]

Thanx everybody for your help so far - this thread had a 'hard' start (my fault... )

I think I ought to say a word or two about what's so interesting for me about the transformation from the Lancia D50 to Ferrari D50 or 801 or whatever we might call it. I'm no historian, I just love motorsport and I'm just collecting books and pictures but the Lancia/Ferrari story offers a strange fact I never have heard about a championship winning car; most people love its predecessor but despise what Ferrari made out of it.

'56 always appeard to me as one of the strangest WC-seasons ever. Fangio was a controversial champion (and I remember a lot of threads and posts about the fact that Collins handed his car over to himduring the Italian GP) and no one will ever know who really would have been champion without that endless change of drivers & cars during the season (have they ever been counted?!?!?!?)

I know in '55 the car was run under the banner of Ferrari at the Italian GP (where no car was able to start because of tyre trouble) and at the Gold Cup race - but as far as I know that cars were the original Lancia - with just a Ferrari sticker on it.

I think the whole confusion started with the Argentine GP '56 when Ferrari started to mix Lancia and Ferrari - and when Ferrari started to built their own 'Lancias'.