78 replies to this topic

[David Beard]

I am pleased to note in this month's Motorsport that Robin Lodge is entered in the Goodwood Revival with his Lancia D50. I read somewhere that this car is a replica built by Tony Merrick with more original parts than some "genuine" cars have.

What's the status with Lancia D50s? How many were there? How many survive? What about the one in the Classic and Sports car article this month? How many were modified by Ferrari, or did they just take the design, not actual cars? I would love to know more.

Anyone oblige?

[Doug Nye]

The replica D50s have NOT been built by Tony Merrick. Robin's car is simply cared for by Tony Merrick's company. The cars comprise perfectly genuine contemporary Lancia or Lancia-Ferrari V8 engines and transaxles, made mobile again with chassis built to the original Lancia drawings by a band of largely ex-Lancia Corse old boys - a really wonderful Dad's Army of Italian former race mechanics and artigiani, organised by Guido Rosani in Turin. His dad was accountant to the racing department at Lancia, and Guido used to walk from his school round to the racing shop, and wait there - watching the cars being built and prepared - until Papa had finished work and would take him home. Rosani built the D24 sports-racing car replicas of recent years using surviving salvaged original power units and gearboxes, in replicated chassis and bodies. We found him seven original 2.5-litre V8 engines and transaxles - I think it's that way round - and he has since built the chassis and bodies for them.

Once the chassis and bodywork had been done in Turin, the assemblies came to the UK where Jim Stokes Workshops of Waterlooville has restored and rebuilt the engines and gearboxes to running order, and has race-prepared them. The project has been master-minded by Briton Anthony Maclean - a wonderful Lancia nutcase/lawyer based in Geneva. Over to others for the general history...

DCN

[dretceterini]

Doug:

I thought some of the "replicars" built by Rossani were D-23s; or are these in addition to the D-24s? Can you please tell us exactly how many cars have been compleated, and what they are? Are there now two D-50 "replicars", or only one?

Thanks,
Stu

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by dretceterini
Doug:

I thought some of the "replicars" built by Rossani were D-23s; or are these in addition to the D-24s? Can you please tell us exactly how many cars have been compleated, and what they are? Are there now two D-50 "replicars", or only one?

Thanks,
Stu

I think that the sports cars - D24 etc., will probably be rarer than the GP ones! I suspect that there are few parts although in fact there ought to be more.

I understand that at the end of the Ferrari period, only two complete D50s remained and still exist in museums.

Apparently (or so I read) there are to be six "replica" GP cars - at least one of which is to be a Lancia-Ferrari.

Personally I wonder why some folk have objected to this. Everyone knows that even in the old days, GP cars were often woodman's axes - famously the crankshafts of the Alfa-Romeo 158s were chucked away after virtually each race. So if a Lancia D50 had a big crash, one assumes that it would have had a new body, chassis, suspension etc., what's the difference? And anyone who has seen one of these magnificent productions would be bound to be impressed.

The enthusiasts who have commissioned these cars are to be congratulated in my view, but it would be nice to hear one being given a Castelotti-style thrashing!

VAR1016

[Doug Nye]

Look, the D50 ® cars are presently as follows:

Robin Lodge has the first

A private collector has the second

Tom Wheatcroft and The Donington Collection have the third

The fourth is coming up for auction at the Goodwood Revival Meeting

A fifth is on the way and I'm not certain without double-checking whether that is going to be completed to Lancia-Ferrari trim, or whether it's a sixth that's going to be in that form. One is certainly being built with the merged-in 'side tank' Ferrari bodywork etc.

For anyone with ambitions to own one of these wunnerful things - at a fraction of the potential price of the only two surviving (unattainable) real cars - this is the auction catalogue text. Please forgive the flowery hardsell old cobblers...

1955-type LANCIA D50
FORMULA 1 RACING SINGLE-SEATER
Chassis No: 0001( R ) Engine No: 13

The legendary ‘side-tanked’ Lancia D50 was by some margin the smallest and fastest front-running Formula 1 car of its era in 1954-55, and was the only one whose potential performance was genuinely feared by the dominant force of those days – the World Champion Mercedes-Benz factory team.

Former double World Champion Driver Alberto Ascari drove the D50 to pole position upon its debut in the 1954 Spanish Grand Prix – the last Championship-qualifying round of that season – at Pedralbes, Barcelona, and early in the non-Championship Formula 1 racing calendar of 1955 he won both the Turin and Naples GPs in splendid style.

One of the world's oldest car manufacturers, Lancia always made cars for the connoisseur. The Lambda and Aprilia production models were among the most technically advanced cars of their day. Then in 1951 an almost standard 2-litre Lancia Aurelia Coupe finished a shattering 2nd overall in the Mille Miglia, beaten only by Villoresi's mighty 4.1-litre Ferrari (after actually bettering the Ferrari’s times over the 1,000-mile public road course’s numerous mountain passes. This Aurelia model went on to win its class in the Le Mans 24-Hour race, finishing 11th overall.

Full of enthusiasm, the youthful company President, Gianni Lancia, authorised a comprehensive factory racing programme which produced the now immortal Lancia D24 sports-racing design. This spectacular car with flowing Pininfarina body, 4-cam V6-cylinder engine, rear-mounted transaxle gearbox and inboard brakes both front and rear, won the 1953 Carrera PanAmericana classic in Mexico (Fangio, Taruffi and Castellotti 1st, 2nd and 3rd) the Mille Miglia (Ascari) and the Targa Florio (Taruffi).

Against this imposing background, the stage was set for Lancia to enter Grand Prix racing.

The Lancia D50 was the most innovative front engined Grand Prix car of the 1950s and arguably also of the previous 30 years. Designed by Ing. Vittorio Jano, legendary creator of the pre-war 8- and 12-cylinder Alfa Romeo racing cars, the compact D50 incorporated a host of technical innovations, representing a clean-sheet-of-paper approach to Formula 1 car design which was of quite astonishing purity and elegance.

Its most obvious visual features were the two outrigged pannier fuel tanks slung from the chassis sides between front and rear wheels, not only to provide uniform fore-and-aft weight distribution and balance between full and part-consumed fuel load, but also because aerodynamic studies had indicated to Lancia that such fuel tanks between the wheels would smooth turbulent air flow, and reduce aerodynamic drag.

But there was much else besides. This was the first use in a World Championship racing Formula 1 car of a V8 engine and the first time that such an engine was used as a stressed structural member of the chassis frame. The power unit was mounted in the chassis only via the cylinder heads. It was angled to allow the driver to sit beside instead on top of the propeller shaft, thus lowering his seat to minimise the car’s cross-section and aerodynamic frontal area. Contemporary photographs show the drivers of conventional Ferrari and Maserati Formula 1 cars sitting several inches higher than Ascari, Villoresi, Castellotti and the other Lancia D50 drivers. Not only were these transcendant Grand Prix cars low-slung, they were also short and compact, the smallest of their era apart from the uncompetitive early-style Gordinis.

Transmission was via a 5-speed transaxle with syncromesh on the top 4 gears. Jano’s design team had also envisaged, but never finalised, a sequential gearbox and direct fuel injection. The beautifully finished, stubby little car weighed only 610kg. Delicate detailing abounded throughout, including intricately machined front suspension parts and inboard shock absorbers operated via drilled rocker arms. Every part was studied for lightness and the elegance of the Lancia craftsmen’s work followed the purity of the Jano team’s design. To many the Mercedes- Benz W196, the only true rival to the D50, appeared a more massive design, however masterfully executed.

The D50’s development took many months, before its belated debut at Barcelona in October 1954, but there the new works cars simply stunned rivals and spectators alike with their speed and handling. The Lancias, reported Rodney Walkerley in The Motor were “rockets on wheels”. In the race Ascari simply drove away from the field at the rate of 2 seconds a lap. At the end of the 9th lap, already 20 seconds ahead, Ascari was forced to retire due to oil on the clutch lining from a faulty casting.

On March 27, 1955, Ascari won the Turin Grand Prix with the improved D50A, with the sister team D50As of Villoresi and Castellotti 3rd and 4th. The D50s placed 2nd and 4th at Pau in April, then 1st and 3rd at Naples before confronting the Mercedes on May 22 at Monaco.

Ascari qualified his D50A on the front of the grid, then led momentarily before crashing into Monaco harbour in a cloud of steam. He survived, only to die within days, testing a Ferrari. Castellotti placed 2nd. Disheartened by the loss of their great Champion and exhausted by the effort and cost of their single-minded quest for racing success, Gianni Lancia and his mother Adele were losing control of their company. Castellotti – as a private entry - put the D50A on pole position for the Belgian Grand Prix at Spa in June but failed to finish.

With Fiat’s intercession, the Lancia Corse racing team was then closed down, and its cars and associated material presented to Ferrari – founding the World Championship-wining Lancia-Ferrari series for 1956.

The original Lancia D50-series cars were dismantled and in large part broken up apart from two examples which survived in non-operational, partly incomplete form in Italian museums.

In the early 1990s great Lancia enthusiasts, Guido Rosani, born and bred in Turin and Anthony MacLean, an English lawyer living in Geneva, met and discussed a hugely ambitious project to re-create the D50s. MacLean had successfully campaigned a Lancia D24 sports car re-created in Turin by Rosani and colleagues in Historic events in Mexico, Tasmania, Sicily and throughout Europe. Rosani had a full set of Lancia drawings and much data, including details of the components of every car built, plus test-bed and race data, even including the spidery hand-written report by the Lancia team manager on Ascari's victory in Turin in 1954.

Time, patience and help from Sir Anthony Bamford - who had preserved some original V8 engines and transaxles bought from Ferrari years before - laid the foundations for this project. Further searches in Italy unearthed more engines including, astonishingly, one complete original unit, still in its Lancia Corse packing case, complete with 1955 dyno tags. The rare missing Solex carburettors and correct Marelli magnetos were tracked down subsequently. No effort was spared to make the cars correct in the smallest detail. Not only the factory drawings and data were employed, but also the surviving complete car which the Lancia museum kindly loaned for inspection and dismantling.

Instruments were re-manufactured by Allemano, the original supplier, exactly to the original design. Wheels were re-made by Borrani to the original pattern. Some original suspension parts were located. The bodies were hand-made in aluminium in Turin by contemporary ex-Lancia craftsmen. The run of five cars to D50A specification today re-unites original engine and transaxle combinations which were first united in 1955, each individual chassis being given the correct original number with ‘R’ suffix to denote ‘reconstruction’.

Attention to detail has been extraordinary, including for example, hand manufacture of each of the delicately drilled and fretted fuel tank/strut brackets - five cars, eight brackets per car, forty in all, each one different to the next…

The finished chassis and bodies were shipped to England where surpassing pains were lavished on re-building of engines and transaxles and race preparation of the chassis by Jim Stokes Workshops, well-known for many years for work on Alfa Romeo racing cars including the Alfetta 158, and also on the BRM V16. Only departures from original specification have been invisible and in the interests of either safety or longevity and practicality.

The original engine block proudly carries its Lancia date stamp – ‘11/11/54’ – and as rebuilt it has been dyno-tested to c.235bhp, closely matching the output recorded on an original Lancia test sheet, dated June 24, 1955, just a month before the transfer to Ferrari. The unit’s original originally fragile threaded valve stems have been improved upon, and the units built to offer several seasons’ reliable service without need for a re-build after every race as in 1955. The fuel tanks incorporate modern rubber bags to current FIA specification, while the multi-finned drum brakes now feature twin-circuit actuation. A small roll-over bar has been discreetly built-in. The cars have been track tested and set up by a well known historic racing driver and have been prepared to race - not merely as the beautiful artefacts they also, undeniably, are.

Of the five cars built, one is in the Donington Collection in England, another in a private museum while a third has been extensively raced over the past season. The car offered here is the last produced and is the property of one of the original partners in the project. It participated in this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed and has been invited to take part in the Goodwood Revival Meeting the weekend of this sale. No pains have been spared to incorporate every lesson learned in building the previous cars and to make this car, which has no hours on it at all, apart from careful dyno and track-testing, as near as possible to the new car in which Ascari sat in 1955.
It is finished in exactly the correct shade of deep Lancia maroon – rosso granata (?spelling??? DCN) - matching that of the hometown Torinese football club, Juventus.

This is a rare opportunity to own a truly stunning piece of Grand Prix history, ready to race, but also of the most exquisite museum quality in every aspect of its design and execution.

Price - refer department

If you feel so moved ring Bonhams on (44) (0) 207 393 3900 and ask for the Car Department

Tell them Doug sent you...

DCN

(Sorry Bira - I was cornered into this...honest!)

[VAR1016]

Mr Nye, I am happy to say that you are a true Lancisto.

Whilst lying in the snow helping put together a 1968 Flavia (at Harry Manning's - another Lancisto), I was approached by the propietor of Omicron - Martin Cliffe. He was famous for rebuilding Lamborghini Muiras etc., at the time. He said:"Look at that hub nut assembly; engineering. The supercars have engines, the rest is junk. A Lancia is engineered throughout". He was damn right.

And your excellent summary explains all. Only the Lancisti understand.

I believe that Mr Ecclestone has one (a D50). But then, he can afford it.

VAR1016

[Doug Nye]

....a staggering bargain in fact at around 400K when a 'real' but average-to-middling 250F which in comparison wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding can command a good 50%-100% more, in some cases with rather less in the way of actual contemporary original-constructor-made components still on board...

DCN

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
....a staggering bargain in fact at around 400K when a 'real' but average-to-middling 250F which in comparison wouldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding can command a good 50%-100% more, in some cases with rather less in the way of actual contemporary original-constructor-made components still on board...

DCN

A tad less than I imagined, I have to admit. On the other hand, for most of us.....

And as you say, the point about the 250F is really what I was trying to convey!

VAR1016

[Roger Clark]

235bhp doesn't sound very much if Daimler-Benz' claims were accurate. However, it certainly sounds as though the reconstruction did justice to the origninals, thanks for telling us about it.

But..

Originally posted by Doug Nye

It is finished in exactly the correct shade of deep Lancia maroon – rosso granata (?spelling??? DCN) - matching that of the hometown Torinese football club, Juventus.

....what colour do Juve play in?

[Vitesse2]

This is NOT Newcastle United.....



I think this is what you meant Roger

FC Roma would appear to be playing in the right colour though ...

[dretceterini]

Thanks for all the input. I don't have to own one of the cars (and it is way beyond my means), but I certainly wouldn't mind a drive. If I DID have the funds, I would choose one with the seperate side tanks..

Anyone know how many of each of the D23 and D24 "replicars" Rossani has made?

(I hesitate to call them "replicars", but I'm not sure exactly what term is appropriate)..

Stu

[Doug Nye]

Four sports cars I think - one to Maclean, one retained by Rosani, one to an owner in Germany and one to a private owner in Italy - but I'll check for you.

Re Juventus - aaarrrgghh! - I know nothing about kickball and care even less, in my view a corrupt and corrupting game run by almost the lowest form of pondlife, though in some cases played and followed (poor saps) by good guys - but this came as gospel direct from Swizzerland. Were they once thus liveried????? Perhaps in the Lancia concern's formative days???

Roger - V8 power output, as you rightly noticed, is very interestingly modest. Lancia did not mislead themselves, and they ran 'straight' dyno tests. Their horses must have been notably larger than the ponies apparently quoted by Ferrari and Maserati. I think the Lancia PR department would have claimed more than the actuality recorded on the original dyno power curves - I haven't crosschecked against contemporary published claims. What we have here is REALITY. I think the point is that the V8 offered pretty robust torque over a wide range. Climax-style practicality. They really were a wonderful company at the time - as Mercedes-Benz's finest fully appreciated...

DCN

[Evo One]

Doug,

I am sure that there are many of us who are grateful for your wonderful potted history of the D50 re-creations.

Many thanks for such detailed information

On the subject of power outputs, I had a long conversation with Jim Stokes at the Festival of Speed 2000 when the first D50 re-creation was there. He was very proud to tell me that not only had they got to within a few per cent of the original dyno BHP figures but they had also managed to achieve virtually the same torque curves.

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Re Juventus - aaarrrgghh! - I know nothing about kickball and care even less, in my view a corrupt and corrupting game run by almost the lowest form of pondlife, though in some cases played and followed (poor saps) by good guys - but this came as gospel direct from Swizzerland. Were they once thus liveried????? Perhaps in the Lancia concern's formative days???

DCN

Bores me silly too Doug, but in the interests of accuracy:

http://www.juventus.it/en/
For some years Juventus founders wore pink shirts - the same ones they wore when they started in 1900. The change to the black and white colours was made in 1903 after a wrong shipment was sent from England where the new strip was to be made.

There is a team called Juventus that wear maroon, though - in Brazil!

http://planeta.terra...bles/achist.htm

Atlético Clube Juventus Date of Foundation: March 1, 1966. Colours: marroon and black. Number of professional titles: 4. Adresse: Avenida Getúlio Vargas, 2.410, Centro, Rio Branco (Acre)

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Evo One
Doug,

I am sure that there are many of us who are grateful for your wonderful potted history of the D50 re-creations.

Many thanks for such detailed information

Absolutely. Thanks Doug and everyone.....

I feel humbled by the response to my original question!

[Pete Stowe]

There’s a 5 page feature, including a track test, on the recreated D50’s in the current issue (September) of Classic & Sportscar. This also mentions Bernie Ecclestone as owning one.

[David M. Kane]

What is the story on the D50 chassis they have on display at the Ferrari
Galleria in Maranello?

[Roger Clark]

Speaking as one of the poor saps, I believe that Torino, the other club from that city, play in the Lancia colours.

[Doug Nye]

Aaaaaah - curses - maybe that's the answer Roger. Anthony Maclean definitely told me Juventus - crafty eyeties fielding two teams from the same city, how confusing - soccerphobic though I am I do recall Manchester having two teams, ditto Liverpool, Birmingham etc...as for London...aah well, I must not get interested in football, I must NOT get interested in football, I MUST....

DCN

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Doug Nye
Aaaaaah - curses - maybe that's the answer Roger. Anthony Maclean definitely told me Juventus - crafty eyeties fielding two teams from the same city, how confusing - soccerphobic though I am I do recall Manchester having two teams, ditto Liverpool, Birmingham etc...as for London...aah well, I must not get interested in football, I must NOT get interested in football, I MUST....

DCN

Ah.....love it. I'd never heard of that Owen Giggs until he married Scarey Spice.

[dretceterini]

who?

[David Beard]

Originally posted by dretceterini
who?

OK, I might have got that a bit wrong ;)
I may know little about the Lancia D50...but I know even less about football.

[Doug Nye]

...which is obviously three times as much as Stuceterini....

[ensign14]

Juventus got their black and white kit in honour of Notts County, oldest English club, believe it or not.

Torino have played in dark red since their formation in 1906, I believe (the were a bunch of disaffected Juve followers who merged with Torinese, which in turn was a merged club).

[dretceterini]

no, who was refering to whatever "Scarey Spice" is..

[Ray Bell]

Someone more often mentioned in the Paddock Club...

Juvenile pop group member, as far as I can work out.

You were thinking maybe of a sports car that had major front end lift problems on Mulsanne?

[Vitesse2]

Originally posted by dretceterini
no, who was refering to whatever "Scarey Spice" is..

Stu: very complicated in-joke from David there .... I'd try to explain but it would take far too long as I'd guess you have little or no knowledge of English Premier League soccer! Or the Spice Girls .....

But it's definitely nothing to do with a sports car!

[David Beard]

Originally posted by Vitesse2


Stu: very complicated in-joke from David there .... I'd try to explain but it would take far too long as I'd guess you have little or no knowledge of English Premier League soccer! Or the Spice Girls .....

But it's definitely nothing to do with a sports car!

I apologise to everyone...I haven't been here 5 minutes and I've caused chaos: I should have considered the fact that that there are people in this world who are lucky enough not to have the UK football and pop music scene rammed down their throats.

Back to Lancias?

[ensign14]

Sporty Spice's brother is a BTCC winner this year (Paul O'Neill).

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by David Beard


Back to Lancias?

I hope so - I cannot get enough of them

VAR1016

[dretceterini]

English premier league soccer and celeberty nonsense can not be anywhere near as bad on the correct side of the big pond as in Los Angeles.

There have already been 3 hour long TV "specials" and pages upon pages in the written press about the death of Chick Hearn the 85 year old who was the nothing more than the sportscaster for the Los Angeles Lakers basketball team (for about 40 years).

There is also enourmous press coverage about Shaquile O'Neil's arthritic toe (he is the center for the Los Angles Lakers basketball team, should one not know or care).

We get about a half page on auto racing a week, and 90% of it is on NASCAR and drag racing..

I kind of got the joke about the front end lift on the group C and C2 Spice race cars, but didn't know they had this problem.

And now, back to our regularly scheduled broadcast...

Stu

[Roger Clark]

Returning to the power output of the Lancia's:

Doug Nye quoted a fairly reliable figure of 230bhp, this seems rather low compared with the usually quoted figure of 260bhp for the W196 Mercedes in 1954. When the Lancia's made the debut in Spain, both Motor Sport and Autosport quoted 260bhp but not with much conviction; DSJ said the output was estimated to be 260bhp, which doesn't sound like a claim he trusted. He didn't quote a figure in the Racing Car Review for that year.

On the other hand, the Lancias were said to be gaining time on the straight, which was several miles long. This suggests that their top speed was higher than that of the W196. The Mercedes ran in open wheel form in this race.

In "The Grand Prx Car" Setright gives the power output of the Mercedes as 256bhp and the frontal area as 10.5 sq ft. giving 24 bhp/sq ft. He credits the Lancia with 231 bhp and 13 sq ft frontal area, or 17.8 bhp/sq ft. These figures suggest that the Mercedes would be significantly faster in a straight line.

Clearly something is wrong somehere. The most suspicious figure is the frontal area of te Mercedes, but the same figure is given by Pomeroy in the Design and Behaviour of the Racing Car.

[Vitesse2]

If that Mercedes figure is correct Roger, surely it must refer to the streamliner, which had a significantly smaller radiator intake than the open-wheel car. And the W196 was a much wider car than the D50: seeing one in the metal at Goodwood I was surprised how small the Lancia was - in fact I read somewhere recently that it was the smallest of the 1954 cars.

If the Lancia frontal area figure is correct, I'd say the Mercedes should be higher, not lower .... how does 15.0 sound?

[Don Capps]

Along with the Maserati 250F, the Lancia D50A is one of my favorite racing machines -- not least because I saw it in action at Torino with Ascari aboard .....

I recall being vaguely upset when the scuderia was handed over to Ferrari. So of us hoped that the cars would have gone to Alfa instead and brought them back into racing. For reasons I cannot even begin to explain, I have always loved Ferrari sports racers, but not much of a supporter of the GP effort except for the Phil Hill years.

The D50A was an amazingly small car when put up against the W196. Given some organization and development, I think the D50 would have put Daimler-Benz on the ropes. Then again, I have always felt that had Moss stayed with Officine Alfieri Maserati in 1955 that he could very possibly truly pushed Fangio for the championship.

[Doug Nye]

Originally posted by Roger Clark
In "The Grand Prx Car" Setright gives the power output of the Mercedes as 256bhp and the frontal area as 10.5 sq ft. giving 24 bhp/sq ft. He credits the Lancia with 231 bhp and 13 sq ft frontal area, or 17.8 bhp/sq ft. These figures suggest that the Mercedes would be significantly faster in a straight line.

Clearly something is wrong somehere. The most suspicious figure is the frontal area of te Mercedes, but the same figure is given by Pomeroy in the Design and Behaviour of the Racing Car.

Absolutely right Roger - something IS surely wrong here. I have never been able to wrap my mind around how to calculate frontal area, F1 car shapes are so irregular and complex, but by eye the Mercedes W196 in open wheel form demonstrably presents greater bulk to the head-on view than does the little Lancia, and in streamlined form its frontal area is even greater despite the drag coefficient being (presumably genuinely) lower. I have seen the original Lancia power curves in question, and will vouch for them as being contemporary. What I cannot vouch for is their accuracy at that time, but for sure the Lancia engineers believed them.

Which tends to confirm the outrageously dubious nature of so many rival manufacturers' contemporary power output claims...unless the Torinese dynos read lower numbers, or bigger horses, than anybody else's...

I have such high regard for contemporary Lancia practises and standards I would be confident that they had their dynos regularly checked, and the relevant data tables properly verified. I think their figures are true. But the torque curves were very meaty through the mid-range, and carrying speed onto the beginning of a long straight certainly helps max. further along it...with such good torque they could be ideally geared too. But then torque was not a Mercedes-Benz shortcoming, either... interesting - isn't it?

DCN

[Ade Maritz]

In motor racing, the reverse of an old adage is more likely to be true - in the case of the Lancia D50 vs the W196 streamliner, I very much suspect "a good little 'un will beat a good big 'un" .... power, weight, and drag carrying the significance that they do in motor racing.

Plus I've always been a sucker for the underdog, so - I would plump for the D50 being the better racecar, but suffering lesser circumstances. And it really is surprising small. It's so perfectly proportioned that you don't realise it's built to about 7/8ths scale relative to the other cars.

[VAR1016]

One book I have read says that frontal area calculations should include the area below the car; has this been done in these cases I wonder?

Certainly there has to be some explanation for the two seconds a lap advantage at Pedralbes 1954 that DCN referred to in an early post! Perhaps the torque is the answer?

Chris Nixon's book "Rivals" says that figures of £50,000 per car (10 times the selling price of a 250F) were quoted as the cost of the Mercedes-Benz - a far cry from Gianni Lancia's "Enron-type" calculation of Lire 900,000 for the D50s!

VAR1016

[Darren Galpin]

Surely to get frontal area you multiply the width of the car by the height, and then knock off a little for the curvy bits?........

[Doug Nye]

Nice thought Darren, but the tricky bit - of course - is how does one arrive at the total frontal area of those pesky curvy bits, the car's of course...

DCN

[Darren Galpin]

That could start getting into the realms of differential calculus........ If the curves are constant radius, then the maths are realtively easy, but for the non constant radius curves, it gets a bit tricky. If only it was as easy as volume - dunk the car in a tank of water and see how much it displaces.

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
If only it was as easy as volume - dunk the car in a tank of water and see how much it displaces.

Yeah, I am sure that was Augie Pabst's story when he put the Ford Falcon in the pool at the Mark Thomas Inn at Monterey -- just checking out the volume of the Falcon for Ford....

[Patrick Italiano]

As far as I know, the traditional, pre-computer way to calculate a frontal area was to draw the head-on view of the car, at scale, on a marked out in squares sheet of paper and sum the surface of each square covered with the car's silhouette. (hope it's clear enough as an explanation When a square is partially covered by a curved panel, you divide it into smaller ones and proceed the same way.

Note that basically I think the computer operates in the same way.

Useless to remind that the actual air resistance is S x Cx.

[dmj]

Sorry to bring this OT again but I would like to confirm that maroon-red is colour of Torino, and it was probably the best team in the world immediately after WWII, until they lost entire team in an airplane crash. Club never fully recovered and Juve become more succesful Torinese club but in times of D50 Torino was both more successfull and more popular...

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by Darren Galpin
Surely to get frontal area you multiply the width of the car by the height, and then knock off a little for the curvy bits?........

Well in the book I read (Allen Staniforth) suggested really that the underneath of a car is basically a pain in the arse and best treated as a brick wall - my words not his.

Obviously none of this relates to ground effects/ diffusers etc., but then we are talking about 1950s racers after all!

VAR1016

[dretceterini]

It's not only the frontal area, but the shapes of the cuves that matter. Has the drag coefficient of either car ever been listed?

[oldtimer]

Originally posted by Ade Maritz


In motor racing, the reverse of an old adage is more likely to be true - in the case of the Lancia D50 vs the W196 streamliner, I very much suspect "a good little 'un will beat a good big 'un" .... power, weight, and drag carrying the significance that they do in motor racing.

Plus I've always been a sucker for the underdog, so - I would plump for the D50 being the better racecar, but suffering lesser circumstances. And it really is surprising small. It's so perfectly proportioned that you don't realise it's built to about 7/8ths scale relative to the other cars.

7/8ths to the 1955 BRM? And didn't Collins leave the D50 behind at Oulton Park until a defective oil gauge spoilt its debut?

I seem to remember engine torque being attributed to the performance of the 1956 Lancia/Ferraris at the Nurburgring.

I also seem to remember Jenks strongly hinting at handling problems, even in Ascari's hands.

With respect, Don, Maybe Lancia could have tweaked Neubauer's nose, but put the Mercedes juggernaut on the ropes??

Lovely car, great thread, thanks a million Doug (again!), but I can't resist countering some of the gushing.

[David Beard]

So...Ferrari took over the car....and perhaps spoilt the purity of the concept despite Jano's continued involvement. But presumably the handling quirks were ironed out and it became a less twitchy beast. Did they alter the wheel base? I can't see how moving the fuel away from midships could have helped it. It won the championship, but of course Mercedes had called it a day.

[VAR1016]

Originally posted by David Beard
So...Ferrari took over the car....and perhaps spoilt the purity of the concept despite Jano's continued involvement. But presumably the handling quirks were ironed out and it became a less twitchy beast. Did they alter the wheel base? I can't see how moving the fuel away from midships could have helped it. It won the championship, but of course Mercedes had called it a day.

Amongst the changes were variations in bore and stroke - culminating in 80 x 62 in the 801 engine which claimed 285 BHP, but that was 1957 when the super whizz-bang fuels were about. Ferrari used the famous long exhausts - better with the 90-degree crankshaft used in the engine.

Other developments included unequal-length wishbones and forged steering arms after problems (at Monza I think). Later there was also a revised strengthened chassis, and coil springs replaced the leaf springs on some versions. The car remained competitive, so one has to accept that the developments were worthwhile.

VAR1016

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by oldtimer
With respect, Don, Maybe Lancia could have tweaked Neubauer's nose, but put the Mercedes juggernaut on the ropes??

To an extent, Daimler-Benz really got something of a free ride when it returned to GP racing. The Maserati 250F was basically intended to be a customer car and the Officine Alfieri Maserati kept hemming and hawing about the extent it wanted to be involved; Scuderia Ferrari imploded and was fortunate to win two events during the July 1954 to September 1955 period in the WDC rounds; Lancia Corse was late getting the D50A out and going and threw in the towel before the car really got developed; the Vandervell team was still finding its way; and so forth and so on with Gordini, Connaught, and the others. Plus, the Daimler-Benz team really wasn't very deep talent-wise in 1954 as events proved and having both Moss and Fangio in 1955 was nice but there was really no challenge to beat back. Perhaps Lancia or Maserati may not have taken the championship from Daimler-Benz but at least there would have been a real fight and sometimes 'things' happen when the fur starts to really fly. Ascari in a D50A and Moss in a 250F could have really put the 1955 season in the books as a great season, but alas.... :

Given the lens through which the Daimler-Benz effort is usually viewed -- is propaganda too strong a word? -- such notions may seem a tad nutty on the surface, but once you start thinking about it and digging around, then some ideas make more sense. The death of Ascari had a huge on things as did the half-hearted effort that Maserati fielded. No one has to accept my premise, but 'Alf Francis' thought much the same way....

I just think that the ice was thinner under Daimler-Benz than most realize.

[Roger Clark]

Surely an examination of height and width gives a close enough approximation of frontal area without worrying too much about differential calculus. I don't think Ive ever seen frontal area quoted with a greater degree of accuracy than half a square foot, or about 5%.

With regard to drag coefficient, I have always understood that with an open wheeled car this was almost entirely dominated by the tyres, and can therefore be discounted when comparing cars of the same era. Of course, Frank Costin might disagree...

Originally posted by David Beard
So...Ferrari took over the car....and perhaps spoilt the purity of the concept despite Jano's continued involvement. But presumably the handling quirks were ironed out and it became a less twitchy beast. Did they alter the wheel base? I can't see how moving the fuel away from midships could have helped it. It won the championship, but of course Mercedes had called it a day.

THe original Lancia had a very low polar moment of inertia making it very quick to change direction but correspondingly difficult to control at very high speeds. Moving the fuel to the tail introduced more of a dumb-bell effect. Cars of the Lancia's configuration are usually very effective in slow twisty circuits (eg Pau, Turin and Monaco) and less good on fast ones.

In view of this, Castellotti's pole position at Spa is almost unbelievable.