19 replies to this topic

[O Volante]

As it is well known, and has been discussed at TNF, one of the two 375F1 Ferraris new for the 1951 Italian GP was sold to Brazilian driver Chico Landi. His first races in the car were the two Uruguayan Formule libre races in 1952. Later in the year he took the car back to Europe, to participate in a few of the remaining F1 races and a number of Formule libre races. For 1953 I have have no race appearances for the combination.
In any case, after an appearance in the 1954 Buenos Aires Grand Prix, the car seems to have been retired from racing - at least for a while! During the time, sport cars ruled the Brazilian National racing scene, and so the car was rebodied in that form: the story is it went back to Modena, got a Scaglietti body (but retained its central driving position, like its sister car when converted by Louis Rosier) and a new chassis number in the customer series, s/n 0566. The most notable race appearance of the car in this configuration seems to have been at the Buenos Aires 1000km race in 1956, when owner Celso Lara Barberis and Godofredo Vianna shared the driving duties.
However, the car seems to have stayed only a short time in this form. When racing for Meccanica Nacional single-seater cars gained in popularity in the later 1950s, the car is said to have been converted again into a single seater, replacing the Ferrari V12 engine with a Corvette V8 to conform to the rules. In that form it seems to have been driven by Fritz d'Orey to victory in the 1958 Interlagos 500km.
Many years later the remains of this car were sold back to Europe, and today the car reconstructed from them is in the hands of the van der Loof family in the Netherlands.
1) Who can add to this outline of the story?
2) Was it the discarded engine from this car that Uruguayan Oscar González used to build his "Ferrari-Corvette" - as it was often wrongly called, in reality being a Allard-Chrysler chassis with a 4.5 Ferrari F1 engine? (For details, an a picture, see Jorge A. Augé Bacqué's "Ferrari Argentina", pp. 58-59)
3) Who's got pictures of the Landi car as a sports car or in Meccanica Nacional guise? (I seem to remember to have seen a picture of D'Orey in his car not too long ago, in a French magazine published c. 1999, but ...)
For all help many thanks in advance!

[VDP]

Talking about Ferrari 375 converted in sports car look alike as Rosier Car, was this car rebiuld 2 times the second looking as a bigger 750 Monza I remenber a picture of it in A Prunet book which
show them, and another about the start of 1000 km in Buenos Aires .
Whare are those bodies now ?


Robert

[O Volante]

Yes, both the Rosier 375F1 AND the Landi 375F1 were converted to single-seater sports-cars - but at different times! And while it seems rather simple to find a pic of the Rosier car (for example also in Tanner/Nye, Ferrari), I have not yet seen one showing beyond any doubt the ex-Landi car in sports guise! The picture in the French mag I seem to remember, however, was showing the ex-Landi car when it had become a car with non-covered wheels again, i.e. a Meccanica Nacional car ...

[Doug Nye]

I'm not sure my memory is accurate but I seem to recall the van der Lof car having been originated from a fairly minimal selection of surviving parts, while the V12 engine which went into it had spent some time - many years - in a factory compound not too far from a town named Maidenhead in England...

DCN

[VDP]

In the Tanner if my memory is good there are 2 pictures credited for Rosier's car but with different body one a Talbot/Cunningham C 5R look alike, and another with scaglietti body ?


Robert

[O Volante]

VDP,
generally you are right, I would think - but I seem to remember that in a later edition of the Tanner book (7th?) editor Doug Nye had added that the picture with the Scaglietti bodied car may in fact show Landi's 375 ...

[Barry Boor]

Here are a couple of images from David McKinney, with relevant captions below each:

http://website.lineo...t/~barrybboor/d

Fritz d'Orey in the rebodied ex-Landi car at Buenos Aires March 1959



Oscar González in his Corvette-powered Ferrari 375 (which doesn't look anything like an Allard to me)

[O Volante]

Yeah, many, many thanks, David (and Barry) - you can not overestimate how much I appreciate these pics!
Does somebody know what "E.G.S.A." - on bonnet of both the cars - means? Short for the name of a South American builder of Corvette racing engines?

[O Volante]

And also for this (re-)search my recent finding of this homepage is a little gem: Here there is another picture of one of the South-American Ferrari-Corvette single seaters; this one not looking like a 375, rather very, very much like a 500/625 F2/F1 chassis ...

Anybody around who knows details about this particular machine? Where did the chassis come from, where did it go?

PS: The mistery of EGSA has been solved - short for Equipamento Gasogénio S.A., a well known manufacturer in Brazil, and probably a sponsor for MN cars (or the Uruguayan race Torneiro Triangular race in 1959?) at the time!

[O Volante]

By now a lot more information on this particular car has come to light. The most comprehensive record has been made available here on the Luik Racing homepage of Napoleao Ribeiro.

However, in its history and race record given by Ribeiro there is a suspicious gap for the years 1960/1961. As my recent researches show, the car passed from Fritz d'Orey to a so far unknown user/owner, who had a short und tragic race carreer with it. His name was Claudio Sergio Beré, a young man from Sao Paulo with apparently little, if any racing experience at all. At the time the Ferrari was in monoposto form with Corvette engine, ready for Brazilian Mecanica Continental/Nacional racing.

Beré's first race with the car was the Brazilian Torneiro Triangular round at Interlagos on 12 Janaury 1960. He finished 15th in heat 1, but does not appear in the heat 2 and overall results. Two month later, he entered the II° Circuito de Piracicaba. This was held on a non-permanent street circuit that turned out very dangerous. The outcome was tragic: mid-race Beré collided with veteran driver Luís Valente, and his car rolled down a hill into a ravine. The driver was seriously injured, and died shortly afterwards in the local hospital.

A report on the Piricicaba race can be found in Folha da Sao Paulo, 15.03.1960, 2° caderno, p. 10. It specifies the identity of Beré's car with starting-number 7 as 'o carro de Fritz D'Orey' and gives his dob/dod as 18 August 1931/13 March 1960. A local homepage has published some pictures from the race. To see, navigate down to entry for 24/01/2011 'II Circuito Automobilistico de Piricicaba: alegrias e lágrimas'. Warning: this collection includes fotos of the dying driver and the smashed car at the bottom of the page.

Edited by O Volante, 08 January 2012 - 16:16.

[Arjan de Roos]

I'm not sure my memory is accurate but I seem to recall the van der Lof car having been originated from a fairly minimal selection of surviving parts, while the V12 engine which went into it had spent some time - many years - in a factory compound not too far from a town named Maidenhead in England...

DCN

Mr. Dries van der Lof bought remaining parts from a UK Ferrari specialist who had bought it (along with other cars) in South America. Van der Lof bought a chassis, a completely disassembled engine and a body in part and in a very bad shape from which a new body was constructed. His car bears chassis #5.
It is in the family for years and was brought out at a meeting this september were it met his longer Indy brother: The Grant Piston Ring Spl.

Here it is at 8:00

[Peter Morley]

Mr. Dries van der Lof bought remaining parts from a UK Ferrari specialist who had bought it (along with other cars) in South America. Van der Lof bought a chassis, a completely disassembled engine and a body in part and in a very bad shape from which a new body was constructed. His car bears chassis #5.
It is in the family for years and was brought out at a meeting this september were it met his longer Indy brother: The Grant Piston Ring Spl.

Here it is at 8:00

375-5 is the car that is owned by Bernie Ecclestone (came from Albert Obrist) and was demonstrated by Alonso at a recent British GP.

[David McKinney]

...ex Landi, d'Orey, van der Lof and Obrist

[Peter Morley]

...ex Landi, d'Orey, van der Lof and Obrist

Surely that can't be the same car:
The video of Van der Lof is from September 17th 2011.
Alonso drove Bernie's car on July 10th 2011

[O Volante]

Surely that can't be the same car:
The video of Van der Lof is from September 17th 2011.
Alonso drove Bernie's car on July 10th 2011

Probably you are right! Older literature like 'The Italian Car Registry' (I have a 1990 edition here) identifies the Van der Lof car as 375F1/0566, while the Obrist car is 375F1/5. The original story as it is told in Europe is that Landi received his 375F1 from the Brazilian president, and that car got the customer sports car number 0566 when it was later rebody as a central seater sports car. However, in the records of Napoleao Ribeiro the ex-Landi car appears with the customer monoposto car number 104!
Could the parallel appearance of two Landi-375F1s simply mean that one party did not purchase what they thought, but got the (or parts of the) Uruguayan 375F1 of Oscar Gonzalez car, which seems to have completely disappeared since the early 1960s? No, not necessarily fraud, possibly simply not better known at the time ...

Edited by O Volante, 19 January 2012 - 21:19.

[David McKinney]

I don't have a 104 in my records, but 102, 106 and 110 were all 1951 numberings...

I wonder if 104 was an earlier Landi car, with an engine smaller than 4.5 litres?

[Arjan de Roos]

The car of Van der Lof has been in their ownership for more than 25 years. The Obrist/BE car is a different one.

Van der Lof bought this car from a UK dealer (Colin Crabbe) who had purchased three Ferrari monoposti (all in need of restoration) from Uruguay. I believe one other was the 212 F1 #102 (De Dion) currently also in Holland.
Van der Lof sr. stated in interviews this car holds chassis numer 5.

[Michael Müller]

I don't have a 104 in my records, but 102, 106 and 110 were all 1951 numberings...

I wonder if 104 was an earlier Landi car, with an engine smaller than 4.5 litres?

104 (or possibly 0104) was the first Landi Ferrari, the tipo 166 FL.

[David McKinney]

Thanks Michael - that's probably why it is missing from my Euro-centric records

[Arjan de Roos]

Just some info from the net:

http://www.barchetta...tory/index.html
Also the Barchetta guys spotted #5 on the car. Indeed #0566 is also applicable and I do not want to even give the slightest hint that this is the 'real' 375/5.

On the middle of this page a selection of pics of Van der Lof in his car during an event in the eighties.
http://victrace.blog...01_archive.html