Friday's Ferrari

Two cars here seen at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1995.

Both are Ferrari Dino 246 F1 Grand Prix cars, number 2 being shown in the programme as a 1960 car owned and driven in the Pre '61 Grand Prix Car Race by Tony Merrick and number 3 a 1959 car owned and driven by Robin Lodge.

The Dino 246 F1 was introduced in 1958 and used by Ferrari for three seasons, undergoing continuous development during that period. Mike Hawthorn won the World Championship in 1958 despite winning only one race, the French Grand Prix. Peter Collins was the only other winner for Ferrari, in the British Grand Prix at Silverstone and Ferrari finished in second place in the Constructors Championship. The car underwent a change of bodywork for 1959 and again won two races, in France and Germany, the winning driver both times being Tony Brooks who finished in second place in the Drivers Championship and Ferrari were again second in the Constructors Championship. There was little change to the appearance of the car in the 1960 season, but the days of the front-engined Grand Prix car were numbered and the car only won one race, appropriately the Italian Grand Prix, in the hands of Phil Hill - although the race was boycotted by the British teams because the banked circuit at Monza was being used - and this was the last Grand Prix race to be won by a front-engined car. Phil Hill was the top Ferrari driver in the Championship table, finishing in fifth place, and Ferrari were third in the Constructors Championship. After the last race of the 1960 season all the cars except for one were broken up as usually happened to the Grand Prix Ferraris of that period, but since then several cars have been recreated using the engines and other mechanical parts which had been retrieved.

The two cars in the photograph look identical and you can see that the tails look to be the same height. I don't know if there is a mechanical difference between the 1959 and 1960 cars, but as far as the bodywork was concerned I remember that the 1959 cars had a higher tail than the 1960 car - not unlike the Vanwall of that period, but not quite so high. The bottom image in this series of photographs of Phil Hill show him in the 1959 Monaco Grand Prix and you can see the higher tail. In that particular race the car also has a shortened nose as many of the cars racing at Monaco did to reduce the possibility of damage to the car due to the problems of racing at that circuit.

Here's three more photographs of the cars at that 1995 meeting.