I photographed his car at Luffield Corner competing in the Chopard HGPCA Grand Prix Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1993.
It's Thomas Bscher's 1957 Maserati 250F V12, a car built
with a 2,491cc V12 engine instead of the 250F's usual 6-cylinder inline 2,490
unit. It's chassis #2531 and is one of only 2 cars specifically built to take
the V12 engine, and the only one to take part in a World Championship race. It
was entered for the 1957 Italian Grand Prix and driven by Jean Behra, but
retired towards the end of the race with overheating problems. When Maserati
disbanded the team at the end of the 1957 season the engine was removed from
the car, which was sold to Brazilian Antonio de Barros who installed a V8
Chevrolet engine and raced it till the mid-1960s. It was eventually rescued by
Colin Crabbe and restored by Stephen Griswold with the 3 litre V12 engine from
a Maserati T63 sports car. The programme of this Silverstone meeting shows the
engine capacity of the car to be 2,500cc, but I can't find anything that says
it's been reunited with the correct V12 engine.
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