1955 Maserati 300S

This was one of the competitors in the Coys Race for Pre-1959 Drum Brake Sports Cars at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2002.

It's the 1955 Maserati 300S of Rodney Smith, chassis #3060, and was driven in the race by Mark Gillies. The Maserati 300S has a 6-cylinder engine based on the 2½ litre unit of the 250F Grand Prix car with a lengthened stroke to bring the capacity up to 2,991cc. The car's first major race was the 1956 Sebring 12 Hour race where it was driven by Cesare Perdisa and Carlos Menditéguy, but Menditéguy crashed and overturned the car during the race. The car was then badly damaged when the trailer retrieving it was hit by a truck. The rebuild wasn't completed till 1957, but on its return to Sebring in 1959 the car was once again badly damaged in Edwin Lawrence's fatal accident during practice. It was rebuilt yet again with a fibreglass body, and later a 3.9 litre Chevrolet V8 engine was installed.  The car was fully restored to its current form in the early 1990s. The car number 18 in the background is the 1958 Cooper T45 of Anthony Ditheridge which took part in the HGPCA Pre-1966 Grand Prix Cars race.