Friday's Ferrari

This car competed in a round of the Shell Ferrari Maserati Historic Challenge series of races at the Vintage Sports Car Club's SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2004 and is seen here leaving the pit lane during a practice session.

It's Swiss driver Conrad Ulrich's 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta, better known as the Tour de France, or TdF. Four different versions of the TdF were built between 1955 and 1959 and are identified by the number of louvres in the sail panel behind the side windows. Fourteen examples of the earliest model were produced, and these cars didn't have any louvres. The second version had fourteen louvres and nine of these were built, then seventeen cars were built with three louvres and lastly thirty-seven with one louvre. Conrad Ulrich's car, which is chassis #1141GT, is one of the one louvre models. All the cars have the Giaocchino Colombo designed 2,953cc V12 engine, and have Scaglietti designed bodies except for five of the Series One model where the bodies were designed by Zagato.

On 25 January 2019 I showed a photograph of the car stationary in the pit lane at this meeting.

Friday's Ferrari

This car is pictured in the pit lane during a practice session at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2004 where it took part in a round of the Shell Ferrari Maserati Historic Challenge series of races.

It's the 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB TdF of Swiss driver Conrad Ulrich and is chassis #1141GT. Officially known as the Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta it began to be known as the LWB - or Long Wheel Base model - after the introduction of a new series with a wheel base 20cm shorter which was referred to as the Short Wheel Base, or SWB. It received the TdF title after its win in the 1956 Tour de France endurance race which allowed it to use that name, as the official Ferrari website says:

'Any manufacturer whose car won the event, was permitted by the organisers to use the event name as part of the model title. Hence, after winning the 1956 running of the event, Ferrari could use the nomenclature. Although never used officially, it has become the general term used to identify this series of berlinettas.'

The car has the Colombo designed 2,953cc V12 engine used by the majority of the 250 series of cars, and is one of the 37 single louvre series of TdF models that were produced between 1957 and 1959.

Friday's Ferrari

This car participated in a round of the Shell Ferrari Maserati Historic Challenge series at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2004.

The blue car is Stephen Dudley's 1950 Ferrari 166/195, which I've featured before, on 6 September 2013, at Silverstone. The car was originally a 166, but was converted to 195 specifications in 1951 and is chassis #071S. The car behind it is the 1951 Maserati A6GCM of Julia de Baldanza (#2033) and in front is the 1958 Ferrari 250 GT LWB TdF of Conrad Ulrich (#1141GT). The photograph was taken at Redgate corner.