Maserati T61

I took this photograph at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.

According to the programme of the event car number 26 is the Maserati 250S of Robin Lodge, and I have photographs that I took at the meeting showing that car with the number 26, so the car pictured above was not a replacement for that car. It appears to be chassis #2453 which was wrecked in 1959 and a replica was built in the early 1990s using the parts which had been salvaged in the accident. The Barchetta register of racing Maseratis says that the rebuilt car had a white stripe on the left side.

Maserati T61

This car competed in the Louis Vuitton 1950s Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in August 1996.

Listed in the programme of the event as a 1959 Maserati T61 with a 2,890cc engine, but generally known as a Maserati Birdcage on account of its space frame chassis, it was entered for the race by Valentine Lindsay and driven by Stirling Moss. It's chassis #2453, which was totally wrecked in an accident at Daytona in late 1959 but the remains were used to re-create the car in the early 1990s.

On 17 August 2017 I showed photographs of three examples of the Maserati Birdcage, including  this one (then coloured red), at Silverstone in 1992.

Maserati T61

This car was one of the contestants in the 'Classic Car' Sports Car Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1994.

It's the 1960 Maserati T61 'Birdcage' of Hartmut Ibing, and was driven in the race by Peter Hannen. The Maserati T61 had a 2,890cc inline 4-cylinder engine, and this car is chassis #2461 which was acquired when new by Lloyd Casner for his Camoradi team, for whom it won the 1960 Nürburgring 1000 km race in the hands of Stirling Moss and Dan Gurney.

Maserati Birdcage

Three Maserati 'Birdcage' cars took part in the Historic Grand Prix Cars Association Sports Car Race at the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992, one 2-litre T60 model and two of the 3-litre T61's. All three are pictured below.

The car above and below is Nick Mason's 2-litre 1959 Maserati T60 and is chassis #2466.

This is Lindsay Owen-Jones' 3-litre 1960 Maserati T61. chassis #2458.

Above and below is Jeffrey Pattinson's 3-litre 1961 Maserati T61, chassis #2453.

The programme of the event said this about the 'Birdcage' Maseratis:

'Maserati's final fling on the international stage was with their legendary 'Birdcage' models, so named because of the multitude of small tubes which made up their chassis. They proved faster than anything else in 1960 but also more fragile, though the quasi-works Camoradi team managed to win the gruelling 1000km at the Nürburgring that year and again in 1961.

The car entered here by Lindsay Owen-Jones is an ex-Camoradi T61, used once or twice by Stirling Moss (but not in his Nürburgring victory). Nick Mason's is a 2-litre version, a T60 rather than a 2.9-litre T61, originally campaigned by Scuderia Serenissima.'

Maserati T61

Here's a car I photographed in the pit garage at the SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in September 2007.

It took part in the 1950s Sports Car Race and it's a 1960 Maserati T61, entered by R & Mrs M Smith and driven in the race by Matt Gillies.

Here you can see the tubular space frame chassis which gives the car its nickname of 'Maserati Birdcage'.

The Type 61 had a 4-cylinder 2.9 litre engine instead of the 4-cylinder 2 litre engine of the Type 60, and according to Luigi Orsini & Franco Zagari's book 'Maserati - a complete history' the entire production of the Type 61 went to the American market.

Maseratis at Silverstone

These photographs were taken during a practice session during the Christie's International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1992. I don't remember taking the photographs, but looking at the circuit layout as it was then they're obviously taken from inside the paddock at some point between Priory and Brooklands corners.

This is a 1957 Maserati 250S driven by Robin Lodge

A 1957 Maserati 450S driven by German Thomas Bscher, one time head of the Bugatti Automobiles division of Volkswagen AG. Thomas Bscher won the 1995 BPR Global Endurance GT Series driving a McLaren F1 GTR and finished fifth in the 1999 Le Mans 24 hour race driving a BMW V12 LM.

A 1959 Maserati T60 'Birdcage' driven by Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason