Ferrari 750 Monza

Ferrari 750 Monza Scaglietti, built in 1954

Ferrari 750 Monza at the AvD-Oldtimer-Grand-Prix 1981 at the Nürburgring

The Ferrari 750 Monza is a racing car that Ferrari built in 1954 and used by Scuderia in sports car races in 1954 and 1955.

engine and gears

The 750 Monza was introduced in 1954 and had a 4-cylinder in- line engine that developed 260 hp. This engine, a design by Aurelio Lampredi , had been developed for Formula 2 in 1952 and 1953 with a two-liter displacement and already had 170 hp in the Ferrari 500 . The aluminum cylinder head and cylinder block were cast together in order to rule out leaks caused by a defective cylinder head gasket; the liners were screwed in from below. Alberto Ascari won the drivers' world championship with this engine in both years. Lampredi made minor changes to the crankcase and cylinder head for the sports car engine, which had been bored out to three liters. An unsynchronized five-speed gearbox is installed on the rear axle ( transaxle ).

Chassis and body

The car has independent wheel suspension with double wishbones at the front, a De-Dion axle with transverse leaf spring and lever shock absorbers and duplex drum brakes on all four wheels at the rear . The first version also had a transverse leaf spring at the front, which was later replaced by coil springs. The light metal body in which the driver sits on the right is screwed onto a ladder frame with oval longitudinal and round cross struts. In order to reduce air resistance, the passenger seat is covered when racing.

Races

1954

The 750 Monza - chassis number 0440M - was used for the first time in the 1954 Bari 3-hour race , a round of the Italian sports car championship. At the wheel was Umberto Maglioli , who retired after an engine failure.

The 750 was given the additional designation “Monza” after Mike Hawthorn and Umberto Maglioli's victory at the Supercortemaggiore in Monza in 1954. However, the car is on the start list as the Ferrari 735 Monza , a special feature that cannot be fully deciphered. If you follow the racing history of the 735 Monza, which is sparse and is almost exclusively restricted to use by private drivers, you will discover chassis numbers analogous to the 750 Monza. A mix-up with the previous model, the Ferrari 735S Spider can almost certainly be ruled out, since a race victory was achieved with this vehicle, but not in Monza, but by the Frenchman François Picard at the Penya-Rhin Grand Prix in October 1954. Den The 750 made its first international appearance at the Reims 12-hour race in 1954 . This time Umberto Maglioli shared the cockpit with Frenchman Robert Manzon . In the early hours of the morning, the race started at midnight, the car broke down due to a gearbox failure. This was followed by further successes in national sports car races in Italy and with the triumph of the RAC Tourist Trophy the first victory in the sports car world championship , driven by Mike Hawthorn and Maurice Trintignant , this race being one of the curiosities in the history of sports car racing. In the Tourist Trophy, points for the sports car world championship were not based on the overall ranking but on the index ranking. Thus the little DB HBR of Paul Armagnac and Gérard Laureau won there , who had only finished 21st in the overall standings.

At the end of the year, the cars were increasingly being sold to privateers. Alfonso de Portago won the Nassau Automobile Cup in December 1954 in the vehicle with the chassis number 0428MD and came second in the same vehicle in the Nassau Trophy Race a day later .

1955

In the sports car world championship in 1955 , the Scuderia saw less use of the 750 Monza, where the cars had almost no chance against the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR . At the 1000 km race in Buenos Aires this year Maglioli and Clemar Bucci were disqualified and only two private 750 Monza cars were used in the 24 Hours of Le Mans , entered this year by the French Michel Poberejsky and Pierre Louis-Dreyfus . Pobjersky with partner Masten Gregory and Dreyfus, who shared the steering wheel with Jean Lucas , both dropped out after technical defects.

Despite the criticism of the driving behavior of the car, which the racing driver Paul Frère criticized after a serious accident by describing the car as “a piece of wood with four wheels on it and a magnificent machine”, the 750 Monza was not unpopular with private drivers. In the USA and Europe, pilots such as Phil Hill , Walt Hansgen , Carroll Shelby , Luigi Piotti , Piero Carini , Ernie McAfee and Louis Rosier achieved a wealth of race victories in national sports car races. The successes also included overall victory in the Hyères 12-hour race , a long-distance race that was well-known and popular in the 1950s. Chassis 0486M was driven by the Swiss André Canonica and his Italian team-mate Gino Munaron .

Alberto Ascari had a fatal accident on May 26, 1955 during a test drive in Monza with a 750 Monza. Paul Frére did not rule out that this accident was also due to the driving characteristics of the car. The cause of the accident was never clarified.

1956 to 1963

In 1956 the Scuderia switched to successor models such as the Ferrari 500TR and the 750 Monza were now driven exclusively by private teams. The 750 Monza had a total of 219 races by 1963 - the last known use in an SCCA race in Greenwood, USA in June 1963. 55 overall and 24 class wins were achieved. Most of the races at the age of 19 had the internationally largely unknown Swede Gunnar Carlsson , who dominated the Swedish sports car championship with a 750 Monza in the second half of the 1950s.

Technical specifications

Parameters	Ferrari 750 Monza (1955)
Engine:	Four-stroke 4-cylinder in-line engine (installed in front)
Cooling:	water
Displacement :	2999 cc
Bore × stroke:	103 × 90 mm
Compression:	9.2: 1
Valve control:	2 overhead camshafts, driven by gears
Carburetor:	2 Weber double carburetors 58 DCO A / 3
Power:	260 hp (191 kW) at 6400 rpm
Maximum torque:	272 Nm
Power transmission:	Multi-disc dry clutch, 5-speed gearbox (not synchronized), limited-slip differential, rear-wheel drive
Frame and body:	Steel tubular ladder frame, light metal body (screwed to the frame)
Steering:	Worm steering
Front suspension:	Double wishbones, coil springs, lever shock absorbers
Rear suspension:	De-Dion axle, transverse leaf spring, lever shock absorber
Brakes:	hydraulically operated duplex drum brakes
Track width front / rear:	1278/1284 mm
Wheelbase :	2250 mm
Tire size front / rear:	5.25 × 16 / 6.5 × 16
Length × width × height:	4165 × 1651 × 1054 mm
Empty weight (without driver):	760 kg
Top speed:	up to 260 km / h

Production numbers

The figures for the number of vehicles produced in total vary between 30 and 31. Most were bodyworked by Scaglietti (27 or 30) and three or just one by Pininfarina .

Market value

Although many were built with 31 pieces compared to other Ferrari types and the 750 Monza, unlike other 1950s Ferrari models, only had a 4-cylinder engine, the vehicles available at auctions achieve maximum values. In 2006 the car with chassis number 0492M sold for $ 1,107,000 in the United States. The car went on sale again five years later and was more than twice as expensive as it was in 2006, at $ 2,500,000.

literature

• Pino Casamassima: Storia della Scuderia Ferrari. Nada Editore, Vimodrome 1998, ISBN 88-7911-179-5 .
• Peter Braun / Gregor Schulz: The great Ferrari manual. Heel, Königswinter 2006, ISBN 3-89880-501-8 .

Web links

Commons : Ferrari 750 Monza  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e} Hans-Jörg Götzl: wet and wild . In Motor Klassik , issue 11/2011, Motor Presse Stuttgart, ISSN  0177-8862 .
2. ↑ ^{a b c d} Lehbrink / Schlegelmilch: Ferrari . Könemann, Cologne 1995, ISBN 3-89508-076-4 .
3. ^ Successes in sports car races in 1955
4. ↑ Race results of the 750 Monza
5. ↑ Auction data at Supercars.net