Scuderia Serenissima

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Used by Scuderia Serenissima: The Ferrari 250 GT SWB "Breadvan"

The Scuderia Serenissima was an Italian racing team founded by Conte Giovanni Volpi di Misurata in the late 1950s .

nomenclature

From 1962 the racing team started under the name Scuderia SSS Repubblica di Venezia and is also listed under this name in the registration lists of international sports car races. The three SSS stand for the identical letters in the word Serenissima. The word Serenissima means "the most illustrious" in the Italian translation and was very often used to describe the city of Venice in a historical context .

Racing outings with customer vehicles

Initially, the Scuderia took part in sports car races, in which they mainly used Ferrari customer cars.

In addition, the racing team took part in two Grand Prix in the 1961 Formula 1 season . Once the team appeared in a Cooper - Maserati , driven by Maurice Trintignant , and for the 1961 French Grand Prix a De Tomaso F1 powered by an OSCA engine was entered for Giorgio Scarlatti . Another De Tomaso with an Alfa Romeo engine appeared in Italy for Nino Vaccarella . Both missions were unsuccessful.

The development of our own vehicles

The connection to Ferrari broke off when Volpi made a financial contribution in 1961 to the Automobili Turismo e Sport (ATS) project, which had been founded shortly before by a number of former Ferrari employees and aimed at providing Scuderia Ferrari with self-developed sports and racing cars To compete. Volpi left the company after only a few months and instead tried to build up racing car production with his own Scuderia Serenissima. It all started with the legendary Ferrari 250 GT SWB Breadvan , an unusual coupé developed by Giotto Bizzarrini based on Volpi's ideas and based on the Ferrari 250 GTO , which was dressed by Piero Drogo and completed by Neri e Bonacini . The breadvan was sensational and sometimes relegated the factory Ferraris to their places.

In 1963 Giovanni Volpi founded the Automobili Serenissima company , which produced its own racing cars and engines in individual copies until 1970. According to the prevailing opinion today, series production of the cars did not materialize. Only one copy of each type was produced, and some chassis were given different bodies one after the other. The names of the vehicles are not standardized. Overall, the Automobili Serenissima cars still have an aura of mystery, as not all questions regarding automotive history have been clarified.

McLaren Serenissima

The Scuderia Serenissima became known to a broader public because the Italian eight-cylinder engine was used by the young McLaren team at three Grand Prix events in the 1966 Formula 1 season . Bruce McLaren , who drove his own car, failed at the Belgian and Dutch Grand Prix because of engine defects in the McLaren M2 B, but at the British Grand Prix he finished sixth, scoring a World Championship point for the Serenissima engine. Regardless of this, McLaren switched to Ford engines this season.

Results

Victories in the sports car world championship

year run vehicle Driver 1 Driver 2
1962 Trophée d'Auvergne Ferrari 250 GTO ItalyItaly Carlo-Maria Abate

literature

  • Count, pay! . Presentation of the brand and history of the vehicles produced in: Oldtimer-Markt, edition 09/2008, p. 10 ff.
  • David Hodges: Racing Cars from A – Z after 1945 , 1st edition Stuttgart (Motorbuch Verlag) 1993.

Individual evidence

  1. Successes in the sports car world championship in 1962 ( Memento from June 24, 2003 in the web archive archive.today )