Cernobbio, 23rd - 25th of May
The second to last Class was reserved for the Gentleman Drivers
cars, GT racers that could be bought by the wealthy privateers to
run both in GT races and on the public road.
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The first of these coupés was the Fiat 8V Rapi Berlinetta, the first
V8 powered Fiat of this era. More known for the smaller 4-cylinder
engine Fiat finally decided to build a V8 in the early 1950s, beside
several different body versions of Rapi, Zagato and the Supersonic
by Ghia the engine was also used by Siata in their spiders.
Maybe the most iconic Gentleman’s Car was the 300 SL
Gullwing, the road version of the earlier LM cars. Few of the about
1400 cars features a competition history as just few were raced in
anger but even less feature the ultimate configuration of the
lightweight alloy version. The car in Como featured both being one
of just 29 alloy cars entered at the Mille Miglia in 1956 and 1957
by its Italian owner. Today restored to perfection the car was
awarded by the jury with the second in class and the best interior
design of its tartan seats.
A total different approach was the Ferrari 250 GT LWB “TdF”.
Whereas the Gullwing was designed as a road car that also could
be raced the TdF was a pure GT race car that also could be
driven on public roads. The car in Como was one of the most
successful of all early Ferrari GT (0677GT). The car was entered
by the Scuderia Ferrari driven by Olivier Gendebien in the early
1957 season. Gendebien was not amazed in the beginning
learning that he was entered on a GT car rather than the faster
Sports Prototype but after winning the Giro di Sicilia and coming
home third overall (and 1 in the GT class) at the Mille Miglia he
was so impressed that he took over the car mid-season. In
September of the same year he won the event that was name
giving for the model, the Tour de France, several more victories on
various events should follow before the car went to the second
private owner. The car was a regular entrant both at the Mille
Miglia Storico as well as at the Tour Auto until about 10 years
ago, today it is more regular on show events (like many others
due to their value), the car was named Best in Class.
Following the LWB TdF was the so-called 250 GT Interim, based
on the long chassis with the body design very similar to the one
on the SWB. The cars are easily differentiable by the second
window behind the door. The interim was the car to be raced at
the Tour de France in 1959 and the car in Como (1519GT) came
third overall behind the winning sister car of Gendebien. The car
was represented in the original Swiss racing colour of red with a
white centre stripe, this car was originally entered by the “Ecurie
La Meute” but the livery might be known by the Scuderia
Filipinetti.
The class was rounded off by the Talbot Lago America Coupé, the
last car before the company was sold to Simca. The Talbot Lago
was powered by the BMW V8 2.5 Litre engine.
Report & Images ... Peter&Wolfgang Singhof
www.ClassicCarPhotography.de
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