Footnotes

• This remarkably imposing V8 rear-engined sports-prototype is the last
  of the long line of Maserati competition cars built during the Gruppo
  Orsi empire’s long ownership of the Italian marque. As such it marks
  the high tide of their development right through the wide range of
  A6GCS, 150, 200, 250, 300, 350 and 450S sports-racing classics,
  through the famous ‘Birdcage’ Tipo 60-64 models and the big V8-
  powered 151 Berlinetta designs of 1962-65.
  The fatal accident to Maserati France driver ‘Lucky’ Casner in the
  ultimate Maserati 151/4 Coupé during the Le Mans test weekend of 1965
  left the company’s still enthusiastic patron, American-born Colonel
  Johnny Simone, with no entry for the 24-Hours endurance classic.
  He knew that in the Modena factory there was a spare 5,044cc V8 151/4
  engine available, but now without a chassis to accommodate it.
  Ingegnere Giulio Alfieri had a design prepared for a more refined
  version of the Tipo 63/64 ‘Birdcage’-chassised open-cockpit sports-
  prototype theme, and in May that year Col. Simone commissioned
  Maserati to go ahead and build him a hybrid version of it, to be
  powered by the 5.1-litre 4-cam V8 unit. Sponsorship came from BP
  France and with Le Mans only six weeks ahead work began in a rush on
  this Tipo 65 car.
  Alfieri directed that an obsolescent Tipo 63 chassis frame be drawn
  from the factory’s famous ‘mortuary’ store of potentially useful
  scrap. This chassis is believed to have been the long-wheelbase
  serial ’63.008’ – replacement for a short-wheelbase Tipo 63
  using the same serial number – which had first been completed at the
  Maserati factory during April, 1961.
  
  In original form it had been supplied to the youthful Venetian Count
  Giovanni Volpi di Misurata’s Scuderia Serenissima racing team. It
  was powered by a 4-cylinder 2,980cc engine and had been campaigned in
  the 1961 Targa Florio by Nino Vaccarella/Maurice Trintignant,
  finishing fourth overall. In May that year it had been co-driven by
  Vaccarella/Trintignant and Giorgio Scarlatti in the Nürburgring
  1,000Kms, but failed to finish. It appears that the chassis was then
  stripped of all useable mechanical parts and consigned to the
  Maserati factory’s redundant-parts store.
  Once retrieved for the Maserati France Le Mans programme of 1965,
  this chassis frame was cut in half and placed back upon the chassis
  jig, where a new rear section was constructed and welded into place
  behind the existing rear cockpit bulkhead, while the front section
  was also extensively modified to Alfieri’s latest requirements.
  Where the original four-year old Tipo 63 had weighed a total 780kg,
  this new V8-engined Tipo 65 would turn the scales at nearer 1,200kg.
  Much wider new ‘doughnut’ racing tyres were available in 1965 than
  had been produced in 1961, and where the original Tipo 63’s front
  and rear track widths had been 1250 and 1200mm respectively, the new
  Tipo 65’s were to be 1400 and 1370mm. The new car offered
  insufficient space for a de Dion-type rear axle as used on all
  preceding ‘Birdcage’ series cars and the 151 Coupés, so the Tipo
  65 was equipped instead with wishbone rear suspension sprung by
  torsion bars. As on the preceding Tipo 151 Coupés, the V8 engine was
  equipped with dual ignition, a Bosch alternator and a Lucas dynamo,
  each fully interchangeable. Two sill-mounted fuel tanks plus a third
  in the passenger side of the cockpit provided a combined capacity of
  154 litres.
  
  Having taken such a flying-start by cannibalising the old Tipo 63
  chassis’ centre-section, this new car was completed from Col.
  Simone’s commission in just thirty days, and it emerged weighing
  some 160kg more than the ill-fated Tipo 151/4 Coupé which it
  replaced. Maserati described its 5,044cc 4-cam V8 engine as
  developing no less than 430-bhp at 7,000rpm. It drove via a five-
  speed plus reverse transaxle and was geared for a maximum speed of
  some 320km/h (195mph).
  
  The car was tested by Guerrino Bertocchi and the great Umberto
  Maglioli at the Modena aerautodromo and at Monza, with its new Spider
  body work still, in bare aluminium, unpainted. It was then sprayed
  overall white with red/blue/red centreline stripes, and was taken off
  to France on June 14, 1965, with just five days to go before the
  target Le Mans 24-Hours classic.
  
  At the last moment prior to the great race Col. Simone had secured
  the services of Swiss Formula 1 privateer Josef ‘Seppi’ Siffert,
  together with Porsche works team newboy Jochen Neerpasch. The French
  driver Jean-Claude Vidilles was retained as reserve. Works mechanics
  in attendance with the car were Guerrino Bertocchi himself – the
  factory’s veteran chief mechanic and test driver – Rino Ragazzi,
  Cleto Grandi and Giancarlo Martinelli. The Tipo 65 had received the
  merest minimum of testing.
  
  Le Mans scrutineering revealed a forward weight distribution of
  532kg, rearward 668kg. Jochen Neerpasch’s first-practice session lap
  time of 4 mins 4.9secs was 17th fastest. Four additional cooling
  scoops were opened in the nose. Jo Siffert then clocked 4mins 3.0secs
  in the second session, but others had also improved, leaving this
  unique Maserati 21st fastest overall.
  
  Jo Siffert took the start, sprinting across to the long white-painted
  Maserati, leaping in, firing-up that big V8 engine and wheel-spinning
  away right-handed into the day-long race. In fact he made a brilliant
  start and the Tipo 65 was fourth entering the Esses on that opening
  lap, headed only by the Ford GTs of Chris Amon, Bob Bondurant and
  Bruce McLaren. But the works Ferrari P2s, Jochen Rindt’s NART-
  entered Ferrari LM and Dan Gurney’s Cobra Daytona were quickly into
  their stride and as the pack streamed back past the pits to begin lap
  2, Siffert and this latest Maserati lay eighth.
  
  Through the Esses and down to the right-hander at Tertre Rouge,
  opening out onto the Mulsanne Straight, Siffert came under pressure
  from Innes Ireland’s Ford GT, and the Swiss ex-racing motorcyclist
  entered the corner too fast, spun, and crashed into the straw bales
  lining the inside of the course. His car bounced off with its nose
  radiator punctured. Siffert succeeded in limping it back to the pits,
  but leaked coolant all the way. Under the Le Mans regulations it was
  forbidden to replenish fluids until at least 25 laps had been
  completed, and consequently the heart-broken Maserati crew were left
  with no alternative but to retire their thirty-day wonder after less
  than ten minutes’ racing…
  
  This car was returned to Modena for repair, and was modestly updated
  with a view to possible further competition, the rear suspension
  torsion bars being replaced by coil-springs and the front suspension
  modified with long-stroke Koni dampers. Even a fresh dash panel was
  fitted. Some 90kg were shed from its overall weight, and the repaired
  nose section was shorter than the original. But the car remained at
  the factory in storage – unraced – through the mid-1960s. In 1966
  it featured as stage-dressing in the background of an Italian spy
  movie. Then in 1967 young Austrian enthusiast Egon Hofer – from
  Salzburg – expressed interest in racing the car for Col. Simone in
  suitable European Group 7 sports car races. The head of Maserati
  France agreed, and Hofer took delivery of the car on July 29, 1967.
  However, on August 23 Col. Simone and his wife, French movie star
  Junie Astor, were both killed in a tragic head-on collision with a
  heavy lorry near Avallon while motoring from Paris to Nice in his
  Maserati Mistral Coupé. Egon Hofer abandoned all plans to return the
  Tipo 65 to racing, and offered instead to sell the car for Simone’s
  surviving heirs, brother George and sister Charlotte.
  
  In March 1968 it was acquired by Swiss collector Hans Schertenlieb.
  He commissioned body modifications including a new nose, twin
  headlights, additional air-scoops on both front and rear fenders, the
  cars’ second new dashboard and outsize tyres – the panel work
  being carried out by Carrozzeria Drogo in Modena.
  
  Mr Schertenlieb soon passed the car on to its original Le Mans
  driver, Jo Siffert, for his personal collection in Fribourg. When
  poor ‘Seppi’ was subsequently killed in the Formula 1 BRM at
  Brands Hatch in October 1971, the Tipo 65 was sold from his estate to
  Englishman Bob Owen, racing secretary of the Historic Sports Car Club
  (HSCC). With added roll-over bar and cut-out fenders it was raced
  regularly by Mr Owen in suitable British events, and at Oulton Park
  – driven by Willie Green – it competed fiercely with a Lola T70.
  
  Bob Owen eventually sold it to Sid Colberg of Anglo-American
  Automobile Investments, and it was advertised for sale by English
  dealer Chris Stewart in December 1978. It was bought at that point by
  German collector Peter Kaus, who retained it as one of the stars of
  his Rosso-Bianco Museum at Aschaffenburg for the following 27 years.
  
  This remarkable and still plainly potent grand finale to the Orsi
  years of Maserati competition is offered here as displayed at
  Aschaffenburg. As such it will plainly require expert inspection and
  preparation before any attempt is made to run it again in earnest. It
  is undeniably the genuine article. It is unique. It is ex-Le Mans,
  and ex-Maserati France/Jo Siffert/Jochen Neerpasch. It is the last
  word in the Ing. Alfieri line of ‘Birdcage’ Maserati development,
  and it is available right now to the highest bidder – right here in
  Gstaad.
  
  
  

Auction Notices

• Although this motor car is acknowledged to be chassis 65.002, it does bear a chassis no. stamped 151.002. For these V8 series cars Maserati used only even numbers therefore 002 indicates the first (and in this case only) car built. The circumstantial evidence for this is that the 1965 entrant of this Tipo 65 was Maserati France who already held a Customs Carnet for 151.002 raced by them at Le Mans in both 1962 and 1963. Therefore the 151.002 stamping on this chassis becomes self explanatory such is the reality of motor racing.

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Category: Motoring / Motor Cars

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