Footnotes

• This remarkable project, paying homage to perhaps the most rare of all postwar competition Maseratis, is offered here as an expression of the tremendous enthusiasm and dedication shown by German collector and Maseratista Peter Kaus over so many years in his Rosso Bianco Collection at Aschaffenburg.
  The original prototype that this car reproduces actually originated
  as far back as 1962 as the first of the 4-litre V8-engined Maserati
  151 Coupé cars, entered at Le Mans and Brands Hatch by the ever-
  enthusiastic Colonel Johnny Simone’s Maserati France organisation.
  At Le Mans in 1962 the car was co-driven by Maurice Trintignant and
  Lucien Bianchi, and for 1963 the same chassis was updated as the
  Maserati 151/1 variant equipped with a Lucas fuel-injected 4,941cc
  wet-sump V8 engine with bore and stroke dimensions of 94mm x 89mm,
  developed a claimed 430bhp at 7,000rpm.
  Driver André Simon was immensely quick in this red-liveried car with
  its white and blue centreline stripes, setting the fifth fastest
  practice time during the opening session at the Sarthe circuit, with
  a time of 3 mins 58.0 secs and clocking the highest speed of 291km/h
  – 181mph – through the Mulsanne Straight speed trap. In second
  practice he lapped in 3:56.8, and was then delayed at the start of
  the 24-Hour race because the heat of the sun had glued the driver’s
  door shut onto its rubber sealing strips! André Simon had to wrench
  it open at the third or fourth attempt, and then it slammed into his
  face, cutting his nose quite badly…
  Simon was eleventh through the Dunlop Curve immediately after the
  startline, but at the end of the Mulsanne Straight he slid into
  second place, led by only Phil Hill in the Aston Martin Project 215
  Coupé. When the former World Champion ran over debris from a crashed
  car and called at the Aston Martin pit after five laps, Simon
  inherited the lead, and he held it from all the factory Ferraris at
  the end of the opening hour. After two hours the Maserati 151/1 still
  led, now with ‘Lucky’ Casner having taken over from Simon but on
  the car’s 40th lap the transmission failed, and the car was retired.
  It reappeared in the Reims International Trophy race preceding the
  French Grand Prix, driven by Simon, and then finished eighth in the
  Trophée d’Auvergne 3-Hour race at Clermont-Ferrand, driven by
  Lucien Bianchi. In the Guards Trophy race at Brands Hatch in England
  it finished a troubled 13th, again entrusted to Bianchi, after which
  it was returned to the Modena factory to be completely reworked.
  Its original-style rakish bodywork was removed and the chassis was
  used as the basis for what Ing. Alfieri listed as the Tipo 151/3
  design while Col. Simone christened it the Tipo 152. The original
  body still survives today, and it being restored to running order
  with a replacement chassis and suitable engine and running gear
  refitted. It is not, therefore, to be confused with the differently-
  bodied tribute car being offered here.
  Meanwhile, the basic ‘151.002’ chassis’ wheelbase was lengthened
  from 2350mm to 2400mm and both front and rear track widths were
  widened by 100mm. New 15-inch Borrani wire wheels were adopted,
  fitted with the latest wide-profile Dunlop Racing tyres. The 5-litre
  fuel-injected engine was converted to dry-sump lubrication and
  persuaded to yield an extra 20bhp, totalling 410. A simplified yet
  extremely spectacular-looking aerodynamic Coupé body was designed for
  the car by Piero Drogo and fashioned by Mario Allegretti and his
  craftsmen. The car was run at the 1964 Le Mans Test Weekend and André
  Simon and Maurice Trintignant lapped in 3 mins 56.1 secs and 3:58.0
  respectively. Guerrino Bertocchi subsequently achieved 315km/h –
  196mph – in the car on the Modena-Bologna Autostrada, and reported
  that high-speed wandering was no longer a problem. During testing at
  Monza, however, André Simon crashed at 250km/h due to a right-hand
  rear wheel collapse.
  
  The damage was quickly repaired and the car presented at Le Mans,
  liveried in red with broad centreline stripes in white and blue.
  Practice there was beset by problems with the bodywork fouling the
  tyres, and on the opening lap of the race Trintignant found the
  throttle fouled and he pulled into the Maserati France pit where a
  block of sponge rubber was found jamming the throttle slides. The
  French veteran returned to the fray lapping at the same pace as
  Richie Ginther’s leading rear-engined Ford GT!
  
  After an hour’s racing Trintignant and the Maserati 151/3 was back
  up to 17th place, and after two hours it lay tenth. André Simon
  became the first driver ever to exceed 300km/h through the Mulsanne
  speed trap during the 24-Hour race – clocking 310.2km/h –
  192.6mph. After three hours the Maserati was seventh, and after five
  Trintignant/Simon had grabbed third place. But as dusk fell, the
  Maserati’s lights gave trouble, its brakes were failing, and just
  after midnight the car had to be withdrawn due to an untraceable
  electrical short-circuit.
  Col. Simone then entered his 151/3 in the Reims 12-Hours – to be
  driven again by Trintignant/Simon and the big Coupé ran sixth until
  its engine began to misfire during the fourth hour. Alternator
  problems dogged the car and the use of single ignition, instead of
  the dual ignition employed in previous years, cost the team dear.
  They had to withdraw the car after 6hrs 55mins racing.
  On October 11, 1964, the Paris 1,000Kms race at Montlhéry saw the
  Maserati France bolide out again with Trintignant/Simon co-driving,
  and the former powered the big car into fourth place at the 20-lap
  mark, before being forced to stop due to a broken condenser wire. The
  pounding meted out by the frost-heaved Montlhéry banking would ruin
  Maserati’s chances, however, and on lap 50 the 151/3 was out with
  its oil-pump bracket broken.
  Col. Simone remained determined, however, to demonstrate the ageing
  front-engined car’s continuing worth, and back at the works in
  Modena two fresh and enlarged dry-sump, fuel-injected V8 engines were
  prepared for the 1965 season – one of 5,055cc developing around
  450bhp for Le Mans practice and the other of 5,044cc giving some
  430bhp for the race. Dual ignition was re-adopted, with one system
  fed by distributor, the other by magneto as in 1962. Fuel tankage was
  increased from 139 litres to 160, and front suspension was redesigned
  to accommodate huge inboard Girling disc brakes. The body shape was
  refined around the tail, and the car was repainted white with red and
  blue centreline striping. Maserati classified this further revised
  car the Tipo 151/4, while Simone dubbed it the Tipo 154.
  The 1965 Le Mans Test Weekend began on Saturday, April 10. ‘Lucky’
  Casner was to drive the car for Col. Simone, with Masten Gregory as
  co-driver. However, the unfortunate Casner lost control just after
  the final hump on the Mulsanne Straight, the superfast Maserati
  crashed into trees and the American was killed instantly, the car
  destroyed, and the wreckage subsequently scrapped.
  
  The great car in its 1964 form fascinated German collector Peter
  Kaus, and in 1980 he was able to borrow from the Modena factory the
  surviving manechino body buck defining the shape of that year’s
  Maserati France Le Mans contender – the 151/3. This body former had
  been employed by Allegretti to shape the 1964 body panels to the
  Drogo Coupé style, and now it was re-used by Allegretti to recreate
  the body in more or less its original 1964 form for Mr Kaus. This new
  body was then mounted upon a chassis made in Germany, and fitted with
  a Tipo 54 marine V8 engine located in Italy. This car – effectively
  Peter Kaus’s tribute to Col. Johnny Simone, Maserati France and the
  last roofed-in hurrah of the Orsi-Maserati story at Le Mans – is now
  offered here in all its most considerable glory.
  Estimate CHF 250,000 – 350,000