1956 Fiat 306/2 Bartoletti

Fiat 306/2 Bartoletti transporter at the Le Mans Classic 2016

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Fiat, Turin, Italy.   This is a very famous and much travelled racing car transporter.  Maserati actually owned it first and had Bartoletti convert the 1956 Fiat bus chassis into a racing car transporter.   After Maserati withdrew from F1 racing in 1957 they sold the transporter to Lance Reventlow who needed one for his Scarab cars. Scarab raced in F1 in 1960 and in Formula intercontinental in 1961. In 1962 Scarab folded and the transporter was bought by Caroll Shelby. Shelby added the third axle which was needed for the weight of his Cobras.  After Shelby stopped using it, it went to Team Lotus and then Alan Mann Racing.   The next owner was David Piper, who rented it to Steve McQueen for the film Le Mans.  In the film it appears in a number of different colour schemes!  The Fiat originally had a Fiat 12 cylinder engine but at some stage that was replaced by a 11.5 litre Leyland 6 cylinder.   

1964 Ferrari 250 LM Berlinetta

The Clive Joy and Patrick Simon 1964 Ferrari 250 LM, Le Mans Classic 2016.

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For more photos of the 1962 to 1965 plateau at the 2016 Le Mans Classic, click on the link above.

Ferrari,  Maranello, Italy. The 250LM was developed out of the works 250P and retained the name even though most of them should have been called 275LM due to the cylinder capacity (the engine was originally developed for the 3 litre 250 GTO).  It was intended for private racers and Ferrari had intended it to be homologated as a GT car but only produced 30 rather the necessary 100.  Thus in 1964 and 1965 it raced as a prototype.  Under new rules it was homologated as a Group 4 Sports car in 1966.  Many continued racing internationally for many years.  The most famous victory fell to the NART who won Le Mans in 1965 with Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory driving. Amazingly this was the last Ferrari overall victory at Le Mans! The cars had a Ferrari 3.3 litre V12 engine mounted behind the driver and driving the rear wheels.  The chassis was steel and the body was a 2 seater berlinetta style. The one pictured above is Chassis 5907.  I believe this was originally the Maranello Concessionaires UK car with which Graham Hill and Jo Bonnier won the 1964 Reims 12 hours and with which David Piper and Tony Maggs won the Rand 9 hours at Kyalami the same year.  A great endurance racer and won of my favourite Ferraris of all time.  A joy for us all to see Mr Joy!