1960 Scarab-Offenhauser F1

Julian Bronson, 1960 Scarab Offenhauser F1, Dijon Motors Cup 2016

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Reventlow Automobiles, Venice, California, USA.  Lance Reventlow was the heir to the Woolworth fortune being the only son of Barbara Hutton. He started racing in the mid-fifties and in 1957 started building Chevrolet V8 engined sports racing cars that he and Chuck Daigh raced in 1958 with quite some success winning the SCCA championship. Following the Sports Car program Reventlow decided to build an American F1 car.  The car was late and didn't enter any GP in 1959 when it might have been more competitive.  The Scarab was a traditional front engined F1 car but by 1960 all of the top cars had rear engines except for Ferrari who had a great engine.  Powering the Scarab was a specially commissioned 4 cylinder 2.5 litre aluminium Offenhauser engine with desmodronic valves that never ran properly in period races.  The cars made their debut at the 1960 Monaco GP but did not qualify.  Both cars ran but retired with engine problems in the Belgian GP.  The only finish was Chuck Daigh's tenth place in the US GP at Riverside at the end of the season.   In 1961 Scarabs raced briefly in the Intercontinental formula with enlarged engines but best finish was just seventh in the International Trophy at Silverstone. The car pictured above is chassis 003 that never raced in period, was exhibited as part of the Donington collection for a number of years, but is now a very fast historic front engined F1 car.  Today the engine has about 240bhp and more torque than in period.  

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.