Chassis no. 0210 This beautifully-presented Ferrari began life in 1952 as a 2-litre 4-cylinder engined Tipo ‘500’ before being restored in the 1980s with the enlarged 2-litre Tipo 625 power unit installed. This chassis could legitimately carry engines of either size since this Ferrari model saw frontline service in World Championship 2-litre Formula 2 racing 1952-53 -winning back-to-back Drivers’ World Championship titles with the works team’s number one star Alberto Ascari - and was then updated into World Championship 2-litre guise for the new-sized Formula 1 of 1954-60. When first introduced in 2-litre form these graceful cars were nicknamed the Ferrari 500 ‘Starlet’ by the Italian press, and what could be more appropriate now than to find such a beautiful Starlet in the Californian sun.
The rotund, always cheerful and immensely popular Ascari -drove these 4-cylinder engined cars absolutely brilliantly to secure the Drivers’ World Championship titles in both 1952 and ’53. He was the first man to win consecutive World Championships, and these were also the first-ever World titles to be secured by La Ferrari. The prototype 4-cylinder Ferrari 500 first ran on test in the spring of 1951, instantly delivering a claimed 170 bhp against the preceding 2-litre Tipo 166 V12cylinder model’s 155bhp. The larger 2.5- litre Tipo 625 4-cylinder unit - as fitted today in ‘0210’ here - was actually raced first, at Bari on 2 September 1951, before the 2-litre F2 Tipo 500’s debut at Modena two weeks later. The Ferrari Tipo 500 proved an unqualified success, and through 1952-53 these beautifully proportioned cars simply won every race they entered, save for two non-Championship events in 1952 and the final Grand Prix of 1953. Ferrari in this period totalled no fewer than 30 wins from 33 races entered, and achieved 81 finishes from 109 starts with only 18 retirements ... a truly astounding record.
For 1954 Formula 2 was replaced by the long-awaited new unsupercharged 2.5 litre-Formula 1. All but one of the existing Ferrari 500s - there were at least six, possibly seven works cars built plus five ‘Starlet’ customer versions - were uprated to 2.5 litres to suit, and accordingly reclassified as Tipo 625s. As such they soldiered on into 1955, when French driver Maurice Trintignant won the Monaco GP.
This particular customer Ferrari 500 ‘Starlet’ -chassis ‘0210’ - is accompanied today by a considerable documentation file which includes copies of its Ferrari build-sheets, recording its completion and first test on July 3, 1952 as chassis ‘500/0210/F2’. It was supplied to Rome Ferrari dealer Antonio Checcachi who then used it as a feature of his customer display, basking in the glorious success of its works team sisters. The car was not run seriously until June 6, 1954 when - under the new 2-litre Formula 1 regulations - it was entered for the non-Championship Gran Premio Roma on the Castelfusano public road circuit, driven by Guido Mancini. Handicapped by being still 2-litre engined against full 2-litre opposition, ‘0210’ here in Mancini’s inexperienced hands did not finish. Still in 2-litre form, ‘0210’ then passed to Giorgio Scarlatti who made his serious debut with it in the Naples GP street-race on May 8, 1955, qualifying respectably considering his power deficit and in fact finishing fifth! He then ran the car in the Albi GP in France but the road circuit there proved too fast, and he was unclassified. He was again out-gunned in the Syracuse GP on the fast Sicilian course, yet returned for the 1956 event, this time retiring after 20 laps. The tight twists and turns of Naples’ Posillipo street circuit suited ‘0210’, however, and in the Grand Prix there on May 6, 1955, Scarlatti again qualified well and finished fourth in this lovely car. After that profitable outing ‘0210’ was then entered for Scarlatti by ‘Mimo’ Dei’s private new Scuderia Centro Sud in the German Grand Prix at Nurburgring, on August 5, only to retire early. Dei then secured an entry for the aging car in the Argentine Grand Prix - opening the 1957 World Championship season in Buenos Aires on January 13. The drive was rented by rising local racer/entrepreneur Alejandro de Tomaso, in whose hands ‘0210’ finished ninth. Dei found a local buyer for the car - possibly Sticoni who placed 11th in a Ferrari in Heat One of the following non-Championship Gran Premio Ciudad de Buenos Aires on January 27, 1957. This car was not the only Ferrari 500/625 to find a racing retirement home in Argentina and, like its sisters, its original Ferrari engine was at some time replaced by a locally-made Chevrolet unit for ‘home-built’ Meccanica Nacional racing. In the early 1970s British sports car racer Alain de Cadanet rescued the remains of several historic cars while in Argentina for the country’s newly-revived International Formula 1 and endurance racing series. This ‘Starlet’ car’s chassis and other components were amongst them, and - back in the UK - they were acquired by rock musician Eric Stewart, who commissioned leading Ferrari specialists to rebuild and restore the car for him to running order. However, before completion with definitive 2-litre Ferrari 625 engine fitted, it was then sold to the present owner in the mid 80s, for whom it was completed to the exquisite standards apparent today by highly-respected specialist David Cottingham’s DK Engineering Company - many of whose invoices are preserved within the historic documentation accompanying this Lot. In many ways it was these beautifully-profiled modello 500s which secured Ferrari’s special standing within the motor racing world. But above all their record stands today as an awful warning to those designers who still don’t understand that an ounce of simplicity and practicality can be worth a ton of theory. Ing Aurelio Lampredi understood this perfectly, and Ferrari’s very first back-to-back World Championship titles - barely five years into the postwar company’s racing history - were the reward.
