Il Passionato!
"A modelmaker's passion for Maserati sports racing cars and Le Mans." |
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My earliest memories of Le Mans are from the early sixties just after we came to Britain from South Africa in 1960. By 1961 I was hooked on the Motoring News and the occasional Motor Sport when pocket money allowed and I began to take an interest in the other Italian sports cars. |
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In 1955 Maserati was back with two 300Ss and one A6GCS, Musso /Valenzano retired after 20 hours when in 2nd place with a broken transmission, the other 2 cars were out by 9 hours. |
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Despite Zagato's best efforts the car still looked wonderful and was fast enough to run 2nd behind the open car at the start, however both 450S were out after 5 hours and the 300S only lasted another 2 hours. Only the A6GCS managed to reach the finish in 12th place. |
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In 1959 there were no Maseratis but in 1960 they were back with the semi works Camoradi team of Lucky Casner, three Tipo 61 cars were entered and again Maserati had something unusual. Le Mans regulations stipulated a minimum windscreen height, on the No 24 car of Gregory/Daigh the windscreen started at the front axle line and was nearly 5 feet long and with a long tail the 'Streamliner' was created. The other 2 cars had the long tail with a more conventional windscreen. The streamliner was clocked at 169MPH on the Mulsanne straight, 10 MPH faster than any 3-litre car had achieved before and Gregory intimated there was more to come! |
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Maserati models still currently available are; |
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AMR have produced the Streamliner in the past and have also produced some of the 151s and Manou have produced the Tipo 63. |
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Most of these models are made from resin, today the kits with few exceptions are of a very high quality and can be built by anyone who is reasonably competent with their hands. The limited edition models made by Tim Dyke of MPH Models are quite outstanding, the level of detail is taken to the extreme, I have the birdcage and even the chassis no on the dashboard can be read with sufficient magnification! (Yes he is mad.) |
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CLICK HERE TO VIEW LIST OF MASERATI MODELS AND KITS AVAILABLE AS AT 27th NOVEMBER 2001 |
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To enter Enrico's Maserati Pages CLICK HERE! Text and Images Copyright Peter Radcliffe - © 2000-2004. All rights reserved. Design Copyright: Enrico's Maserati Pages - © 2000-2004. All rights reserved. |