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Enzo thought that he could beat the opposition with a more powerful engine but Chief engineer Carlo Chiti argued that the car's blunt aerodynamics were at fault. He went to great pains to have a wind tunnel installed at Ferrari's HQ in Modena. The result was that the engine remained much the same as before: a glorious 3.0-litre V12 unit designed by Gioacchino Colombo. The size of each individual cylinder was 250cc, hence the '250' name. In specification, it mirrored the Testa Rossa pure racing car, including dry sump lubrication and six twin-choke Weber carburettors.

Ferrari developed a new five-speed, all-synchromesh gearbox but the chassis remained much as before but with a short wheelbase. The reasoning was the Ferrari face enough problems getting the car through the 100-car homologation rule without having to argue about the chassis as well. Standard 250GT suspension used coil springs at the front and the rigid axle with leaf springs at the back. Development engineer Giotto Bizzarrini wanted to up-rate the rear to coil springs as well but Enzo did not agree.

The new car arrived in February 1962 and was christened 250GTO, the magical letters standing for Gran Turismo Omologato. Each car was virtually hand-built, mostly for very wealthy private individuals who fancied their chances at a racing career. All GTOs were given odd chassis numbers (at a time when racing cars were traditionally allocated even numbers), which has given rise to some confusion over the exact number of GTOs built. However, most historians now agree on 39, a figure which fell way below the supposed Minimum' of 100. Each one was slightly different and some, like Bizzarrini's triplet of restyled ‘bread van’ GTOs were very different.

The styling was gorgeous, the work of Ferrari's own engineers. It made use of the Kamm tail principle, which yielded enhanced aerodynamics for cars with sloping tails. Overall, the GTO was 6.6in longer and 3.5in lower than the short wheelbase 250GT Berlinetta. Construction was very lightweight, with allaluminium bodies created in the tiny Modena workshop of Sergio Scaglietti. The body styling would later change on the 1964 Series II to incorporate a notchback.

As a race car, the 250GTO was highly successful. From its first outings it proved its superiority over the opposition in endurance events and the World Championship. Phil Hill came second in the 1962 Sebring, the GTO's debut event. In the hands of drivers like Mike Parkes and the late, great Rodriguez brothers, it made Ferrari dominant on the track. In Class III of the 1962 championship, Ferrari GTOs won a crushing victory with maximum points - despite the Italian giant not having an official works team.

Its only competition came from the lightweight Jaguar E-Type (from 1963) and the AC Cobra (from 1964).

A single 4.0-litre GTO was developed and raced by Parkes and Mairesse at the 1962 Nurburgring 1000km. It finished second but came off at Mulsanne at

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Le Mans later in the year. Ferrari scored a spectacular success at the 1962 Paris 1000km, occupying the first six places, four of which were GTOs. Many other drivers raced GTOs, including such illustrious names as Graham Hill, Innes Ireland and Roger Penske.

Not only was the GTO a racing success, it could also be used on the road. As expected, handling and raw performance were exemplary. Car enthusiasts might not, however, have expected it to be a tractable and usable machine, especially in town - but it was.

The downside (from the point of view of someone wanting to use it as a road car) was difficult braking, uncomfortable accommodation, droughts and the sheer level of noise.

The 250GTO was the last of a long line of great front-engined racing Ferraris. By 1963, the mid-engined 250LM had arrived and would show the way ahead: its potential for ultimate handling balance tended to place it ahead of the GTO. The new car would effectively have rendered the GTO obsolete immediately, but racing officials refused to sanction it because too few had been made to satisfy homologation.

There were also several ‘pseudo’ GTOs, such as the ‘bread vans’ built by Piero Drogo and Giotto Biz-zarrini, and Count Volpi's converted 250GT, which did battle with genuine GTOs on the track. They had little success.

Today the really fanatical Ferrari collector simply must have a GTO in his or her garage. However, that person will certainly need to be extraordinarily rich: the going price for a 250GTO is around the L2.5 million mark. For that a car enthusiast could buy seven brand-new Ferrari F50s. In Britain, several music business personalities have bought GTOs, though the cars are very seldom seen in public because of their stratospheric value.

One side-effect of this situation has been the widespread replication of the GTO. Quite a few standard 250GT Ferraris have been butchered over the years to make replicas. Some have even been passed off as original, a process encouraged by the confusion over chassis numbers. More recently (in 1984), the GTO name was revived for another very special homologation car, the mid-engined 288GTO - but that, as they say, is another story.

Текст 38

MERCEDES-BENZ 300SL

Since Karl Benz's first bold experiment with internal combustion in 1885, Mercedes-Benz has maintained an eminence in the motoring world. The name is synonymous with quality, power and fine sporting tradition.

Perhaps the last great sporting era for Mercedes-Benz began with the 300SL... and the 300SL began with the gigantic Mercedes-Benz 300 saloon,

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launched in 1951. This top-class range of cars used a six-cylinder, 3.0-litre, overhead-cam engine with an alloy head and twin carburettors, plus such advanced features as an all-synchromesh gearbox, hypoid drive (the first German car to have this) and independent rear suspension.

It was a natural choice for Mercedes-Benz engineers to base a new sporting model on. Engineer Rudolf Uhlenhaut realised that, if he used the basic mechanicals in a space frame chassis of the type being used by Aston Martin, Jaguar and Cisitalia, he could have a competitive racing car. And so the W194 project began.

The chassis took form of two large cross-members joined by a lattice of smaller steel tubes. To achieve the necessary stiffness, the tubes had to run beside the cockpit and it was this factor which gave rise to the gullwing doors of the 300SL. A stressed aluminium body was designed by Karl Wilfert around the space frame. It was a coupe because this body type was believed to give the best aerodynamics.

Surprisingly, the new racing coupe was given drum brakes, not discs. The 3.0-litre engine had to be inclined at 50 degrees to fit within the complex lattice of tubes, a new cylinder head was designed and dry sumping was used. There were also three carburettors, an uprated camshaft and a new exhaust, the net result was an output of 171 bhp which was very impressive for its day.

Mercedes-Benz's larger-than-life racing director Hans Neubauer, didn't like the prototype and insisted that more power, better brakes and a five-speed gearbox should be fitted. Thus Mercedes-Benz re-entered sports car racing. With Rudi Caracciola, Karl Kling and Hermann Lang at the wheel, the team attacked the 1952 Mille Miglia. Kling came in second behind Giovanni Bracco's Ferrari V12. However, at the next race, the Swiss Grand Prix, the 300SL scored a memorable 1-2-3 victory. This was followed by a convincing 1-2 at Le Mans.

For the 1952 Nurburgring race, Mercedes-Benz chopped the top off three 300SL coupes to create racing roadsters. Not surprisingly the all-conquering Mercedes team stormed to victory with another 1-2-3 result and Lang led the trio home. The only other race run by 300SL was the gruelling Carrera Panamericana in Mexico. This yielded yet another victory for Kling and Mercedes, with Land in second place. Mercedes-Benz would not race in 1953, officially because they had learn all they needed to know'.

After this crushingly successful competition record, the road-going version was eagerly awaited. It might never have happened had not the American Mercedes-Benz importer, Max Hoffmann, place an advance order for 1,000 cars.

Some modifications were made: the body was substantially redesigned by Paul Bracq to become more aerodynamic and steel became the main material of construction (except for a run of 29 all-aluminium cars). The 3.0-litre engine's power and torque rose significantly and it was given Bosch fuel-injection - a pioneering step.

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The suspension was modified to cure oversteer caused by the swing-axle rear, recirculating ball steering replaced the old warm-and-nut system arid proper heating was installed (though ventilation would always be a problem with the Gullwing).

The new 300SL made its debut at the 1954 New York International Motor Show. It caused a considerable stir with its amazing gullwing doors, dramatic lines and advanced specification. There was no shortage of flapping cheque books at the show, despite the exorbitant price being charged.

With some 215 bph on tap, and up to 240 bph with the right modifications, the new Mercedes could do an amazing 145-160 mph depending on rear axle ratio, and reach 60 mph from rest in a little over 8 seconds.

The 300SL was by no means perfect: entry and exit was decidedly awkward, the gullwing doors irksome to open, luggage space rather restricted and ventilation poor. Driving it required great skill, as it would snake as the driver floored the throttle and it still had a propensity for oversteering.

Although Mercedes-Benz never fielded official 300SL racers, it supported private owners. These often had great success, like Fitch and Gendebien's class win in the Mille Maglia, Tak's victory in the Tulip Rally and Engel's European Touring Car Championship.

There was also a spin-off of the 300SL, the 300LR, which was conceived to compete in Grand Prix racing. Stirling Moss drove the 300LR in its debut race at the 1955 Mille Miglia, winning after a punishing ten-hour drive. At Le Mans, Levegh's 300LR plunged into the crowd with devastating results, leading to the team withdrawing from the event. Mercedes-Benz won the 1955 World Sports Car Championship.

A Roadster version had always been planned but, when it arrived in 1957, it replaced the Coupe rather than supplementing it. The claustrophobic and impractical Gullwing was frankly unsuited to American tastes and climate and, after all, Californians did buy most of the 1,371 Coupes made.

The Roadster debuted at the 1957 Geneva Salon. It had a proper folding hood which disappeared into boot and the novelty of winding windows. The gullwings were replaced by conventionally-opening doors. Suspension modifications improved handling, the headlamps were restyled and the engine now developed between 225 bph and 250 bph. A removable hard top was offered from 1958 and four-week disc brakes were standardised in 1961. By the time 300SL Roadster production ceased in 1963, Mercedes-Benz had built 1,858 of them. Some of the Roadster's reflected glory was apparent in the cheaper 190SL, made from 1954-63. This had only 105 bph available however, and was more of a boulevard cruiser than a true sports car.

There are few examples of a classic car, which is worth more in a closed coupe from than it is in convertible form. The Mercedes-Benz 300SL Gullwing is such a car. Its awe-inspiring presence guarantees a premium over the more ef-

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fete Roadster. The magic, which it cannot fail to weave on all who set eyes on it continues today and examples can fetch extraordinarily sums.

Текст 39

AC COBRA

Cobra... The very name conjures up images of awesome performance, evocatively-shaped haunches, a blistering soundtrack and a white-knuckle ride. It is, in short, a legend.

How can a car which was in production for a mere five years, and which sold only around 1,000 examples, achieve such legendary status? The story is all the more remarkable considering the Cobra (рис. 20) grew out of a not particularly exceptional sports car, made by a tiny English firm by the name of AC, and its combination of a frail-looking ladder chassis and a brutish V8 power plant that was hardly subtle.

One name provides the answer: that of a larger-than-life Texan racer and chicken farmer called Carroll Shelby. It was he who had the vision to mate the AC Ace sports car with an American Ford V8 engine and it was Shelby who actually screwed the cars together in his racing workshops in Santa Fe, California.

Shelby had heard that AC's engine supplier, Bristol, was stopping making the 2.0-litre engines used In the Ace sports car. He got in touch with AC Cars of Thames Ditton, Surrey, in 1961 with a suggestion: How about using an Ameri- can-made engine in the form of a 260 cu in (4260cc) V8 unit from a Ford Fairlane? The idea of purring an American V8 engine in a European sports car was not new but no one had dared to approach the heights to which the Cobra would ascend.

AC agreed to try the idea. Amazingly, the Ace's very simple twin-tube ladder chassis was retained virtually unchanged, although Girling in-board rear disc brakes and a reinforcing frame for the rear suspension were fitted.

At both ends, lower wishbones were combined with transverse leaf spring upper links and telescopic dampers.

Production of the Cobra got underway in 1962. The chassis and lightweight (22.5kg) aluminium body were hand-built by AC in Thames Ditton. Most of the road equipment was then fitted and shipped to California for final assembly by Shelby, using Ford engines, close ratio Borg-Warner four-speed gearboxes and strengthened drive shafts.

The Cobra first appeared on the Ford stand at the 1962 New York Auto Show, where it caused a sensation, an impact which was reinforced by a number

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lems. A lot of work went into balancing the chassis. Rack-and-pinion steering replaced the archaic worm-and-roller system. Then Ford offered Shelby their bigger 289 cu in engine.

This was merely a stepping-stone to the ultimate Cobra: the 427 of 1963. Conceived as a giant-killing race-winner, it was essentially a Cobra fitted with a big block 427 cu in (6997cc) V8 from the Ford Galaxie 500. The 271 bhp Cobra 289 was already a performance legend, so the impact of the 425 bhp Cobra 427 was going to be shattering. And th at was in standard tune -with the right tuning gear, there was potential for that to go up to 480 bhp and beyond.

Two examples were completed with Paxton superchargers and claimed to deliver no less than a frightening 800 bhp.

To cope with the extra power, the chassis was completely redesigned. The basic ladder frame layout remained but the tubes were far thicker and the suspension towers were now tubular affairs, not fabricated sheet metal.

At last, the old leaf spring suspension gave way to coil spring dampers and double wishbones, refined by Ford Engineering to be fully adjustable. Larger brakes, beefed-up drive shafts and extra cooling completed the picture.

The 427 also looked more muscular. Only the bonnet and doors stayed the same - everything else had been pumped up to accommodate much fatter 8.15in (207mm) tyres.

The 427 did not have much of a competition life, because by 1965 it would have clashed with Ford's own СТ40. Nevertheless, a Semi-Competition (S/C) model was offered to private buyers as "the fastest production car in the world", with a top speed of around 165 mph and a 0-60 mph time of 4.0 seconds. One 427 managed to accelerate to 100 mph and back to zero again in just 13.8 seconds.

Safety and environmental legislation killed the Cobra in 1968. AC tried to update the concept with the Frua-bodied AC 428 but this did not last long in the fuel crisis of the 1970s.

All types of Cobra are extremely rare and sought after today, with authenticated 427s commanding prices well in excess of £ 150,000. With so few originals ever made, it is hardly surprising that a vast industry has sprung up dedicated to making AC replicas.

As well as literally dozens of companies producing fibreglass copies the world over, an official AC Cobra Mk IV has been manufactured from 1953 by Autok-raft, which is the only company legally entitled to use the AC name.

Carroll Shelby himself launched a controversial new Cobra in the 1990s, which he said was based on chassis left over from the 1960s. However, none of the replicas could ever hope to match the raw magic of an original 1960s Shelby-built Cobra, one of the greatest motoring legends of all time and certainly one of the most exhilarating.

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Yet the Spider's appeal was remarkably durable. Spurred on by one of the most celebrated film appearances ever for a car, when Dustin Hoffman swept Katherine Ross off her feet in The Graduate, the American market became the Spider's mainstay during the bleak 1970s. Around 90 per cent of all Alfa Spiders were sold in the US during this time. From 1955, the base model Spider was even called the Graduate in America.

Typically Italian in style and in its uncompromising engineering approach, perhaps the Spider's best point was its silky sweet four-cylinder twincam engines. Like all sports cars, the Spider was a victim of advancing legislation, developing performance-blunting fuel injection and catalysts in response to American demands. It never lost its essential charm though. Indeed, in engineering terms it always remained firmly rooted in the 1960s.

Despite its admirable handling, refinement and ride being overtaken by other sports cars, the Spider remained convincing. Performance was lively and the sound from the exhaust was distinctively Alfa. There were wonderful design touches and the feel was of a very special car.

That means that it inevitably became a desirable classic. Despite the oftrepeated stories of rampaging rust and delicate engines, there is no shortage of enthusiasts who appreciate the Spider's finer qualities. There is no shortage of people who remember The Graduate either. The Spider is simply too stylish to avoid being a fashion statement as well as a great sports car.

With the memory of its legendary Spider still fresh in the mind, Alfa Romeo presented, in 1994, an all-new Spider. However, it shared only the name with its ancestor, as it was radically different in concept and design. Front-wheel drive is the biggest difference and the new car's modern styling sets the pace for rival sports cars. The new Spider promises a great future for Alfa Romeo's venerable sports car tradition.

As the company's 1980s advertising slogan boasted: "The magic lives

on..."

Текст 41

VOLKSWAGEN BEETLE

No other car in history has mobilised more people than the Volkswagen Beetle (рис. 22) - and yet it almost never made it into production. When the Allied Forces evaluated the prototypes at the end of World War II, it was considered too crude, ugly and underdeveloped for production. Sir William Rootes even said that it "does not meet the fundamental requirements of a motor car". Necessity prevailed and the Volkswagen - or People's Car - was given life.

The Beetle's origins can be traced back to 1934, when Ferdinand Porsche

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