Ferrari

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CARS

The Ferraris

There have been only three racing Ferraris which have competed in Western Australia.

They are the Ferrari 500 / 625 Grand Prix car, raced by Doug Green; the Ferrari 250 LM racing in two Six-Hour Races by David Mackay and Spencer Martin; and the Ferrari Corvette, owned by Curley Brydon and which was entered the 1962 Australian Grand Prix (but failed to start).

The 500 / 625 Ferrari

This was one of the Ferrari team cars which was raced to two Drivers' World Championships by Alberto Ascari. It was built for the early 1950s Formula 2 (4 cylinders, 2 litres). In 1952 there were so few Formula One entrants that the World Driver's Championship was switched to Formula 2 for 1952, and again in 1953. In 1954 the 2.5 litre Formula One began, and as an interim measure the 4-cylinder Ferrari 500s were upgraded to 2.5 litres and became Ferrai 625s.

Ferrai mostly scrapped obsolete cars, but this one was sold to Australian driver Tony Gaze, and it then passed to Lex Davison who raced it extensively in Australia. Davison brought it to Western Australia for the 1957 AGP. When Lex Davison moved on, the car came to Western Australia in late1960 for its last front-line racing season, with Doug Green, a noted Cooper 500 racer, at the wheel. By this time it had a 3-litre version of the now venerable 4-cylinder engine. Doug sold the car when he finished racing, and it passed through several hands (but was not raced again) before being rescued from being cut up and converted into a sports car. Jim Harwood got wind of this, bought it, restored it and sold it to the Donington Collection.

Click on thumbnails to enlarge

The Ferrari 250 LM

This fabulous Ferrari sports car made an indelible impression on Western Australian fans when it contested two Six Hour Le Mans races at Caversham - 1965 and 1966. Run by David Mackay's Melbourne-based Scuderia Veloce, and driven by Mackay and by Spencer Martin, the howling V12 was music to everyone's ears. It won from Ron Thorp's Cobra in 1965, but failed to finish in 1966.

The Ferrari-Corvette

This was an early postwar 4.5 litre Formula 1 Ferrari, adapted to take the small-block Corvette engine and raced extensively by "Curly" Brydon in the Eastern States the late 1950s. It appeared in Western Australia in 1962 for the Australian Grand Prix, handled by Jim Harwood and driven by Jim's good friend and Six Hour Race co-driver Bill Downey. Sadly, after just a few laps, the engine failed and the car didn't start in the race. Jim Harwood subsequently sold the car to the Donington Collection, who have, I understand, recently sold it on to a European collector.