RACING LEGENDS
Maserati 250F
Ask a kid to draw a racing car and the chances are it’ll end up looking something like a Maserati 250F. Simple in form, the 250F might also be the single most beautiful competition car ever: cigar tube chassis, long nose, squat tail, almost always rosso corso and, of course, Italian.
The 250F’s career spanned a golden, though often difcult and dangerous, era of GP racing, debuting in 1954 and still battling hard in 1960. It was a car that the greats could make dance, in long, delirious full-throttle powerslides, but also one that the less gifted could still succeed with. The 250F wasn’t just super-cool, it flattered the driver too, rare for TG’s racing legends.
Maserati returned to F1 after a few years out when new rules introduced naturally aspirated 2.5-litre engines for the 1954 season. Former Ferrari engineering legend Gioacchino Colombo was lured from Maranello to Modena, while Valerio Colotti was conscripted to develop the chassis. This was a tubular spaceframe clothed in aluminium panels, with independent front suspension and a de Dion rear set-up, with its tube in front of the transaxle – rather than behind it – to beneft the car’s centre of gravity, which in turn reduced its propensity to spin. Although Jaguar had pioneered discs by this point, the Italians were still using drum brakes, of modest 13.4in diameter and ftted outboard on the front and rear. The power output was just 220bhp. Enough.
Viewed from a 64-year distance, the 250F was not without its quirks. Although the cockpit was fairly roomy, the driver had to straddle the transmission tunnel, and the throttle pedal was in the middle, with the brake on the right and the clutch on the left. The driver’s right hand hovered just above the stubby little lever operating a four-speed ’box, and the wheel was a huge wood-rimmed item. The tank, meanwhile, sat behind, flled with a terrifying mix of fuels and additives – only 35 per cent was petrol, the rest methanol, acetone, benzol and castor oil.
Let’s give the last word to the man who knew the 250F best – Sir Stirling Moss. “The nicest Formula One car to drive was probably the Maserati 250F. Obviously a rear-engined Cooper is going to beat it and will be much easier to throw around, but is it as gratifying? Probably not. If one is talking about getting in the car and getting the most out of it with that sense of exhilaration, then, Formula One-wise, I would say the Maser was it.”