Four Small Wheels 10/2001

theme

David Blumlein
looks at the
pretty Maserati 300S

David has been inspired by recent releases of Maserati 300S models - and in particular the Pallino (PAL006M and PAL007M) models pictured on last month’s back cover - to look into the history of these great cars at Le Mans.....

It is a partial truism (an awkward word!) that, when reflecting on the lines of a high-performance machine, what looks right is generally right. It is certainly true of the Supermarine Spitfire which did so much to save us in the Battle of Britain and it is true of the elegant Lotus 79 which mopped up the opposition to give Mario Andretti the Championship in 1978. But it is only partly true of the Maserati 300S which to most eyes looks gorgeous, well endowed with that flair for which the Italians are justifiably famous and which makes so many of their cars the most beautiful of all.

So where did the lovely 300S let itself down? Chiefly at Le Mans where its record is dismal - in fact the Casa Maserati has a very poor results sheet to show in the most important sports car race of all. That is a varied story so we shall confine ourselves to the 300S just now.

For the 1954 Grand Prix season Maserati had come up with one of the all-time great Grand Prix cars, the 250F which was conceived so that it could be supplied to private owners who would support the ‘works’ team. It certainly looked right and was to be developed into an efficient and reliable machine that would go on to give Fangio his fifth World Championship.

Also at this time the sports-racing car was gathering enormous momentum and popularity. Originally introduced to boost the numbers in the early post-war Le Mans races, it attracted such public attention that the organising club, the A.C.O. conveniently forgot their promise to withdraw the category once the production of sporting cars had got underway properly as prosperity revived, much to the chagrin, it must be said, of that formidable team manager of Aston Martin, John Wyer!

With Ferrari creating prototypes galore, Maserati felt compelled to join in and set the ball rolling by slotting a 2.5-litre 250F motor unit into one of its standard A6 GCS chassis. The resulting car, numberless, we can call a 250S and experience in the 1954 Mille Miglia and Supercortemaggiore (Monza) race taught the engineers useful lessons as each of those entries failed.

The definitive car, the 300S, was announced at the end of the year and boasted a widened chassis very much on the lines of the 250F with similar suspension but an engine with an increased stroke bringing its capacity up to 3-litres. This gave it a 10 b.h.p. power advantage over the Grand Prix car, turning out 250 b.h.p. which in fact was to prove somewhat inadequate when the opposition was at its strongest. The car was clothed in the pretty bodywork by Fantuzzi and some 27 cars seem to have been constructed up until June 1958.

The car’s debut in the 1955 Sebring 12-Hours race provided encouraging third and fourth places and minor successes were to follow at the Bari Grand Prix and Supercortemaggiore race, once more run at Monza. But that Maserati Achilles’ heel, transmission was to plague the car’s efforts where it really mattered - at Le Mans.

Two cars came to the line in the catastrophic 1955 race, car #15 driven by Argentinian Roberto Mières who had requested the young promising Cesare Pedisa as his co-driver after a podium finish together at Monza. Jean Behra, team leader, was nominated to accompany Luigi Musso in car #16 but an ominous accident in the pit area sent him to hospital with head and leg injuries - he was one of several bystanders mown down when the Mercedes of Moss collided with the D.B. of Storez, projecting the little French car into a stationary Osca and a group of people in front of the pit, Valenzano stepped into the breach.

The Mières - Perdisa car, chassis 3054, was crippled as early as the second hour with transmission problems causing its retirement in the late evening. Its team-mate rose to a threatening second position until in the 20th hour it failed to leave its pit, once again with broken transmission.
The horrific accident that marred that race, and indeed so much of motor racing, caused a postponed race in the following year and the later date’s proximity to the impending German Grand Prix meant that the Maserati team, whose priority was the Formula One World Championship, could not spare urgently needed mechanics to prepare cars for Le Mans.
So we find just one 300S appearing in 1957, the year when the big 4.5 V8 was doing all it could to snatch the Sports Car Championship from rivals Ferrari (and only failed at a cruelly unfortunate Venezuelan race at season’s end!). It was a works car, chassis 3056, that came to the Sarthe in support of its monster-like big brothers and was entrusted to Scarlatti and Bonnier, the car bearing race number 12. A problem with the rear bodywork set the car back to 26th after the first hour but some four hours later it had climbed to 12th. Alas, an hour or so after the clutch failed.

By 1958 Maserati had pulled out of racing officially, having run into financial trouble, and the sole 300S to appear was entered by Spaniard Francesco Godia-Sales, who had raced a private 250F extensively, and who selected Bonnier to accompany him. Car #1 supported discreetly by works mechanics, raced a careful race in the appallingly wet conditions that closed in on Saturday evening that year and, having climbed to 9th, slumped to 17th by seven o’clock on the Sunday morning to fall victim to.......yes - transmission trouble!

Thus a very unsatisfactory report for the good-looking 300S at Le Mans but in fairness, we must remember that it clocked up many successes elsewhere, notably in the World Championship rounds in 1956 at Buenos Aires and the Nurburgring and at notable events such as the Paris 1,000 kms, Chimay, Bari again, the Cuban GP in 1957 etc.

And there was another very pretty Maserati sports car produced concurrently with the 300S - the 150S, that that’s another story.........