THERE WERE ONLY FOUR Monzas fitted with V12 engines, which made them some of the most monstrously fast and powerful among Ferrari's sports racers in the Fifties. HARRY NEWTON getes acquainted with one of these Monster Monzas and its colorful owner, while TOM BURNSIDE shoots the action..
In 1947, Ferrari built three cars. In 1954, for the first time, production reached triple digits, resulting in a heady 113 cars. That relatively miniscule eight-year aggregate of fewer than 600 cars made a huge impact on the automotive industry in general and motorsport in particular on both sides of the Atlantic. Those figures make it easy to understand why early-series Ferraris are highly prized by today's collectors, generating spirited bidding whenever one comes to market.
Noted initially for Gioacchino Colombo's small-displacement, narrow-angle V12 engines, Maranello's mid-Fifties, Lampredi-designed, four-cylinder Mondials sometimes seem stigmatized looked down upon by some as less-than-true thoroughbreds despite the fact that a version of this engine carried Alberto Ascari to the 1952 and 1953 world championships.
That same misconception might even apply to most of the 53 cars in the Monza series the new sports racer making its competition debut in 1953. But no such stigma is attached to s/n 0442M-one of four fitted with second-generation Colombo V12s.
Our feature car made its first appearance at the 1954 1 2-hour race at Heures, France, where it won in the hands of Piotti and Trintignant. It next showed up at Monza for the Supercortemaggiore event, now piloted by Franco Cornacchia and Gerino Gerini under the Scuderia Guastalla banner.
Ranked by many as one of the most beautiful of the early Ferraris, Monza s/n 0442M has lightweight bodywork crafted by Carrozzeria Scaglietti from thin-gauge aluminum. Several sources indicate that Enzo's son Ditto penned the svelte lines, but no definitive confirmation has been obtained to collaborate this contention. Be that as it may, the Monza departed most radically from the barchetta style the shape that had come to characterize so many of the early Ferrari roadsters. Front and rear bodywork was tapered and cross sections became ovate, emphasizing horizontal surfaces rather than vertical ones.
The Monza could be said to have been inspired by the lines of a shark, while its predecessor's lines were more akin to the surface vessels that eventually prompted its moniker.
Not only breathtaking in its shape, the Monza was technologically sophisticated as well: lightweight, oval-tube frames from Gilco, differential-mounted four-speed transaxles, and De Dion rear suspension was certainly state of the art.
Within the production run of just over four dozen cars, there were four sub-series: The 750 Monza powered by a 3 liter, four-cylinder, Mondial derived power plant; the 857 Monza its displacement now increased to 3.5 liters, sold to privateers; the 860 Monza factory team cars; and the 250 Monza, one of which is our feature car- propelled by Colombo's Lampredi-modified, narrow-angle, inside-plug, twin-magneto V12, with a displacement of 2963cc.
While earlier Colombo V12s sported siamesed exhaust ports, the later iteration is distinguished by Lampredi-engineered individual port heads, topped by an intake manifold designed to handle three four-throat Webers.
If the word sophisticated defines the Monza mechanically, then spartan best describes the car's interior appointments. Its minimal weight is partly the result or ruthless elimination of extraneous equipment and trim. So single-minded was Ferrari that no upholstery is found other than on the seats there's no door trim, no dashboard covering, no carpeting, no pedal pads. Nor was a speedometer fitted, though that omission was of course common practice among pure competition cars. Shift points were dictated by gut feelings, and confirmed by tachometer readings.
This brings us to one confusing aspect of our feature car: its gauges, which have French rather than Italian-language graphics on their faces. Our research uncovered two French connections that provide a possible explanation: One-time ownership of our Monza by a New York-based French diplomat, and a subsequent period when the car resided in Paris. It may have been during the 1960 stay at Franco-Brittanic Motors, the Parisian Ferrari concessionaire, that the dials were fitted.
After finishing third overall with the Monza in its initial outing, Cornacchia then teamed up with Argentinian driver Enrico Peruchini for the 1954 Carrera Panamericana.
Patterned after the Targa Florio and the Mille Miglia, this contest may well have been the most punishing event on the worldwide schedule, and it drew the latest and the best cars from both Europe and the US, piloted by top drivers from both hemispheres.
The race went well for our Monza and its two pilots, who maintaining a steady top-four position in class throughout the initial legs.
Speeds as high as 150 mph or more were one factor in their success, but even more important was the lucky avoidance of natural and unnatural hazards encountered on the road, perils compounded by the frightening lack of crowd control.
After eight legs, covering a distance of over 2,000 miles of mountain switchbacks and flat-out, arrow-straight desert roads, Cornacchia's aggregate time at the finish in Juarez of 19 hours, 45 minutes and 6 seconds, was 12 minutes ahead of the next finisher, the larger-displacement Chinetti/Shakespeare 375 MM, and put our Monza at an honorable fifth overall and third in class. Maglioli's 375 Plus was first, the Hill/Ginther 375 MM second, and a pair of Porsche Spyders, remarkably' third and fourth.
Our magnificent Monza was destined to remain in the Western Hemisphere, having been purchased after the Panamericana by Manfredo Lippmann, a Guatemala-based Mercedes importer and coffee grower, who had the car's livery changed to his country's blue, gold, and white.
It was in this form that racer/journalist Hans Tanner had a chance to sample s/n 0442M on a suburban Mexico City, limited-access toll highway. Tanner noted a balkiness at low speeds, a characteristic we also experienced 43 years later when riding shotgun with the Monza's current owner. We concur as well with Tanner's report regarding another trait, that being 0442M's ferocious acceleration, accompanied by a fortissimo 12-cylinder symphony above 4,000 rpm.
Despite the powerful retarding force of the Ferrari's finned aluminum drums, hard braking from high speeds still produces a disconcerting dartiness, not necessarily frightening, but a trait that definitely instills in us a keen respect for the drivers who extended these cars to the limit on challenging closed circuits like those at Monza and Buenos Aires and in open-road events like the Carrera.
In 1955, Lippmann entered his Monza at Sebring, where Sterling Edwards and General Motors executive Chet Flynn both turned some laps in practice. But due to a pre-race engine failure, Lippmann did not even get a chance to start in the race. After being reassigned by team captain Luigi Chinetti to co-drive John Shakespeare's 375 MM, Lippmann fared no better in this machine, turning just a few practice laps before this car too succumbed to engine failure.
Monza s/n 0442M did see action in at least one other race, the El Salvador Grand Prix of 1958, which it won. There may be one additional competition credit that is due: the 1958 Cuban Sports Car Grand Prix. But no clear confirmation of its presence in Havana has been obtained as of this writing.
In 1958 Lippmann sold the Monza to Iann MacArvey-Munn, son-in-law of the then earlier mentionedpresident of Guatemala. The next owner was the earlier mentioned French diplomat, who it seems abandoned the car in a New York City public garage when he returned to France that same year.
Just how the Ferrari was discovered and rescued remains unclear. Similarly undocumented are the actual circumstances leading up to its appearance a few months later at Franco Brittanic Motors in Paris. Somehow, in the interim, the color had changed-for a third time. The car was now painted dark hlue and the seats had been retrimmed white.
Within the year, 0442M again crossed the Atlantic, this time rolling ashore in Port Washington, New York, a wealthy north-shore Long Island community. After paying a purported $2,90O, about the price of a new Austin Healey, the new owner, Peter Burrows, added a white stripe to mask what he today describes as a less-than professional repair of a parking ding in the bumperless front end. Burrows used the hairy machine as his daily driver, adding an estimated l0,000 miles.
With often-ahrupt brakes, an all-in or all-out, multipleplate competition clutch, and a raucous exhaust note, the Monza must have been quite a handful! to maneuver around New York, and it isn't too surprising to learn that Burrow's fiance was less than enthused about the prospect of starting married life with a vehicle lacking any form of weather protection, heater, room for groceries, and to top it all even a door on the passenger side.
Consequently an ad was placed in the Sunday edition of the New York Times. Peter Burrows recalls selling the Monza for just $100 less than he had paid for it.
The new owner was John Delamater of Indianapolis. John's brother, James, has his own recollections: a cold, late-winter drive across the Whitestone Bridge from Port Washington to New Rochelle, where a friend had agreed to store the car until the weather improved enough for John to drive the machine back home to Indiana.
Right-hand drive, combined with that grabby clutch, turned stops at toll booths into adventures. The Delamater brothers, both charter members of the Ferrari Club, still maintain a keen interest in these cars and the people who drove them.
A pedigreed sports racer like the Monza, still in 1964, was a pretty heady experience, yet Delamater's ownership term was also brief. We spoke with him on the day after his return home from multiple heart-by-pass surgery. of more than two dozen Ferraris that passed through his hands over several decades, 0442M stands out as one of the most momorable.
Next stop for the former Guastalla-team car was the New Orleans garage of Del Lee, well street ableknown as a collector. But the car didn't remain long in his hands either. It soon found its way to Miami, Florida, and a man named Goldstein, who made a number of modifications which it seems were intended to make the car more streetable. Included was a more effective but less-stylish windshield, as well as yet another paint job, the fourth or fifth since 0442M left the Scaglietti works back in Modena in 1954.
Eventually, Sydney Stoldt's name was added to the Monza's long list of owners, and it was during this period that the old stallion once again was put to use in the manner for which it originally had been created-it became a vintage racer.
Finally in 1974, our Monza arrived at the home it has had ever since, that of William Serri. An avid vintage sports-car enthusiast as well as an antique dealer specializing in vintage firearms, Serri worked hard at obtaining his dream machine, and it was only after several years spent alternately badgering, cajoling, and begging that the stubborn suitor succecded in convincing Stoldt to sell him the Monza.
In that near-forgotten era before vintage Ferrari prices soared to stratospheric levels, Serri was obliged to sell his 275 GTS in order to come up with half of the agreed price of $1 5,000 for the Monza.
Immediately after having brought the Monza home, Serri claims to have suffered a mild case of buyer's remorse, wondering if perhaps he had allowed his emotional lust to overcome his business judgement. But after two decades of living with one of Enzo's most lovable monsters Serri has no such regrets.
Within the production run of just over four dozen cars, there were four sub-series: The 750 Monza powered by a 3 liter, four-cylinder, Mondial derived power plant; the 857 Monza its displacement now increased to 3.5 liters, sold to privateers; the 860 Monza factory team cars; and the 250 Monza, one of which is our feature car- propelled by Colombo's Lampredi-modified, narrow-angle, inside-plug, twin-magneto V12, with a displacement of 2963cc. 
A pedigreed sports racer like the Monza, still in 1964, was a pretty heady experience, yet Delamater's ownership term was also brief. We spoke with him on the day after his return home from multiple heart-by-pass surgery. of more than two dozen Ferraris that passed through his hands over several decades, 0442M stands out as one of the most momorable. 