By Keith Bluemel
2025 review by Peter McFadyen
For the 1962 endurance racing season, the FIA chose to place the emphasis on GT cars rather than the out-and-out sports racing cars which had hitherto been dominant. Not for the first time – nor the last – it found itself at odds with the manufacturers and so, for 1963, a non-championship class for ‘experimental’ cars up to 3 litres was added; the following year, this was renamed ‘prototype’ and engines up to 4 litres were admitted. It was under these circumstances that Ferrari chassis 0816 would compete in three races, winning all three and with different pairs of drivers each time, two of the victories being at Le Mans.
In this large-format art-style book, Ferrari historian Keith Bluemel tells the complete story of the only Ferrari to have won the 24 Hours twice and reveals why the record books might show otherwise, the car having been entered with a different chassis number in 1963. Moreover, that year, with a 3 litre engine it was designated as model 250P while the following year, with the newer capacity limit, it was fitted with a 3.3 litre engine and became a 275 P.
After its spell as a works car, 0816 was sold to Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART) before becoming part of the largest collection of Ferraris at the time, Pierre Bardinon’s Mas du Clos collection, and eventually becoming the property of Brandon Wang and being fully restored to its 1964 specification. New photos of the restored car by Tom Shaxson show 0816 in every detail before the book goes on to cover the car’s competition career race by race with many great contemporary photographs reproduced in satisfyingly large format.
Each of the drivers who raced 0816 is profiled as are the circuits on which it raced throughout its works career and its later life so, along with coverage of other races of the period, there is a lot to read and enjoy in this, the latest of Porter Press’s line of individual car histories.
Publisher: Porter Press International https://porterpress.co.uk/
Price: £125.00 plus postage.
Description: 240 pages, hardback in dust jacket, 30.2cm x 40.5cm. Over 260 illustrations in black & white and colour.
ISBN: 978-1-913089-67-2
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