Ferrari Tipo 156

[flatlander_48]

I attended the vintage races at Watkins Glen this past weekend where Phil Hill was the Grand Marshal. During the Q&A time, there was some discussion about Enzo probably having all to the 156's destroyed out of spite regrarding the defections to ATS. However, I thought I saw something in a magazine recently about a new 156 being built from some scrounged parts and a lot of investigative work. Has anybody else heard about this?

[dretceterini]

Yes...there is a 156 "replicar" that is pretty accurate

[krt917]

Isn't it the one Chris Rea had built for his film few years back? Nobody went to see it (!), but the car survives. In fact, I saw it at Silverstone some time ago, being demonstrated by Mr Moss - fairly ironic seeing as he spent the 1961 season trying (and on 2 occassions, succeeding) to beat them!

As for Enzo - I think that he had a very odd approach to out of date racing cars. Mind you, he had a pretty strange approach to his drivers too!

[Vitesse]

Yes, this is the Rea car. Phil Hill drove it at Goodwood two years ago. I've also heard tell of another replica being built.

As to the originals: Enzo was no sentimentalist and was quite prepared to destroy old cars to build or repair newer ones. I think the frames sat around at Maranello for a while but were eventually dismantled.

[simon drabble]

ex Chris Rea! I think he sold the recreations of the sportscar and F1 car at auction a cpl of years ago.

[eclectic]

Yes its beautiful, sounds and looks great, but is of course not the genuine article, however, thumbs up to Mr Rea for letting us see it running, so long as nobody ever tries to sell it as genuine one day, no harm is done.

[macca]

The Chris Rea car used a Fiat Dino 2.0 l road car engine, and Phil Hill, who drove it for a track test in Classic Cars some years ago, said it didn't sound like the original; it was noticeable that the 196SP that ran at the Goodwood FoS had a much sharper exhaust note.

The engines of the Sharknoses were re-used in the 1963 spaceframe and 'Aero' monocoque cars, and some of the suspension components and gearboxes may have been salvaged as spares for the 196/246SP's which used apparently identical components; I believe they were all sold to privateers after 1962.

At the FoS last year, I talked to the guy who was looking after the 196SP and 212E (Bob Houghton?) and it is he who is recreating a car using what he said were an original engine and gearbox.

[flatlander_48]

As I remember, the 156 ran with a 120 deg V-8. Did the sports car have a 120 deg or 90 deg V-8?

[alfasud]

Are you sure about the 120 deg V8? If I remember rightly (well - remember from books anyway), back in that era, Ferrari built V6 engines in three series/angles;

* 65 deg - "works" engines - wider angle (wider than normal 60 deg) gives more room for induction between DOHC heads,
* 60 deg - SOHC "customer" sports racing engines,
* 120 deg - DOHC heads in F1 (maybe used in sports cars too - not sure?)

I'm reasonably certain the V8's of that era, were all 90 degree. These were all (mostly?) SOHC head designs.

I'm sure the latter 90 deg DOHC head V8's as used in 308GT4/GTB/GTS road cars were a different engine series... or did they use the earlier V8 engines as a basis for their design?

The later 65 deg F2 V6 (from Fiat/Ferrari Dino road car project) was also a different series to the earlier 65 deg - also with DOHC heads.

Opps... forgot the V8 F1 engines from the 1.5L F1 cars - were these a totally different engine series again?

[alfasud]

O.k. I've found my reference:

Ferrari - The Sports and Gran Turismo Cars
Fitzgerald, Merritt and Thompson
ISBN 0 85059 426 X

In the chapter on the Dino V-6 it talks about the 156 being a 1.5 litre 65 deg engine with DOHC heads. The 206S, 246S and 246SP are listed as the 2.0 and 2.4 litre sports cars with larger versions of that same DOHC 65 deg design.

However that 196S engine is described as having "the same 77 x 71-mm, 1983-cc dimensions as the 206S but was a simpler sohc design" (60 deg).

So when macca says that "the 196SP that ran at the Goodwood FoS had a much sharper exhaust note", that might very well be true, but then we would expect it to sound different, because it's not the same 65 deg DOHC design. Or did the "196" designation get used for some 65 deg DOHC cars too? Maybe Ferrari weren't totally consistant with their model designations, or maybe it was a DOHC, and the program at Goodwood should have listed it as a 206SP?

[flatlander_48]

I guess my memory was a bit foggy. 120-V6 it is. What I really remember is a magazine article in a 1961 Car & Driver that mentioned that Ferrari ran the 156 with 2 or 3 different engine configurations. Neat car, though. Gets my vote for one of the prettiest race cars ever.

[flatlander_48]

At:
http://store.racelegends.com/default...datarq=1103-61

the following quote appears under a photograph taken by Phil Hill:

1961 Modena/Ferrari F1 156 Profile
Phil Hill: “This is the prototype of the Ferrari Dino 156 with the 120-degree engine that I would use to win the World Championship for Ferrari in 1961. This particular car is the one Richie Ginther used at Monaco in his battle with Moss’ Lotus, finishing 2nd and setting fastest lap.”

By the way, a signed 11x14 print is $400.