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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
THE MARQUE OF THE TRIDENT
The postwar success of Maserati was made possible by a proud prewar history that dates back to the turn of the century when a Bolognese teenager named Carlo Maserati took part in racing competitions on a home-built motorcycle. Carlo’s five younger brothers, including Alfieri, shared his motoring enthusiasm and followed him into family automobile pursuits. Carlo died prematurely at age 30, but brother Alfieri founded Officine Alfieri Maserati in Bologna in order to service sporting automobiles. After World War I, the Maserati brothers began to manufacture spark plugs and batteries as well as several successful racing cars in the 1921 to 1925 period.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
The brothers were employed by the Isotta-Fraschini Company where Alfieri and brothers Bindo and Ernesto worked as works driver, chief tester and riding mechanic respectively. The success of these Isotta-Fraschini race cars was duly noted by the small Turin based firm of Diatto, who subsequently commissioned the Maserati brothers to design and build a two liter supercharged Grand Prix car. Impressively, the newly designed race car proved very competitive against the current FIAT and Alfa Romeo team cars. When Diatto became insolvent, they gave the racing car and rights to the Maseratis and it re-appeared as the Tipo 26, an eight-cylinder 1,500cc supercharged machine, the first to wear the Maserati Trident badge – which was copied from the statue of Neptune in Bologna’s main square. Two weeks later, early in 1926, Alfieri and the legendary riding mechanic Guerrino Bertocchi won their class in the Targo Florio in their first race – a historic feat for the fledging company and young team.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Early on, the Maserati brothers realized that survival depended on sales to private customers, a concept which the company embraced and encouraged for the next four decades. In the latter 1920s from six to 10 racing machines were developed and sold annually with displacements ranging from 1.5 to 3 liters, from their small and primitively equipped Bologna shop. Even so, the precision workmanship of these early Maseratis was extraordinary, their engine surfaces being so accurately machined that gaskets were seldom required. Racing victories followed – in 1930 for example, Maseratis won the major Grand Prix of Italy, Spain, Pescara and Rome, defeating established makes Bugatti and Alfa Romeo at each event.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Not limited to small capacity engines the brothers built some monsters as well, including a 350 horsepower 16-cylinder engine of impressive specifications, not to mention a 10 liter 32-cylinder engine with four cranks, four-superchargers and eight camshafts which developed over 700 horsepower. This proved impossible for man or chassis to control so it was installed in a racing boat, which captured several world records. By 1932 supercharged Maseratis had scored many wins in a variety of races, very impressive especially when one considers that no more than 25 workers designed and built these 4, 6, 8 and 16 cylinder machines. Ernesto Maserati became president in 1932 when Alfiero died and excelled in his brother’s place as Maserati won its 100th victory.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Soon, however Grand Prix racing was to change dramatically when the small independents like Alfa, Bugatti and Maserati faced the Mercedes and Auto Union juggernauts, but Maserati survived into the late 1930s by building and selling four and six-cylinder Voiturette class racers for private entrants. By 1937 the Maserati Battery and Spark Plug Company could no longer support the ever-escalating costs of the front-line racing. The brothers sold their business to the prosperous Orsi Group, staying on with a ten-year contract to design and build Maserati racing cars. With Aldolfo Orsi’s steel works, gear, machine tool and foundry backing the brothers could again build front line machines, including the eight CTF on which Wilbur Shaw won the Indianapolis 500 in 1939 and 1940 as well as leading handily in 1941 until he crashed. Even though Maserati had only built about 150 cars – an average of less than 10 cars per year – by the time World War II broke out, the company’s reputation and fame had by then been truly established through 15 years of victorious competition.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
MASERATI POST WORLD WAR II
During the prewar period the company had generally ignored sports car production. After the war, Maserati resumed successful Grand Prix Racing with prewar based models like the 4CL and 4CLT, which sold quite well. Like everyone in Europe the Orsi companies had suffered the ravages of war and concluded that a line of road going sports and touring models had to be produced in order to continue the racing department. The Maserati brothers were therefore appointed to the task and soon the legendary A6 1500 and A6 GCS series were selling briskly to car-starved Europe. In 1947, their ten year contract expired and the brothers packed their tools and left Maserati since neither they nor Orsi had deigned to initiate negotiations for a new deal!
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
A five-year period of relative Maserati inactivity followed until 1953 as Omer Orsi concentrated on rebuilding the profit earning companies in his group.
The new GP racing formula of 1952-53, coupled with an improved financial picture allowed the Orsis to re-establish the racing division in order to develop a new Grand Prix contender and a sports racing car offshoot. This was of course, the classic and competitive 250 F model. Slow to dominate due to inadequate testing and preparation, these single seaters eventually became heralded cars when Maserati won the Grand Prix World Championship in 1957.
THE MASERATI “GOLDEN YEARS”
1954 to 1957
Many historians agree, the era between 1954 - 1957 was the zenith of Maserati competition achievement. Despite the return of giant Mercedes to GP racing and the emergence of BRM and Lancia-Ferrari, Maserati’s achievements were impressive. Driven by the giants of postwar Grand Prix racing – Fangio, Moss, Musso, Shell, Behra and Gregory, 250 F’s scored 21 podium finishes with Stirling Moss finishing 2nd in the 1956 World Championship and then with Juan Manuel Fangio winning it in 1957.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Despite this, Grand Prix racing did not pay the bills and when the FIA World Sports Car Championship was announced, the Orsi’s, inspired by the prospect of profits from sales and servicing of customer sports cars, entered this field with a vengeance with their 150 S, 200 S, 300 S, 350 S and the mighty 4.5 liter 450 S two seater racing cars, some 92 of these being sold in the 1955 to 1958 period. For one Mille Miglia, Maserati prepared the astounding number of 31 sports racing cars – a most taxing workload for such a small company. Road going spyder and GT road cars like the second series A6 GCS and the 3500 GT/5000 GT also contributed to the coffers.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
The Tipo 300 S, as displayed with the example offered here, was a most important sports racing car in the Maserati scheme of development. Only 30 examples were built in the 1955 to 1958 period and they proved to be very successful on the world’s racing circuits almost winning the 1956 Sports Car Championship as well as being popular in North America with Briggs Cunningham’s MOMO Team taking delivery of the first three cars built in 1955 and Bill Lloyd winning the 1956 SCCA “D”-modified Championship. In 1956, 300 S sports cars driven by Fangio, Moss, Behra and Musy recorded 11 victories in major events and Taruffi finished an impressive second overall in the Targa Florio.
BENOIT MUSY 1917-1956
TRIUMPH & TRAGEDY
Reading the comprehensive history dossier that accompanies the sale of this car makes one think that Swiss driver Benoit Musy perfectly personified the 1950s term “gentleman driver.” Unlike some of his wealthy playboy contemporaries who moved more quickly in a bar room or boudoir than on a racing circuit, Musy could and did race with the true professionals of the period – men like Juan Manual Fangio, Stirling Moss and Jean Behra, occasionally beating them at their own game.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Born on December 12, 1917, Benoit started his racing career on motorcycles – Moto Guzzis and Nortons and won numerous international races as well as being recognized as “Suisse Champion” five times by the Federation de Motorcycliste Suisse (UMS) in the period 1948-1953. Before that he had been a Swiss Air Force pilot with 1,600 landings to his credit. Musy married the vivacious Conseulo Heusch and the couple had a son named Edouard, the whole family traveling together to the races in their converted bus which held their Maseratis in a rear compartment. Very supportive of her husband’s racing, Consuelo often drove the transporter and provided Benoit’s timing, scoring and signaling from the pits. “I could have protected my husband from the dangers of this sport by asking him to stop,” she was to say later, “and he would have, but I did not, since this activity made him very happy – indeed traveling around Europe for the races, like gypsies, was one of my most pleasant memories of our time together.” Benoit Musy was to have a short but productive allegiance to the Trident Marque. As the first Swiss to make the difficult transition from two wheels to four, he started his automobile racing career on a Maserati A6 GCS/53 followed by a 150 S, 200 S and finally this particular 300 S, chassis number 3057.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
In 1955, after taking delivery of his most powerful Maserati to date, the three liter 300 S offered here, chassis number 3057, Benoit Musy contested 11 European Sports Car Championship events, winning five times and scoring a further five podium finishes up to the August 12,, 1956, Kristianstad Swedish Grand Prix, which he won. Musy’s talent was now truly recognized as Maserati SPA Managing Director Omer Orsi offered him a contract to drive factory-sponsored entries for both Formula One and Sports Car races during the 1957 and 1958 seasons.
However in a cruel twist of fate, Benoit Musy was to perish abruptly at the Coupe de Paris Monthlery on October 7, 1956 – the last big race of the season. Benoit had delivered his 300 S to the factory for its year end service and modifications for the 1957 season and as a result it was not available for the race so a friend offered his new Maserati 200 S to him for this race. Benoit Musy was traveling at 250kmh on the high bank when a part of the steering failed sending the car over the crest of the banking and end over end before crashing to earth 75 meters below the circuit. A permanent marker, erected in 1957 marks the spot at Monthlery where Benoit Musy’s life came to its most unfortunate end.
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| Maserati 300 S Sports Racing Car 1955 |
Following his death, his wife Consuelo Heusch-Musy left chassis 3057 at the Maserati factory in order to sell it, a task aided by Benoit’s brother, Dr. Luigi Musy. The 300 S was eventually sold on June 18th to the Auto Racing and Touring Club of Angola, South Africa.
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