Scuderia Ferrari

[WANHER]

When E Ferrari created the scuderia, with other
people like Count Felice Trossi, Antonio Brivio
there was also Mario Tadini, yes one of
the driver who crashed at monaco 1n 1936.
If my memory is good he was also hillclimb
champion before the WWII. Any other comments

[marcus]

I have a comment ..
I have always wondered what Scuderia stood for ????

anybody know ???

is it italian for Team ???

thats my guess anyway

[Minardi fan]

The Italian for 'team' is squadra. I put scuderia into a translator and it came out the same, suggesting that it is a name.

[Ray Bell]

I've always understood 'Scuderia' meant 'stable'... as in stable of racehorses... and that 'Ecurie' meant the same in French...

But I'm far from being a linguist...

I know nothing of this chap, but maybe Hans Etzrodt will have some idea... in fact I guarantee he does...

By the way, did Scuderia Ferrari run the little car they built in 1940/41 (?) with the straight eight based on two Fiat 1100 engines under their own name or another... I know the car wasn't called Ferrari?

[WANHER]

E Ferari built those cars for the shortened MM in 1940
but not entered under his name question contract terms with
he former employeer Alfa Romeo.
It sees also the debut for A. Ascari as 'ferrari' driver
There was difference in the two bodies one short rear end
and the other one longer.
The color of the car ? normally red.
One of these cars was racing after the war.
I 'll check for further informations on my shelves.

[Vitesse]

Originally posted by Ray Bell
By the way, did Scuderia Ferrari run the little car they built in 1940/41 (?) with the straight eight based on two Fiat 1100 engines under their own name or another... I know the car wasn't called Ferrari?

Scuderia Ferrari as such no longer existed in 1940 - it had been put in mothballs when Alfa Corse was set up in 1938, with the stipulation that Ferrari should not race under his own name for four years: in typical Italian style, Alfa Romeo employed Enzo to run the new operation!!!

In 1939, after managing Alfa Corse for about a year, Enzo left and set up the Societa Auto Avio Construzioni Ferrari, a light engineering company which produced the car you are talking about, Ray: they were built by Enrico Nardi. Two were entered as Auto Avio Tipo 815s in the 1940 Mille Miglia, run on a closed circuit at Brescia and driven by Ascari and Rangoni: both led their class, but neither finished the race. The engines were designed by Alberto Massimino and were 1496cc straight eights, based on two Fiat 508C heads with a specially designed block (or two Fiat blocks in tandem, depending on your source!): they developed about 75bhp at 5500rpm. Much of the running gear was based on Fiat components.

Racing ceased shortly afterwards when Italy entered the war and Ferrari turned to making parts for whoever held the upper hand - he seems to have supplied both sides, like a lot of Italian companies. At any event, his company quadrupled in size and in 1946 the name changed again to Auto Construzione Modena. Marshall Plan money paid for the reconstruction of war damage and the move to Maranello. Sometime after that, it became the familiar SEFAC Ferrari.

The first actual Ferrari was a sports car based around the V12 designed by Colombo - he had actually wanted to build a mid-engined car, drawing on his experience with the unraced Alfa Romeo 512, but Ferrari vetoed this, on the grounds that horses pulled carts rather than pushing them. Ferrari also knew quite a bit about the 512 and probably felt that it was still untried technology, even with a smaller engine than the Auto Unions - the rear-engined revolution was still over ten years away - and the test car had killed Attilio Marinoni, although Carlo Pintacuda was apparently impressed with it.

WANHER: I've never seen a reference to the 815 racing post-war, but I'm happy to be enlightened!!

[Ray Bell]

All I really know about these is from an article I read in R & T or SCG or something back in the late sixties... well, maybe early seventies. I'm fairly sure the heads (two heads) were from the Fiat 1100, an engine which had a long postwar history. Remembered there was a restriction on Ferrari's name, but wasn't sure how far it went, but also knew the war took care of most of that problem for him.

The war worked pretty well for Enzo in the end, didn't it?

[WANHER]

In the book from L Orsini and in others you see a start line with
F Cortese with the Piacenza Ferrari but not at Piacenza and alongside
there is one of the 815. I've read also the future of the car but
I don't remember where that will be the next search .

[sat]

1947 AAC 815 was intensively raced by its private ownwer Enrico Beltracchini.

[Ray Bell]

During what years, sat?

You seem to have some information that will fill in some gaps in the knowledge of many here, keep it coming!

[sat]

1.6.1947 - Vercelli - 4th in Sport +1100
15.6.1947 - Vigevano - retired
20-21.6.1947 - MM - retired (with Massa)
15.8.1947 - Coppa Acerbo - retired

[Michael M]

Vitesse, the move to Maranello did not happen after the war, but already in 1943. Modena was an industry centre, and therefore targeted by allied bombers very often, the government therefore forced war important companies to move away from the city area. Nevertheless the Maranello factory was hit by allied bombing on 8 Sep 1943 and 4 Nov 1944.

Yes Ray, probably the war worked well for Ferrari, a fact which very often is forgotten when people are looking through the red-colored glasses. They produced machine tools for the grinding of ball bearings on German licence (some sources say the Germany refused the licence, but Ferrari did it nevertheless), which were in heavy demand all across the industry. During the war the staff of AAC rose from 40 to 160 people. So in fact the famous Ferrari story starts with money earned from - indirect - war production.

Additionally to the events listed by sat, the Auto-Avia 815 # 021 was in fact entered also at Piacenza on 11 May 1947, race number 162, DNF. Also on 24 August at the 4th Circuito Automobilistico di Senigallia (5th in class), and on 31 August at the Circuito di Novara (5th overall).

The designation “815” means 8 cylinders and 1.5 liters, so if FIAT engines had been used it must have been 750 cc ones. Also the power of 75 bhp is more a 1500 cc figure than a 2200 cc one.

[Ray Bell]

I have no argument with the capacity of the engine, Michael, but I'm sure the heads were said to have come from the 1100cc model in that story I read so long ago... after all, a racing engine might well have a much shorter stroke than a sedan, and the bores may have been a little smaller as well and still have capably used the combustion chambers.

A very interesting (and important) pair of cars, surely someone has some more factual information?

[Michael M]

I'm no specialist on FIAT cars, but as far I remember the 750 cc engine was the sports version of the 500 Topolino engine, and the 500 was a complete different engine model than the larger 1100. So if 750 cc blocks had been used, the 1100 heads would not fit at all. Will try to find out more.

[Vitesse]

Michael: thanks for the clarification - I'd used a couple of different sources for that and took a leap in the dark, based on an implied statement: I should know better!

The 508C engine seems to have been the one which first appeared in the 1933 Balilla, which was the Tipo 508, but my source says this was a short-stroke 995cc. There was a later sports model, the 508S, which was raced with some success, notably by Amedee Gordini, who used them as the basis for the first Simca-Gordinis (Fiats were built under licence by Simca in France). So, it looks like it was a newly-designed block, rather than two Fiats, unless they were linered down.

The Fiat engine could produce 75mph from 36bhp, blown units reached 48bhp and in stripped form the cars ran at over 100mph at Brooklands. Gordini apparently extracted 55bhp from his units.

[Ray Bell]

Georgano tells us in The World Guide to Automobiles that the 508 "received overhead valves in 1937." The 508S had them from 1934 onwards, but - though it's not clear - probably in the 995cc form.

Thus the 508C was the model that became known as the 1100, and that engine (undoubtedly improved over the years) continued in production until 1962.

Fiat's other production engines at the time were the side-valve 569cc Topolino, the 1500, and a 2.8-litre six.

The same book - this section by Brian Laban - reveals that the 815 was designed by Alberto Massimino and that they were built between December 1939 and April 1940. They appeared in and retired from the Brescia Grand Prix.

"The straight-eight engine used some Fiat 1100 parts and the body was by Touring of Milan." Hence it did use the heads of the 508C and the 1100, they being the same thing!

Laban also states that the severance conditons from Alfa lasted four years, and that the move to Maranello was in late 1943 "under decentralisation laws." This agrees with Michael's post, of course, and Laban also mentions the two bombings, though without the dates.

Just for interest sake, here's a picture of the car....

[Milan Fistonic]

From Franco Varisco's book on the 815.

The designer (Alberto Massimino and Vittorio Bellentani) took as his starting-point the Fiat 508C.....
The chassis was suitably adapted and reinforced to take the strain of greater power, while the front and rear suspension, brakes, transmission and steering of the Fiat 508C were all up to the standard required.
The most difficult problem was with the engine. It was decided to plan and construct an in-line 8-cylinder, in practice joining two Fiat 1100 engines and reducing the displacement to 1.5 litres. It was important however to use the greatest number of Fiat parts possible to gain time and reduce costs.
The cylinder block and oil sump, amply finned for cooling, were completely remade in aluminium and produced at the Calzoni Foundry in Bologna; so too was the valve cover with '815' written on it in relief. On the other hand the 5-bearing crankshaft and the camshaft with 16 cams were built at the Ferrari workshop in Modena. Valves, valve springs, rocker arms and connecting rods were all original Fiat parts.
Two heads from the 508C were placed in-line on the cylinder block. The pair of ignition distributors which had been difficult to synchronise were replaced by one specially made, this also activated the rev-counter. A new water-pump was installed, larger because of the increased engine capacity. Four new inverted carburettors supplied the engine with fuel, place between the pipes of the exhaust manifold which fed into a single pipe terminating at the right rear.

The book has a photo of the start of the August 11, 1947 Pescara race with Cortese's Ferrari 125 on the right-hand side of the front row and Beltrachini's 815 on the other side of the track.

[Michael M]

But Cortese's Ferrari was a 159 already ...