Marlboro Masters 1998:

Historic Grand Prix Cars (7/7)

There were quite a lot of Maseratis entered for this race, but only three actually finished. These three are featured on this page.

The oldest finishing Maserati is this 6CM of Roger Lucas. It's the blown 1.5-litre successor of the unblown 5-litre 8CM.
Because of the dominance of German marques like Mercedes and Auto Union in the official Formula One in those days, the Italian teams created a kind of a shadow Formula One series for 1.5 litre supercharged cars within the voiturette class. This car is one of the first Maseratis specially developed for that class.

This 4CL was a later development of that 1.5-litre class. Because of its growing popularity (or rather the growing unpopularity of Germans) lots of Grand Prix dropped the official Formula One races in favor for the this shadow Formula One class. At the end of 1939 the predecessor of the modern day FIA, the AIACR, decided to adopt the rules of this class as the official Formula One standard, upgrading the 1.5 litre blown cars in the voiturette class to Formula One and calling the 2 litre unblown cars in that class Formula Two.
The 4CL was entered in Grand Prix just before and after the second World War, in 1948 it was replaced by the 4CLT. Drivers like Nuvolari and Sommer drove these cars, mostly entered by Scuderia Milano. Maserati didn't have a factory team in those days.

Beautifully restored, this Maserati of Norbert Schmitz-Koep. The type 4CL wasn't really successful during its heyday. The Alfa Romeo 158 was the car to beat, and later on they all were defeated by the Mercedes W165.
In 1939 a more aerodynamic version of the 4CL was also developed, with wheelcovers and bulgeous styling. It ran only in the Grand Prix of Tripolis, where it was beaten by that all-new Mercedes W165.
The 4 CL was powered by a four cylinder 1490 cc supercharged engine that could produce up to 240 hp, depending on the type of supercharger.

Best known post war racer of Maserati is this 250F-type. This one is now driven by Christian Glasel, but in 1954 and 1955 the Malaysian Price Bira won two races in it. One was the Grand Prix of  New Zealand, believe it or not. Other famous drivers who drove a 250F were Stirling Moss and Juan Manuel Fangio.
The 250F was built from 1954 to 1958 and used in Grand Prix racing up to 1961. In total 29 250F's were built, among them some short wheelbase versions called "Piccolo". It had a supercharged straight six engine with a displacement of 1497 cc, producing 240 hp in 1954 and 270 hp in 1957. Also a 3.5 litre V12 engine was introduced in 1957 and raced in Monza in the Race of two Worlds. More than 40 races were won with a 250F.