The Carrera Panamericana

It’s 1950 and you’re the head of the government body responsible for completing the Mexican stretch of the long-awaited Pan-American Highway – an incredibly proud moment for a country desperate to shake off its ‘old-world’ image. Devised to connect Alaska in the north with Argentina in the south, the ambitious multinational cross-continental road project was quite the feat, both logistically and politically.

With post-War prosperity fueling tourism and making the motor car – and thus travel by road – more accessible than ever, Mexico urgently needs traffic on the 2,200-mile stretch of road it has worked so defiantly to build. The solution? A marathon border-to-border road race to make the Mille Miglia and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Europe look like proverbial walks in the park.

Aptly christened the Carrera Panamericana, the fearsome weeklong competition was held five times between 1950 and 1954, attracting the era’s very best drivers from every discipline of motorsport (Formula 1 included!) and firmly establishing itself as the most challenging motor race in the world. In fact, from 1953, the Carrera Panamericana became a fully-fledged round of the FIA World Sportscar Championship (to the chagrin of many competitors, who were forced to start wearing crash helmets as a result!).

When worlds collide

Much of the charm of the Carrera Panamericana was the kaleidoscopic variety of machinery taking part. With the emerging North American market’s increasing appetite for automotive exports from Europe, thunderous stock saloons from the ‘Big Three’ in Detroit were pitched against comparatively exotic sports cars from Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari.

With Grands Prix, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and Le Mans victories already chalked on its competition record, the Prancing Horse might have been a young company at the turn of the 1950s, but its intentions were clear to everybody. In Europe, at least. North America was a lucrative yet largely untapped market for Ferrari at that time, which explains why Maranello sent two brand new 212 Inters and its star drivers Piero Taruffi and Alberto Ascari to Mexico for the Carrera in 1951. That and the generous government-funded prize pot, no doubt.

When the pair crossed the finish line near Ciudad Juárez first and second in front of 200,000 local spectators, clinching the handsome 23,000-dollar purse, Enzo Ferrari was encouraged. He appointed his old friend Luigi Chinetti, the Italo-American Le Mans winner and Taruffi’s invaluable Carrera co-driver, as Ferrari’s North American agent (Chinetti promptly sold both 212 Inters to Mexican drivers straight after the race). And back in Italy, development work began on a new car specifically for the next year’s Carrera Panamericana.

The Ferrari 340 Mexico

The result was the commanding and aptly named Ferrari 340 Mexico, which, unlike its 2.5-litre Colombo V12-powered predecessor, was fitted with ingegnere Aurelio Lampredi’s 4.1-litre all-alloy long-stroke single-overhead-cam V12, the engine whose roots can be traced to the race-winning 375 Formula 1 monoposto.

Designed by a young Giovanni Michelotti for Vignale, the aggressive yet strikingly elegant competition-focused Gran Turismo was beautifully unconventional. Aesthetically in line with the 212 Inter (also a high-waisted pontoon-fender Vignale design), the Mexico melded function-first features such as the bug deflector spanning the entire width of the bonnet and the vertical vents on the doors force-feeding cold air to the rear wheels with generous chrome trim and subtle tail fins no doubt implemented by tickle the Americans’ aesthetic fancy.

“The 340 Mexico was designed for one thing: going hour after hour at full-chat on terrible roads, at altitude, in all weather conditions and in the face of all kind of oblivious exotic wildlife.”

Beneath the surface, features such as the 150-litre endurance fuel tank, extended fifth gear, quadruple carburettors increasing power to a heady 280bhp (that’s 180mph flat-out, in 1952!), lightened tubular chassis and strengthened rear axle were all implemented with the Carrera Panamericana firmly in mind. In short, the 340 Mexico was designed for one thing: going hour after hour at full-chat on terrible roads, at altitude, in all weather conditions and in the face of all kind of oblivious exotic wildlife. It was designed for one thing: to win the Carrera Panamericana.

Chassis no. 0228 AT

Ferrari built just four 340 Mexicos for the 1952 Carrera Panamericana: three Berlinettas and one Spyder, all bodied by Vignale. The car we’re honoured to be presenting here is the sole Spyder: chassis number 0228 AT.

At almost 250lbs and standing well above six feet, William ‘Bill’ Spear by no means resembled the archetypal 1950s racing driver. But, contrary to his appearance, the wealthy Connecticut privateer was rather a dab hand behind the wheel. In fact, during his five-year foray into the world of international motorsport, Spears scored podium finishes in both the 24 Hours of Le Mans and the 12 Hours of Sebring.

Five thousand miles away in Modena, Il Commendatore did not care for the stature or weight of Mr. Spear. What he valued was a loyal customer and an excellent ambassador for his brand – especially in the burgeoning North American market. Via Chinetti, Spear acquired his first Ferrari, a 166 MM Touring Barchetta, in December of 1950 and his second, a 340 America Touring Barchetta, not long after. Incidentally, here at Girardo & Co. we had the pleasure of rehoming the 340 America, chassis number 0118 A, late last year.

After a factory photo call in Maranello, chassis number 0228 AT was boarded on the same vessel as its scarlet Berlinetta counterparts and set sail across the Atlantic for the start of the 1952 Carrera Panamericana. However, despite the car reaching Mexico and Spear being listed on the entry list, he and his new Ferrari pulled out of the race at the very last minute for reasons unbeknownst to us.

Instead, the Ferrari made its competition debut in the opening round of the 1953 Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Championship at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Once in the United States, Spear chose to finish his new 340 Mexico Spyder in royal blue with a white bonnet and boot lid, just like his 340 America. The six-hour endurance race at MacDill required two drivers so Spear called on Phil Hill, a 26-year-old from the West Coast embarking on a career in motor racing that would see him become the very first American Formula 1 World Champion.

Also a keen photographer, Hill’s images captured at this time paint a gloriously candid picture of amateur motor racing in the 1950s, worlds away from the corporate safety-obsessed sport today. The race at MacDill is wonderfully documented in his book Inside Track. Hill and Spear had a tremendous race, crossing the finish line second overall and only narrowly missing out on victory thanks to several broken wheel spokes. “We could have won easily,” he recalls in the book. “I had been lucky to be invited to co-drive by Spear, and lucky to find out I could do it, so it was a real shame. According to Road & Track’s race report, I was doing 140mph on the MacDill backstretch!”

While Spear took delivery of a new Ferrari 340 MM Spyder in the spring, he still tackled the following races at Bergstrom, Pebble Beach, Bridgehampton and Lockbourne with chassis number 0228 AT. And with considerable success – his proven and commandingly powerful Ferrari had proved the car to beat, accruing him two victories and two further podiums. Combined with his stellar results in the 340 MM Spyder, Spear was crowned the 1953 SCCA National Sports Car Champion.

As had become customary for Spear, a new year meant a new Ferrari. For 1954 he took delivery of a 375 MM Pinin Farina Spyder and the 340 Mexico Spyder was moved on courtesy of his friend Briggs Cunningham’s Alfredo Momo Corporation. Momo was also Spear’s trusted mechanic.

“Retaining its matching-numbers chassis, engine and rear axle, chassis number 0228 AT is a striking, scintillating and unique open ‘big-banger’ 12-cylinder 1950s Ferrari.”

The Massachusetts European sports-car concessionaire Preston Gray acquired chassis number 02228 AT in 1955. Painted canary yellow, the car once again contested the fiercely competitive SCCA National Sports Car Championship. That the 340 was still earning podiums in its final competitive races in 1957, five years after it left Maranello, was a testament to its fundamental effectiveness as a race car. It’s also worth noting that this car was featured in both the 1952 and 1955 Ferrari Yearbooks.

Fast-forward to 1987 and this car joined the collection of the Mexican-born Monterey-based Ferrari aficionado Lorenzo H. Zambrano. Zambrano promptly commissioned a ground-up restoration with Steve Tillack & Company in California, with a view to extensively exhibiting chassis 0228 AT throughout the 1990s and into the New Millennium. And exhibit the car he did! Zambrano took the car to Italy for the Mille Miglia Storico. He showed the car at the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance thrice, collecting some sought-after silverware along the way. And he raced it at the Annual Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca.

This Ferrari’s current owner acquired the car in 2011, subsequently commissioning a cosmetic restoration with Brian Hoyt’s Perfect Reflections, the award-winning Californian classic automotive restoration specialist, returning chassis number 0228 AT to the original specification in which it left the factory in October of 1952. Upon completion, this 340 Mexico Spyder made its first – and, to date, only – public appearance at the 2015 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance.

Having only been fleetingly seen in public in recent years, this ultra-special Ferrari is a ticket to the world’s greatest historic motoring events. From prestigious beauty pageants such as the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance to dynamic events such as the Mille Miglia Storico and the Colorado Grand.

Retaining its matching-numbers chassis, engine and rear axle, chassis number 0228 AT is a striking, scintillating and unique open ‘big-banger’ 12-cylinder 1950s Ferrari. Furthermore, it was raced by the first American Formula 1 World Champion, Phil Hill, in what was arguably the most golden of eras of American motorsport.