Ferrari 121 LM
Ferrari was always willing to adopt new trends in
motor sport, to a point of making a new model for each specific race or
customer. This is particularly true of his short-lived 6-cylinder cars made for
the 1955 World Sportscar Championship.
Just a year earlier, Enzo saw the Jaguar win the 24
Hours of LeMans with their D-Type. Even though it was the chassis technology in
the D-Type that made it special, Ferrari mimicked the 6-cylnder XK and it’s
double overhead camshaft (DOHC) design.
Further motivating Ferrari’s 6-pot screamer was
success of the four cylinder engine that powered the 500 Mondial and 750 Monza
in 1953 as well as 1954. Engineer Aurelio Lampredi took the basic design of
these engines and added two additional cylinders. This gave it twin-spark
ignition, 3 Weber 50 DCOA3 Carburetors.
Both the 3.7 liter (Type 118) and 4.4 liter (Type
121) were cast for the 1955 season using a Tipo 509 frame similar to the 750
Monza. This included a ladder-type steel tube chassis with a DeDion rear
suspension and wishbones up front.
The body was hand made by the workshops of Sergio
Scaglietti. He recalls “We formed the lines of the cars by placing a thin metal
tubing over the chassis to get an idea of what the body would look like.
Ferrari left the design up to me and we never did a drawing. Instead we relied
on this wire ‘maquette,’ which normally took about three days to make. Once
completed, we constructed the body panels.”
A total of six cars were made The very first of
these showed up to the season opener at the Buenos Aires 1000 km but was
disqualified in the lead.
