Ferrari spent all
of last year celebrating its 70th anniversary, marking the automaker’s founding
in 1947. But Enzo Ferrari and his Scuderia were racing for longer than that.
Before producing his own cars (and the outbreak of WWII), Ferrari raced Alfa
Romeos – and none more noteworthy than the Tipo B.
One of the most
successful of inter-war grand prix racers, the Tipo B was one of the first
“monopostos”, single-seaters featuring the centerline driving position that
would come to characterize the breed up ’til today.
Though designed by
the famous Vittorio Jano for Alfa Romeo, that company’s insolvency in 1933 left
the campaigning of the Tipo B to Scuderia Ferrari. So the majority of the 46
victories it achieved were won by the House of the Prancing Horse – including
16 out of 39 grands prix held in 1935 – with drivers like Tazio Nuvolari,
Rudolf Caracciola and Louis Chiron behind the wheel.
This example –
alternately bearing the chassis number 5007 or 50007 – was driven by Richard
Shuttleworth, a British pilot of both aircraft and race cars. It won its heat
at Brooklands, its class at the Shelsle Walsh hillclimb, and, most notably, the
Grand Prix at Donington, where Shuttleworth in this Tipo B held off two Type 59
Bugattis to win the day.
Alternately known
as the P3, the Tipo B was retired at the end of the 1935 season. And though it
famously held off the more advanced Silver Arrows from Germany’s Auto Union and
Mercedes-Benz, the models that replaced it proved no match for the superior
German engineering. The Alfas wouldn’t claim another race win until the
outbreak of the Second World War put racing on hiatus. They didn’t win another
until racing resumed in 1950, and Ferrari didn’t until the year after.
That leaves the
Tipo B as something of a legend. With only a handful having survived until now,
this example’s forthcoming auction represents a rare opportunity to acquire one
– and a race winner, at that. Little wonder, then, that Bonhams expects this
one to fetch a good £ 4.5-5 million (about US$ 6-6.6m) when it goes under the
hammer at the Goodwood Festival of Speed next week.
