Weather Gods are obviously fans of Historic Racing. Not a single cloud was detected to disturb the 40th OGP what often can be very different and difficult in the Eifel. Eifel and the Ardennes are two of a kind in that case.
It was already early Saturday morning when visitors and participants with “normal” cars and historic and sports cars cued up for long traffic jams from the feeder roads to the parking lots and entry gates for the display parking. A good sign again that Western Europe has a strong and still growing community of Oldtimer- and Youngtimer-drivers. A total of 50,000 visitors have been counted over the weekend.
The first way is always to have a short look to the parking lots around the entry gate to the Historic pits and, if accessible, a walk through the hotels’ parking garages. Results there have been only fair this time. Second glance is on the “occupancy” of the infield where the racing teams, some of the brand displays, Coys Auction and sellers of books, scale models and memorabilia are located as well as the canteens are.
A quick walk through Coys’ tent confirmed the results already gathered from their online auction list, despite the personal viewing led to confirmation and correction of some misprints, Coys had put online. It is always sad to see vendors missing the accuracy! Auction results have not been published by Coys yet. The description of Testarossa #62837 indicated the model code as “I7”. As we know that capitals have not been used to date to present a model and as we all are connoisseurs, it clearly has to be “17” as the correct model code for a Testarossa. The car in elegant Blu Sera Met./Crema was offered as a one owner car, first registered on April, 27th 1986, with 74,900 km and showed an estimate €45,000 - €55,000 what looks to be fair for a Testarossa in good condition what can be implied as the car was from the stock of official dealer Auto Gohm from Singen.
Second miss was the 550 Pininfarina Barchetta on offer. There are experts around enough that easily could do proofreading of the catalogue. Given as “ZFF2” it missed the correct description “ZFFZ”. The second “Z” stands for a Maranello engine installed, as you all know. More hair-raising was the fact, that the Serial Number was displayed wrong in Coys’ offer. The car was not #126312 but #124312 what complies with Barchetta # 334/448. The car in a Blu Tour de France 522/Grigio Scuro livery was delivered new to official dealer Helmut Eberlein from Kassel and remained unregistered. The odometer show an unbelievable 470 km from new.
Third Prancing Horse with Coys was the ex-Jean Alesi race car 412T1MAT.155. A quick glance on our database of the results of Formula Racing shows entries in the races in Jerez (10th), Suzuka (3rd) and Adelaide (6th) in the 1994 season. The car was spotted at Modena Motorsports Track Days in late June of 2011.
Out of the tent, on to the pits! It’s always big fun to come close to the cars that participate in the support races to the event. Each pit is used by multiple cars and the visitors are invited to sneak around. Corrado Cupellini entered his 250 TR Replica, built on Pininfarina Coupe #1589GT. He shared the car with Nicola Dönhoff. They achieved a 34th place in race 1 and obviously did not start in race 2 of “Race 4: Two seaters and racecars up to 1960/61”. The same race saw entries of restorer and dealer Franco Meiners’ “Methusalem” who showed up with well known 196 Sport Fantuzzi Spider #0776. Driven by Alex Birkenstock and Burkhard von Schenk they came in as 7th (r1) and 12th (r2). Plinio Haas once ago showed up with 250 GT TdF #1401GT (did not classify in r1, 16th in r2) and funny enough I met Heiner Oettli, owner of TdF # #1139. Haas and Oettli had an accident involving both cars during Ferrari Racing Days at the Ring in 2008. Oettli remembered the crash well and quoted that an owner has to expect damages done to the cars when participating. This came to my mind again on Sunday morning when I saw three Ferraris with light damages to their fenders. Beside the TR Replica #1589GT, #2439GT the wonderful 250 GT SWB in Avorio with a light Blue stripe of Daniela and Oliver Ellerbrock was hit, this time, the “causer “ was easy to identify, it was Bernd Hahne, the first Ferrari Challenge Champion (we will come back this) and highly experienced Gentleman driver, who obviously hit #2439GT at the rear fender on the driver’s side with a Mercedes Benz 300 SL he drove for HK-Engineering. Hahne had driven #2439GT at Modena Motorsports Track Days in late June of 2011 together with Daniela Ellerbrock. The Ellerbrock’s achieved p 12 (r1) and p 6 (r2). #0536MD, the 500 Mondial that was present most recently at the Schloss Dyck Classic days received a bigger dent as well. Michael Röder will have some works to do as well over the winter, however he came in 26th (r1) and 22nd (r2).
Clive Joy’s 250 GT SWB Competizione started in “Race 7: Master GT up to 1965”. He came in on position 25 in this one heat race. Co-driver on #1811GT was Kilian Konig. A view under the hood confirmed that the car is now running with eng. # 3493, a transplanted organ from a 250 GTE.
Most recent Ferrari in the historic AvD-races was 512 S Spider #1002 in its Yellow, Red and Green Escuderia Montjuich livery. #1002 has been upgraded to M-specifications in its early life. Entered by Dieter and Dominik Roschmann into “Race 6: World Sportscar Masters” #1002 achieved p 2 in the first race and p 3 in the second race.
As a “support vehicle” present at nearly every OGP #13607, the RHD 365 GTB/4 Daytona in its rare original colour Viola Dino metallizzato was parking in front of the pits again.
From the pits to the fields opposite to the Mercedes Arena - where the clubs are located. In the past, Ferrari used the so called Event Zones for their Merchandise-Tent, their catering-tent and had space enough to park the owners’ cars there. That was in the glory days, when up to 400 cars could have been spotted over the weekend. To keep the tradition alive, the heroic work of Ferrari Club Deutschland (FCD) cannot be valued big enough. The number of members is slightly higher than 400. 120 cars have been present at FCD’s display, 23 cars on both days, 58 cars on Saturday and 39 “new” cars on Sunday. The German Ferrari-scene is obviously far from comparison to events by British or French sister clubs. However, 9 Dinos showed up accompanied by some historic icons like 6931GT, a Shortnose 275 GTB and a 250 GTE Series I, #2281GT, that is wearing its Grigio Fume livery for 30 years now, being repainted from Rosso Bordeaux and the Daytona Spider Conversion by Straman, done on #14195. I talked to the owner of #30633, a 512 BB, which was mistaken with a car being a Lorenz & Rankl Spider conversion for a long time. The solution is simple; the owner of #30633 owns the Lorenz & Rankl Spider as well in the same colour of Rosso Corsa and uses the same German collector plates on both cars. The Spider has received a Lorenz & Rankl VIN, W09PL5218KWL12013, after the conversion. If the owner kindly sticks to his promise, he will provide the Ferrari Chassis Number that was used.
Two Scuderias in rare colours have been present, one being Nuovo Rosso Scuderia, the Formula 1-car colour scheme and one in Rosso Mugello. 7 Italia Spider, one in Giallo Triplo Strato, the new Yellow met. colour and 4 16M Scuderia Spiders have been spotted beside the two super cars, # 135560, an Enzo Ferrari and a 599 GTO, # 174383.
Heading home on Saturday a very old Ferrari passed me by going to the Ring. It was obvious that it was a Vignale design and I was already sad to have missed it, but, when I left on Sunday, the car stood in pit #1 for a short period before it made its way home. Time enough to identify, time enough to take pictures, pictures, pictures…
It was #0170ED, a 225 Sport Vignale Tuboscocca Berlinetta 52 Rosso Corsa Nero Roof/Cuoio RHD EU, one of two lightweight "Tuboscocca" Competition Berlinettas having a 250 GT Boano engine installed. 0170ED was sold new to Dr. Augusto Caraceni from Roma in 1952 an registered on Italian plates Roma 161517 and was entered in 1952’s Mille Miglia (have a look on our Sports Car Racing database!) where it didn’t finish. The Caraceni participated in various hillclimbs after the MM and achieved to win its class in the Italian Hill climb Championship. The car went back to the Factory in 1953 and they sold it to the Netherlands where it was raced in 1954 by Jan Bos-Eyssen. In 1964 the first American owner is reported, being Stanley Nowak from Bronxville, NY. Various owners in the US follows, amongst them, good friend Ed Niles (who else!) and Peter G. Sachs. After being owned by Tom Davis jr., David Cottingham, founder of DK Engineering, acquired the car in 1986 before it changed hands to another friend, Mike Sheehan, in 1988. A 250 GT Boano engine with # interno 508 was installed in the late 1980s and the car was purchased by Swiss Reiner Simon and displayed at Museum Monteverdi in Binningen. After a short stay with John Maher in Australia, another friend, Harald Mergard, the man behind barchetta.cc, anamera.com and Studioline-software, became the lucky owner until 2004. After being on offer with brand specialist offered by Mario Bernardi, Dr. Wohlenberg from Bad Homburg kept the car in Germany. Wohlenberg was followed by Mr. Schlaewicke from Berlin before –as it seems to be the case with many historic cars- it went close to my home to Dr. Albert Streminski from Cologne who acquired it at RM’s Monaco auction in 2011.
Any better last point you can imagine? Further good news is that AvD has already agreed with the insolvency administrator of the Nürburgring that the 41st OGP will be held in 2013. What will happen to the Ring in general? Who knows, let’s hope for the best for a track of victories and tragedies.