0007 started its life in 1958 and was run by the Scuderia and entered in four races with Hill, von Trips and Gendebien, achieving a 5th place in the Portuguese GP as best result. In 1960 it was raced by Dan Gurney but it was not earlier than 0007’s last F1-race that the efforts returned the first victory when Phil Hill won the Italian GP at Monza.
In late 1960 0007’s engine was replaced with a V12 250 TR-engine and was renumbered and restamped 0788F and sold to Pat Hoare of Christchurch in New Zealand to be entered in the Tasman Series. Hoare raced 0788F in four documented races, winning two times, gaining one second place and a 6th position. In 1965 0007/0788F went through another strange period of its life and the single seater body was replaced with a mock GTO 64-style body.
In 1978, Englishman Neil Corner purchased the car and Crosthwaite & Gardner returned the car back to its original specifications. Corner entered the car in several British historic racing events until he obviously had an accident at the 2000 Goodwood Revival and probably sold the car to Tony Smith.
When taking pictures of 0007/0788F in the pit, Matthias was addressed by Tony Smith and a very kind and interesting conversation started. Tony told, that the car still has both engines and that the air intakes behind the front wheels are always removed when the V12-engine is fitted.
Tony has a friend who is medical surgeon who uses some kind of X-ray-equipment and what would be more obvious to check the plate with the stamping of 0007/0788F? The modern technique made the previous stamping of 0007 visible and Tony keeps that picture to document this fact.
As the car is frequently entered into historic motorsport, Tony decided –being advised by his mechanic- to make copies of the front nose and the rear of the car and have those parts fitted during racing as the mechanic states that the original part “would not survive damage”. Very thoughtful, Tony!
Tony made the podium on Saturday, when he came in 3rd with a gap of 21.122 sec. His fastest lap was 2:07.139 min. with an average speed of 129.938 km/h. On Sunday after the second race 0007/0788F came in on 4th position with a gap of 1:06.975 min. Tony’s fastest lap was very comparable to the previous day’s result: 2:07.682 min. and his average speed on Sunday was 124.832 km/h.