This is the follow up to my Wednesday post about a Ferrari 330 P3 that was raced in the 1966 Targa Florio. I wasn’t too familiar with this race but the images I’d seen online, exotic cars tearing across the twisty roads of Sicily, really intrigued me, so here’s a little background.
The 1966 version of the race was held on Sunday, May 8 on the 45-mile Madonie-Piccolo circuit in Palermo, Sicily. Drivers made 10 laps of the circuit, and each lap featured an unbelievable 8-900 corners! It was said that it took about 60 laps to learn the course but that had to be done in traffic as they were public roads. Just one practice lap, even with little traffic, could take an hour.
This particular 1/43 model, by Brumm, is the 1966 Ferrari 330 P3, raced by Nino Vaccarella, a school teacher and native of Palermo who was said to know the roads of Sicily like the back of his hand, and Lorenzo Bandini. The pair won the race in 1965. In the 1966 race they led most of the race until the Ferrari crashed after seven laps and couldn’t continue. Vaccarella also won the 24H Le Mans in 1964 and went on to win the Targa Florio in 1971 and 1975.
The diecast version is nice, but certainly no high-end representation. The decals are pretty sloppily applied; the big meatball in front isn’t even centered. And for some reason they chose to put tape over the headlights although I can’t find any picture of the car configured that way. I had to take a razor knife to the tires to slice off mold marks and flash. It does have a sweet V12 under the plastic rear deck but the deck appears to be glued down, hiding that gorgeous motor!
I placed a driver in the cramped RHD cockpit; the poor plastic lad had to have his legs and a good chunk of his abdomen lopped off to fit. The wheels came treated in chrome, but any pic I’ve seen shows the car with traditional gold wheels and silver or chrome knock-offs so that’s how I depicted it in the diorama. I heavily weathered the body and wheels; first with an ink-alcohol wash, followed by dry-brushing flat black paint. Lastly I dusted on grey chalk to tone down the shine.
The final piece of this car’s story is interesting. The car, chassis #0846, went on to race in the 1967 24H Le Mans (gearbox failure), and after being converted to P3/4 specs, took first overall at the 24H Daytona that same year (Bandini/Amon), and first in 4H Le Mans driven by Bandini as well. It crashed again in the 1967 Targa Florio and then caught fire in the 1967 24H Le Mans after a tire blew.
In 1968 Ferrari determined the car to be unsalvageable so they deconstructed and scrapped it. Fast forward to 2002: a gentleman by the name of Jim Glickenhaus bought what he assumed was a replica P4. After taking the car entirely apart (I mean entirely – removing 1000 rivets for example) and comparing the frame with Ferrari build sheets he realized he had 80% of the 0846 chassis in his hands. So, as far as Ferrari is concerned, 0846 doesn’t exist anymore, but James has restored it to the point that the FIVA (Federation Internationale des Vehicules Anciens issued an Identity Certificate for it!
