Beschreibung:

The ex-Luigi Fagioli, Giuseppe Campari, Baconin Borzacchini, Officine Maserati 1933 French Grand Prix winning 1932 MASERATI 8C 3000 GRAND PRIX TWO SEATER RACING CAR Chassis No. 3001 Dark red with brown leather seats Engine: eight cylinders, in-line, twin overhead camshafts, supercharged, 3,000cc, 220bhp at 5,500rpm; Gearbox: four-speed manual; Suspension: semi-elliptic springs front and rear with Andre-Hartford friction-type dampers; Brakes: hydraulic four wheel drum. Right hand drive. This rare machine was the ultimate version of the Maserati brothers' renowned first series of twin-cam, eight cylinder engined-cars and indeed the last of their two-seater Grand Prix contenders, all of which were developed over a short space of scarcely six years. The debut of their first car was in the arduous Sicilian Targa Florio, where they won the 1500cc class with a fine drive by Alfieri Maserati and Guerrino Bertocchi, the gifted engineer-designer whose long-term career with the small firm from Bologna was to prove significant in the development and racing successes of the company. During these formative years they produced a range of very effective racing and sports car variations on the one basic theme, utilizing several different capacities of the same design of engine from 1,100cc up to 2,800cc. This enabled their cars to be run in events for differing formulae such as Cyclecar, Voiturette or Grands Prix, as well as sports car races, with the prime purpose of selling their products to amateur and professional drivers, based on racing achievements of their own factory team. By the end of 1931, however, they began to meet stronger opposition from both Bugatti, with their powerful Type 51 model, and Alfa Romeo with their new 'Monza' cars; both marques provided highly formidable competition. Maserati therefore, while awaiting production of some of their own new designs, which were either on the drawing board or at the experimental stages, responded with a renewed bid for success, firstly with their V4 16-cylinder machines and simultaneously with a new twin-camshaft unit of 3 litres capacity for the 1932 season. Two new chassis were laid down and the cars were built for the factory team, principally for Luigi Fagioli, as the number one driver, and Giuseppe Campari. It is interesting to note that as far as the Works-team was concerned, they did try to keep an individual car to each driver, although as races were for long duration some driver changes and replacements inevitably occurred. Production was very slow and money scarce, so only two actual cars were built to this specification and one other engine was built before production was switched to monoposto Grand Prix versions. The new engine, which had originally been designated for an innovative 4-wheel drive single-seater, featured a narrower crank-case with cylinder blocks based on the existing 4CM 1,500cc layout paired, having a bore and stroke of 69x100mm. The supercharger pressure was increased by gearing up the drive ratio and running the blower at 1/3 faster than engine speed, compression was raised from 5:1 to 6:1, while induction input was much improved by the utilization of a Weber 55ASI type carburetor and new manifold design. The crankshaft had improved dry-sump lubrication throughout to both 5-main and big-end journals with anti-friction bearings in reinforced tubular con-rods. In light of the shortcomings of the fwd chassis, the first two engines were installed in the well-proven chassis design developed from the 26M series and were numbered 3001 & 3002 respectively. The first major outing for this car, 3001, was at the Czechoslovak Grand Prix at Brno in late 1932, where it was driven most effectively by Luigi Fagioli in finishing second to Louis Chiron's Bugatti T51. It was next readied for the 1933 season, where the opening race was in North Africa on 26th March for the Tunis Grand Prix and Fagioli, again the driver, was forced to retire with mechanical problems. A prom