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Vintage Race Car of the Week: 1960-1965 Birdcage Maseratis


Vintage Race Car of the Week: 1960-1965 Birdcage Maseratis

Some cars, like the Gurney Eagle that was profiled last week are just cosmically right from the moment of conception. The Birdcage Maseratis were born of a company that had tried and largely failed to become a racing powerhouse through the 1950s. Fangio scored a Formula One championship driving a Maserati in 1957, but that was the lone highlight for the mark through that decade. The company pulled out of racing in 1958.

Enter the rise of road racing in the United States and a thirst for foreign racing cars. Maserati had success in its road-going car business with a couple of profitable models. This allowed the company to spend some money on developing a race car again. An Italian engineer named Giulio Alfieri was tasked with designing the car from the ground up. He took the unusual approach of building the car out of hundreds of small diameter tubes (hence the “birdcage” nickname). This type of construction, which was incredibly labor intensive, provided a chassis that was very light and very strong. It was also gorgeous to see without a body on it.

Alfieri also took the unique step (for those days) of putting disc brakes on the car. Most cars of the day used either a combo of dics and drums or simply four larger diameter drums at the corners. The engine was moved way back in the frame, actually sitting behind the front axle. This allowed the car to scale evenly and it meant that the body builders could shrink down the nose of the car to make it slice through the air at speed.

The engine powering the majority of the cars was a 2.9L four-cylinder unit that produced 250 hp. It had two valves per cylinder, dual overhead cams, and breathed through two Weber carbs. Power was passed through a five-speed transmission. The compression was listed at 9.8:1. The car weighed only 1,300 pounds so it moved out pretty well.

The front suspension relied on double wishbones, Koni shocks, and an anti-roll bar. At the rear, a DeDion rear axle put the power to the ground. A transverse leaf (think Corvette), anti-roll bar, and Koni shocks did the dampening duties.

Maserati had a hit on its hands largely due to the hungry US market. With high-profile racers like Roger Penske and Caroll Shelby driving the cars in competition, they quickly developed a cult following. In international competition the cars scored a major victory in 1960 with Stirling Moss and Dan Gurney taking the overall victory at the Nurburgring 1000km. The same car was run at LeMans, but dropped out of the race after just a couple hours of competition due to electrical gremlins.

On the large stage, the cars had seen their day in the sun. The company sold many of the cars to privateer racers and eventually experimented with adding larger engines, changing the drivetrain layout, and refining the suspension. None of these things did anything but upset the balance of the cars and they saw no successes. The company dropped racing again in the mid 1960s and did not see the track in anger again until after the new millennium.

As an aside, the famous ‘60s custom car called the MantaRay, built by Dean Jeffries, was based on Birdcage Maserati underpinnings.
 
Birdcage Maserati

Birdcage Maserati


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