Ferrari F 156

Scalextric C.2640A Ferrari F 156 "Sharknose"
- Phil Hill, German Grand Prix 1961.

Scalextric C.2727 Ferrari F 156 "Sharknose"
- Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips, German Grand Prix 1961.

Superslot H.2640A Ferrari F 156 "Sharknose"
- Giancarlo Baghetti, French Grand Prix 1961.

By Holger "Slaasshh" Thor

In spring 1961 Formula One faced some major changes in its regulations. The main thing being
the engine volume reduced to 1.5 litres. While the British teams Cooper, Lotus and BRM were
discussing pro and contras of these new regulations, the Italians at Ferrari in a very untypical
Italian matter just constructed a brand new car and engine to start the season. So when the
season was of, they were well prepared compared to their British counterparts. In this season
this little car bore fruit with five victories out of seven races including a fine 1-2-3-4 finish at
Spa, Belgium. Only tremendous efforts and victories at Monaco and the Nürburgring by Stirling
Moss in his Lotus-Climax 18/21 could stop these red cars.
This magnificent little car was the famous Ferrari F 156, designed by engineer Carlo Chiti, and
today known to the race world as the "Sharknose" model.
Scalextric C.2727 is the F 156 with race number 3, which the German count von Trips qualified
as number 5 in the same race on the Nürburgring. He finished in second place only beaten by
Moss and the Lotus-Climax. Von Trips had previously won the Dutch and the British Grand Prix
that season, and when he started on Monza on September 10th everything was settled for
celebrating him as champion of the world. Fate decided otherwise. On the second lap,
approaching the Parabolica, his F 156 and the Lotus-Climax 21 of Jim Clark collided. Clark
crashed without injury, but the Ferrari hit a spectator fence and was tossed into a roll. Von
Trips was thrown from the car and was killed along with 14 spectators
Wolfgang Reichsgraf Alexander Berghe von Trips, as his full name was, became famous as being
the first German to be admired by the whole world since the end of WWII. He was the last of
the old von Trips dynasty from Cologne, a dashing young man with a film star look. In his early
years he was known as "Count Crash" in the British motor sport press, because of his many
accidents at the beginning of his career. But after being team mate to Mike Hawthorn in the
late fifties, he was nicknamed "Taffy" by Hawthorn for reasons which have been lost in the
mists of motor racing history.
On September 10th 1961 Taffy von Trips had originally been booked on a flight from Düsseldorf
to Chicago. The young heir to the Hemmersbach castle, the last of the von Trips dynasty,
should have been the German representative on an agricultural exhibition in the United States.
This plane crashed over Ireland with no survivors. On this very day Taffy von Trips had two
chances to die, but no one to survive.
On the coat of arms of the von Trips dynasty, there were three words in Latin: IN MORTE VITA
(in death there is life)!
The lack of a competitive engine for the British teams changed in 1962, and Ferrari failed to win
a race. The Ferrari F 156 continued to be used for two more seasons scoring single wins in
1963 and 1964 respectively. John Surtees in Germany in 1963 and Lorenzo Bandini in Austria the
year after.

Superslot H.2640A has race number 50 and is a copy of the car, Giancarlo Baghetti drove in the
French Grand Prix at Reims on July 2nd 1961. Italian born Giancarlo Baghetti became famous by
winning this his maiden Grand Prix, as almost all the big names went off or broke down, and at
the end Baghetti was left to slipstream past Dan Gurney in his Porsche 718 on the very last lap.
Baghetti is the only race driver to date, who has ever won first time out in a Grand Prix.
But the story is even better than this, since Reims was not Baghetti´s first Formula One race.
Or victory for that sake…
Back in those days there was a tradition of more than 10 Formula One races during the season,
which did not qualify as official Grand Prix´s and did not count for the World Championship.
One such non-championship race was the Sicilian Grand Prix held on Siracusa on Tuesday, April
25th, 1961 to celebrate the Allied landings on Sicily during WWII. Most of the teams decided to
use Siracusa as a serious test session prior to the start of the World Champion season. Ferrari
brought their original F1 team including Phil Hill, Taffy von Trips and Ritchie Ginther, but besides
that, they entered a second (or sister) team called Federazione Italiana Scuderie
Automobilistische (F.I.S.A.) with the Italian drivers Lorenzo Bandini, Renato Pirocchi and
Giancarlo Baghetti. This was in fact Baghetti´s first ever Formula One race. And he did only
make one big mistake in the race, when he at the end of the race went down the escape road
after the finish line. He stood in the pit lane afterwards and seemed to find it difficult to take
the enormity of what he had accomplished - winning his first Formula One race and beating all
the established star drivers of the day. Stars like Stirling Moss, Graham Hill, Jim Clark, Dan
Gurney not to mention his established colleagues of the official Ferrari SpA SEFAC team.
But there was more to come. Namely Grand Primo di Napoli, which took place at Posillipo in
Naples on May 14th, in fact the very same day as the Monaco Grand Prix. So when the stars of
the Ferrari SpA SEFAC team battled it out in Monte Carlo (and were severely beaten by Stirling
Moss and his Lotus-Climax 18 of the RRC Walker Racing Team), the F.I.S.A team once more
represented Ferrari in a Formula One race. And strangely, Giancarlo Baghetti, in his second time
out in the F 156, won again. Although it must be admitted, that the thirteen cars large field
wasn´t the strongest.
And then came Reims and Giancarlo Baghetti won his third victory out of three possibilities. And
this time it was a "real" one - an official Grand Prix.
Unfortunately for Baghetti this stayed as his only ever Grand Prix win. But who else can state,
that he won his first three times out in a Formula One race? He retired from racing in 1968 and
started a new career as a photographer working for Playboy. He then became the publisher of a
new weekly magazine called Auto Oggi. He died of cancer in 1995.