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The Ferrari 340 America Vignale Spider Competizione that couldn't win

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Created on December 4, 2016

Text:

Bruno von Rotz

Photos:

Bonhams

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Courtesy Bonhams

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Archiv

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Bonhams

17

Courtesy Bonhams

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Archiv

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - at full speed

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - the car ran at over 280 km/h back then

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - the car can get quite lively at the back

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - weighing around 850 kg and with 280 hp, this is still impressive today

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - this driver is to be envied

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - the 4.1-liter requires a lot of cooling air

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - the wheelbase is 2.5 meters

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - built for racing

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - compact sports car

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - narrow track, narrow tires

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - right-hand drive, like almost all racing cars of the time

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - spartan cockpit

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - the 4.1-liter engine with 12 cylinders in V-shape

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - three times Weber 40 DCF

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - with the Mille Miglia starting number of the time

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - former works car

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - like the gills of a fish

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Ferrari 212 Export (1951) - flat and streamlined, little weather protection due to the Vignale bodywork

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Ferrari 212 Export (1951) - Silhouette of the Vignale bodywork

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - with Piero Taruffi at the 1952 Mille Miglia

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Ferrari 340 America Spider Competizione Vignale (1952) - Dätwyler doesn't get away from the start in the two-tone Spider (to be seen behind the two Mercedes 300 SLs)

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Summary

Aurelio Lampredi, a young designer, joined Ferrari in 1946 and Enzo was to owe one of his most successful engine designs to him. Installed in racing and sports cars, the V12 ensured great success. In the Ferrari 340 America, it guaranteed high power output and more than competitive driving performance and was thus used in the world's biggest racing events - Le Mans, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio - albeit not always successfully. This report describes one of the Ferrari 340 America Spider models with Vignale bodywork from 1952 and shows it in many pictures.

This article contains the following chapters

Lampredi instead of Colombo
Vignale instead of Touring
Premiere with Taruffi
Swiss start with Daetwyler
Failure also at Le Mans and the Targa Florio
A bigger car?
New owners, new bodywork
Back to the start
Further information

Estimated reading time: 9min

Preview (beginning of the article)

The first sports car to bear the Ferrari name was the 125 S in 1947, powered by a 1.5-liter V12 engine designed by Gioacchino Colombo. This engine, later bored out to three liters, was the foundation of Ferrari's success for decades to come. However, the chosen engine design also had weaknesses, for example it was less suitable for supercharging. Aurelio Lampredi joined Ferrari in 1946 as a junior constructor, so to speak. Because Enzo Ferrari had realized that the Colombo V12 could not help him succeed in the large-volume or supercharged Formula 1 racing series, he commissioned Lampredi to design a large V12. In the initial configuration, this racing engine had 3322 cm3, but was above all longer and larger than the Colombo V12, which made it more robust and better suited to high power output.

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