Stirling Moss filmed here
08/26/2018
Britain's Stirling Moss is certainly one of the best racing drivers of all time. It is probably thanks to his talent that when the steering wheel of the Maserati 420 M-58 "Eldorado" pictured here broke, he and his car escaped virtually unscathed. And this despite the fact that the steering wheel broke in two in the infamous steep-sided curve at Monza.
However, this is not the main reason why this Maserati became famous. It was built as a customer order by the sports car manufacturer in Modena after the factory withdrew from racing after winning the F1 World Championship in 1957 and only built racing cars for well-paying private customers. Gino Zanetti had the necessary money and had this unique car built for the "Trofeo dei due Mondi", which in principle combined parts of the 250F with the 450S. The V8 engine with a displacement of 4.2 liters produced 410 hp at 8000 rpm. This accelerated the 420/M/58 up to 350 km/h.
What made the Maserati special, however, was its paintwork. Zanetti wanted to make his ice cream brand "Eldorado" better known by racing it. And so the car was sprayed white and painted with Eldorado lettering and the logo (smiling cowboy), a first in motor racing. It would be almost a decade before Colin Chapman followed suit with Lotus in Formula 1.
Stirling Moss would not have won the "race of two worlds", in which the best of the best from Europe and the USA were to compete, even without a broken steering wheel, as he had only finished fourth and fifth in the first two races. But the Maserati's paintwork made it immortal.
The racing car with its eye-catching tail fin is on display until this evening (August 26, 2018) at the Passione Engadina Maserati exhibition at the Hotel Kulm in St. Moritz. The exhibition is part of the Passione week and certainly worth a visit. The Eldorado Maserati is part of the Panini collection.
