Sunday, December 18, 2016

Carroll Shelby in '56, hillclimbing. I'd never heard that he'd done that


Carroll Shelby guides his Ferrari 375 up the slippery Wilkes-Barre, Pennyslvania, Hillclimb setting a course record of 58.768 seconds for the on 20 July 1956

The 375 was owned by John Edgar, Shelby raced it for him at three ‘climbs in 1956; ‘Mt Washington’ on 15 July, then ‘Giants Despair’ and finally ‘Breakneck Hillclimb’ on August 5th. No doubt the 4.4 litre, 380bhp F1/Indy car was quite a challenge on the tight hillclimb courses!

Historian Michael Lynch noted; The cars original serial number was simply no 1.

https://primotipo.com/2016/05/03/carroll-shelby-sets-a-new-giants-despair-hillclimb-record/

6 comments:

  1. Anonymous8:36 PM

    Going by the text I guess the headline date should be '56? I wonder if it was one of the Indianapolis cars? http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/summary/Ferraris.Overview.Formula.xx.59.htm

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    1. you got me! Thanks! That car is a 52

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    2. I make lots of mistakes like that

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    3. later that car was given a new Ferrari serial number, #0388

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  2. Anonymous10:30 AM

    The car that was renumbered as #0388 was, according to the site linked, the chassis #1 that Alberto Ascari drove at the 1952 Indy race. It had quite a few changes of specification after that, as many race cars did.

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  3. Shelby also won a hillclimb in Grayson County, Texas in 1952 in an Allard J2.

    https://silodrome.com/allard-j2-carroll-shelby/

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