Chris Amon’s Maserati 250F, the car that launched the Kiwi driver’s legendary career, is ready for next weekend’s reunion with its most famous driver since its total rebuild by the Southward Collection and a successful track shakedown test (above).

Chris Amon’s Maserati 250F, the car that launched the Kiwi driver’s legendary career, is ready for next weekend’s (13-14 February 2010) reunion with its most famous driver since its total rebuild by the Southward Collection. For the first time in more than 40 years Amon’s Maserati 250F, one of just a few in the world of what has been described as the best Formula One car of all time, was driven at the Fielding Circuit.

The run by the Southward Collection's highly-prized Maserati 250F was a shakedown ahead of its star outing at the February 13-14 New Zealand Grand Prix at Manfeild.

The cigar-bodied 2.5-litre front-engined single seater driven by a teenage Amon, worth millions today, is fresh from a comprehensive from-the-wheels-up refurbishment. The intent today was simply to blow out any cobwebs, Southward restoration manager John Bellamore explained. “We just needed a couple of laps to make sure everything is working as it should,” said Mr Bellamore, noting that the car was a blast in every sense. “The car hasn’t been run for some years and it hasn’t run in anything like full racing condition since the late 1960s.”

Manfeild chief executive Heather Verry says the session was a reminder of why motorsport fans of all ages need to get to the GP and see the car demonstrated on the circuit during next Sunday’s lunch break. "The Maserati 250F is a landmark machine – it was the best F1 car of the 1950s - and seeing it in the metal and on the move is just amazing. That glorious sound is so special. I am deeply impressed that Chris Amon raced it when he was just 17, and that it was just his second racing car. That he was immediately impressive in such potent machinery says so much about the level of natural talent he had – and still has. Chris will at the GP, of course, and we think he will be delighted to be reunited with a car that has always been very special to him.”

The display opportunity arises from a commitment from the Southward Museum trust to bring stars of their world-class collection back to active condition. This went a step further last year when the museum demonstrated an equally precious Ferrari Monza 750 sports car. The national and international response to that breakthrough event astounded Southwards. Ms Verry said it was great Manfeild could play a role in the museum's new direction, and she deeply admired the restorers' determination and innovation. "With the Maserati, as with the Ferrari, this is history in the remaking."

Bringing the 250F back to full health has been exhaustive and expensive, though the cost is easily dwarfed by the probable value of the last of the great world championship front-engined racers. Just 26 were built and surviving examples have changed hands in recent years for upwards of $10 million - many times its value when it was retired from racing. Museum founder Len Southward paid several hundred pounds for the Amon car in the late 1960s in a deal sealed outside a pub. Amon raced the car in the summer of 1962. The 240 kmh monster was just the Scott's Ferry-born farm boy's second 'proper' racing car, following a 1500cc Cooper. A year later he headed to Europe to enjoy a long and illustrious international career, notably leading the Ferrari team for three seasons in the late 1960s.

Amon remains a key figure in New Zealand motorsport, no more so than with the Toyota Racing Series, the high-powered wings and slicks single-seater category contesting next Sunday’s GP. The Chris Amon Trophy is awarded each year to the overall Toyota Racing Series champion.

The 250F was introduced for the 1954 F1 season and remained on the world scene for the next six years. Between 1954 and 1958 it competed in 46 F1 championship events and won numerous races. It achieved immediate success with period great and five-time world champion Juan Manual Fangio of Argentina. Amon’s car was bought new from the factory by British team BRM as a test bed. It was the only 250F in which the oil tank was located beside the driver, and just one of two with disc brakes.

Amon had it for the 1962 summer season, highlights being a victory in an all-New Zealand race at Levin and a fighting 11th place in the NZGP at Ardmore. "I loved that car. You could steer it on the throttle. I'd grown up reading about guys like Fangio and it was from their era. It was that car that got me to Europe. Reg Parnell (the British team owner who took Amon overseas) saw me drifting it at Wigram and told me later he'd never seen a 250F driven like that since Fangio retired."

Everything about the car was special, even the fuel - petrol heavily laced with methanol, with 10 percent acetone, a dollop of benzol and a touch of castor oil. It produced between 220-270 bhp, depending on tune. "I remember the fuel made excellent paint-stripper," Amon chuckled in memory. "It was a hugely powerful brew." Another with sweet memories of the car is British motorsport figure Stirling Moss. "It steered beautifully, and inclined towards stable oversteer which one could exploit by balancing it against power and steering in long sustained drifts through corners," he recalled.

Armchair enthusiasts also think highly of it. Not too long ago readers of a respected British motorsport magazine, Octane, named it the greatest racing car ever. It beat other world-class luminaries as the Auto Union Type C, Lotus 49, Porsche 917, Cobra, Mercedes-Benz W196 and Toyota TS010 Group C. The name 250F refers to the specifications for F1 in 1954 - a maximum engine capacity of 2.5 litres (hence the 250 number) and F refers, naturally, to F1.

The Maserati 250F in the New Zealand Grand Prix

A Maserati 250F won the second ever New Zealand Grand Prix in 1955 with Prince B Bira behind the wheel, ahead of two Ferraris, leading from the start to the finish. Stirling Moss repeated this result for Maserati in 1956 behind the wheel of another 250F. The Ferrari/Maserati battle was reversed in 1957 when Stan Jones brought a 250F home in third place behind two Ferraris. In 1958 Ross Jensen a Maseratri 250F to second place in the NZ Grand Prix behind a Jack Brabham driven Cooper Climax and ahead of two Ferraris. The 1959 New Zealand Grand Prix saw American legend Carroll Shelby finish in fourth place in a Maserati 250F, followed by 250Fs driven by Ross Jensen and Bib Stillwell. By 1960 the Maserati 250F was nearing the end of its legendary history, with the mid-engined era underway, but in the New Zealand Grand Prix the 250F held on to fifth and sixth positions with Johnny Mansel and Arnold Glass behind the wheel of their Maseratis. Chris Amon took his Maserati 250F to 11th place in the 1962 New Zealand Grand Prix, providing the Maserati 250F with its last finish in the New Zealand Grand  Prix.

Chris Amon’s Results in the Maserati 250F