Prince Birabongse Bhanutej Bhanubandh of Siam (B.Bira) was the only customer when the Maserati brothers established Officine Specializate Costruzione Automobili Fratelli Maserati (OSCA) and produced a 4.5litre V12 engine.
Bira put this engine into his ageing Maserati 4CLT/48 for the 1951 grand prix season. A cooling of family relations between Bira and his cousin Chula resulted in the break up of the successful "White Mouse" team that ran all his cars before World War 2 and the OSCA was therefore run under the Ecurie Siam team banner.
The car won a national race at Goodwood against minimal opposition but Bira knew immediately that the car was uncompetitive. Subsequent races proved the car to be off the pace and it last appeared in Bira's hands at the Spanish GP where it retired on the first lap and was put away eventually to be sold in Australia a few years later.
The car found its way back to the UK and into the ownership of Tom Wheatcroft where it was restored and put into the Donington Collection, I saw the car race at GP Live in 2007 at Donington and immediately fell in love with it especially when the current owner blasted past me at a very brisk speed in the paddock with the engine making wonderful sounds.
I decided to build the car for Mac Pinches Earlybird meeting at the Wolverhampton Club. I started with the drawings for the Maserati 4CLT in Model Cars magazine. I carved a balsa wood body which incorporated the differences between the standard Masser and Bira's modified OSCA bodywork which are the distinctive nose and various scoops on the nose, bonnet and rear cowling.
I then shelved the idea of racing the balsa shell and decided to mould it and pour a few resin shells from this and then set about the slot car build.
The resin shell was cleaned up, trimmed and the various vents and openings were drilled and filed out. All the small pieces such as rear suspension leaf springs and shrouds, mirrors, screen, dash panel, filler caps and exhausts were scratch built then the car was sprayed with Halfords acrlyics using Ford Olympic Blue and Fiat Broom Yellow. The car nose grille was Bare Metal Foiled.
Contemporary photographs of the car are very few and far between but I have several in my reference books and from these I opted for a generic version which is a bit of a mixture of these and the restored car as it is today. Likewise with Bira he raced the car in both leather cap and crash helmet and in various types of clothing, I opted for what appears to be a patterned polo type shirt and his distinctive yellow leather cap.
My driver figure was made from a mixture of Airfix multi-pose soldier figure pieces from the Japanese and US Marines kits. The Japanese head was used as it is similar to the Siam/Thai features and I added a leather helmet using Milliput and some fuse wire goggles with a drop of clear five minute epoxy in each lens to try and replicate the prescription goggles Bira wore.
The chassis uses the BWA front and rear slim line chassis pieces and an additional rear bracket cut down and used as the front engine motor mount. The other bits and pieces are a Scalextric FF motor, Slot it axles and gears, BWA wheels and inserts and Ortmann tyres at the rear and Scalextric Vanwall/Maserati rear tyres on the front.
So the OSCA wasn't the most successful grand prix car ever to race but I've always followed the underdog in motor racing and I just had to have one in my race box.
David
