Maserati 250F

3963 Views 41 Replies 11 Participants Last post by Trisha, Sep 29, 2020

KensRedZed

Discussion Starter · Sep 25, 2020 (Edited by Moderator)

I remember being a newbie and showing up at a race with a new car I had just made a scratch-chassis for. The class was 50's Grand Prix. 70 percent of the field were red, and about 30 percent were British racing green.

I thought I would try and be different with a dark blue Maserati 250F #5 driven by Carrol Shelby in 1957. I showed up for the race, and another club member had the exact same livery... Darn! Now we had to draw straws and one of us was not racing a 250F that night. I was not a happy camper.

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The next day I took the car apart, and grabbed the most different colour paint I could come up with for a Maserati. I wanted something no one else could ever come up with. This would be the last time for me to draw straws at a race.

It's possible that I may have the only Tamiya Coral Blue Maserati on the planet. Sorry to the purests. I don't draw straws anymore.

My humble apologies to Carrol Shelby. A guy named Snidely Whiplash now drives this oddly coloured Maserati #13.

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The photo below is the main reason I didn't paint this Maserati 250F, red.

Thank you very kindly for looking.

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john_m_w

· #2 · Sep 25, 2020

As good an example as I've ever seen of why people should never trust colours of slot cars posted on here. Same car, eight pics in total and the last seven have the same paint job. (#1 is my favourite, but of course it's the one with the different livery). Then six more home made studio shots, but finally #8, a shot with different lighting (and probably different camera white-balance settings) showing a very attractive car in what looks a bit like mid-sixties French Racing Blue.

(The sting in the tail is that even if all the shots had been taken with the same camera, same in-camera settings, same lighting conditions, the results would still look different to each of us, because our computer monitors, iPads, mobile phones or whatever aren't equally colour-calibrated. I should think that's been discussed in a long running thread that I haven't looked at recently (I think in 1:32 slot cars) about photos members' cars, but I'd have to check.)

I've never attended a club race in my life, but I've seen plenty of photo sets on here, and been slightly put of by the bits of coloured sticky tape on the bonnets of the cars. But I've assumed they are just an essential martialling aid, showing which car is on which matching colour lane, in any particular race. Wouldn't that approach have made the "picking of straws" unnecessary?

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Trisha

· #3 · Sep 25, 2020

Maserati made 34 250Fs. I would never include the TecMec as the 35th. Not all were red. Described severally as the definitive front-engined post War GP car, the 250F is a wondrous example of aesthetic and engineering perfection.

Ten years after the 250F's zenith, Dan Gurney's Eagle Weslake achieved the same level of aesthetic perfection with a mid-engined GP car.

When a luminary creates perfection with a pencil, colour is merely an enhancer. The 250F is perfection in any colour, and Ken's new car proves this. Absolutely what?

Reach for any superlative, you won't be wrong.

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KensRedZed

Discussion Starter · #4 · Sep 25, 2020

Thank you for your kind words, Laurence.

Hi John. Thank you kindly. We have marshals. We use coloured dots under the cars. If someone deslots, the marshal picks up the car and looks at the dot before putting it back on the track. Every club has different rules. You must be a younger man. My eyes are too old to keep track of one red car among another 2-red cars. I used Tamiya Coral Blue. Hopefully I have the only Coral Blue Maserati 250F in the world. Straws? What straws?

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Ecurie Martini

· #5 · Sep 25, 2020

An alternative would be to imagine a Rob Walker sponsored 250s - dark blue with the signature transverse white nose stripe and white roundels

EM

Dopamine

· #6 · Sep 25, 2020

KensRedZed said:
We use coloured dots under the cars. If someone deslots, the marshal picks up the car and looks at the dot before putting it back on the track.

I like that idea. It's one I'd not thought of and although it will probably mean re-slotting takes a fraction longer than the coloured-tape-on-bodywork method, it definitely means the cars remain attractive when racing. Sticking tape on the heavily used and race-damaged high speed projectiles commonly used in club racing isn't a problem, but for the occasional class where cars are lovingly presented, dots on the chassis is an appealing method. Whether I'll have much luck persuading racers to use it is doubtful, but I'll try!

KensRedZed

Discussion Starter · #7 · Sep 25, 2020

Hi David.

We have some basic marshalling rules that really work for our club. These are tried and tested.

1) The marshal is always right.

2) When in doubt about a marshal's call? Say nothing and refer to rule #1.

3) A marshal should take the time needed to put a car safely back on the track without disturbing the cars that didn't deslot. If you really wanted to win? You would not deslot in the first place.

4) If you don't like the way a marshal puts you back on? Don't deslot in front of that guy. We all rotate positions so it all works out in the end.

We have several "track call" buttons that freeze a race. But they are not to be used unless several cars deslot at the same time. It's been working okay so far. We all respect each other (still).

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model murdering

· #8 · Sep 26, 2020

Ken,

the Livery Police were too busy counting rivets today.

BUT! Snidely Whiplash sports a very dapper mustache.

You are a machine!

B

KensRedZed

Discussion Starter · #9 · Sep 26, 2020

You're correct Model Murdering. I need to figure out how to paint a proper mustache! Chop, chop!

I agree that part of the livery should be corrected. Shortly.

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model murdering

· #10 · Sep 26, 2020

I always look forward to your builds and write ups.

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Mitch58

· #11 · Sep 26, 2020

One of my favorites, I modified a Strombecker body.

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Trisha

· #12 · Sep 26, 2020

Mitch

Thanks for the pic above of your modified Strombecker car. With what appears to be a 'bluffer' nosecone, it more closely resembles the earlier cars.

The majority of slot 250Fs I've seen seem to be modelled on the three famous 'lightweights', namely chassis numbers 2527, 2528 and 2529, which is perfectly understandable, but it's refreshing to see something different.

Al

I agree. A 250F in Rob Walker's colours would look rather smart.

Trisha

· #13 · Sep 26, 2020

Fangio at Rouen, 1957, where he set pole and overall victory. As Dan Gurney said at the time, this was the Argentinian giving the others a driving lesson.

And a pic of Dan Gurney's Eagle, driven by Bruce McLaren, at the French GP ten years later in 1967.

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Trisha

· #14 · Sep 26, 2020

And early morning practice at Monaco, 1956.

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Trisha

· #15 · Sep 26, 2020

A couple of 250Fs that weren't painted red.

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matthew77

· #16 · Sep 26, 2020

Ken could easily transform his car into the number 28 in the above photo. Just needs the red band around the nose and the racing numbers.

Another great car Ken, the colour looks good

Frogeye

· #17 · Sep 26, 2020

I always liked the colour of this one

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Trisha

· #18 · Sep 26, 2020

Nice pic, Michael. Wonderful livery. The same Gilby Engineering car (chassis 2507) below driven by Roy Salvadori.

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GDSLOT

· #19 · Sep 26, 2020

Trisha said:
A couple of 250Fs that weren't painted red.

Wow, the grey/white with the Flag accent in the front looks superb!

The Blue an orange of the first picture, is that a Gulf livery? I ask, because I dont know if Gulf already existed as a company.

Cheers

Trisha

· #20 · Sep 26, 2020

GDS

The 250F you mentioned is blue because it was driven by Frenchman, Louis Rosier. Blue has always been France's national racing colour, of course.

Gulf didn't bring sponsorship into motor sport until the 1960s.

Rosier, incidentally, was once rated as one of the greatest drivers.

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