Doug Nye – Scaring The Council In A Ferrari 330LM/B

Both those cars were resplendent in ‘The Colonel’s racing red livery with Cambridge blue centreline stripe and nose flash bearing the Union flag. His Maranello Concessionaires team cars were always exquisitely well prepared. They looked and sounded gorgeous and performed to match.

But ‘The Colonel's' team cars were not always adorned with that Cambridge blue stripe. For example the 1966 Le Mans 24-Hour race’s GT Category-winning Ferrari 275GTB/C – delivered fresh from the factory for Maranello Concessionaires to run at the Sarthe circuit – had a blue centreline stripe, but it was most certainly not Cambridge blue as ‘The Colonel’ would have specified.

Instead the well-meaning Italians had painted the stripe in a kind of medium-dark Royal blue, which in contrast to the Concessionaires’ team’s normally gorgeous colour pallet looked pretty ghastly. In fact it looked so ghastly that, since Piers Courage and Roy Pike won the Category in the car, no subsequent owner has ever repainted it accurately in its contemporary 24-Hour race livery – always preferring il vero Concessionaires colours instead – pale Cambridge-blue rather than that darker factory shade of Royal blue.

Over the long years I have driven that car for many miles, not only here in the UK but also in Australia, and ‘she’ is an old friend – owned and preserved for many years now (in its second ownership period with him) by Paul Vestey – principal of The GP Library whose photography always adorns this blog, column, load of old rubbish… whatever you might care to call it.

Another Maranello Concessionaires Le Mans entry which was delivered fresh to the circuit for ‘The Colonel’s men to campaign, and which did not wear his chosen livery, was the 1963 Ferrari 330LM/Berlinetta – chassis ‘4725 SA’.  The 330 LM/B was effectively a 4-litre smoother-bodied variant of the 3-litre 250GTO – tailored in effect to the ultra high-speed demands of Le Mans with its three-mile Mulsanne Straight. In fact the car – which was the only right-hand-drive LM/B to be completed – weighed considerably more than a normal 3-litre 250 GTO – and its aerodynamic shape appeared to be no more effective. Both seemed to top out at around 170mph along Mulsanne – but actually being clocked at a genuine 168mph through the speed trap there.

Still Jack Sears and Michael Salmon – who co-drove the car in the 1963 24-Hour race – were able to bring it home in a good fifth place overall, leading home the sixth-placed half-sister 3-litre 250LM/B entered by Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team and co-driven there by Masten Gregory and David Piper. Sears and Salmon were under strict instructions not to over-stress their new car and accordingly they ground round Le Mans for hour after hour, lying 17^th at the completion of the second, 14^th after the fourth, ninth after ten hours and then seventh after twelve – 4am on the Sunday morning. A loose plug lead slowed them somewhat and water loss caused overheating, but they nursed the4 car along despite its faltering engine and a damaged hub spline which slowed wheel changes. Overall, the 4-litre car averaged 7.44 miles-per-gallon for the 24 Hours…

The Goodwood Motor Circuit was just about completely fettled–up and ready for its Revival in 1998-99 when another friend, top-car dealer Adrian Hamilton loaned me the beautifully-preserved ex-Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 330LM/B for a magazine road test. I drove it down from Farnham and met my film-maker friend David Weguelin at the Motor Circuit. Rather to my surprise – and perhaps to his own – he accepted the offer of a ride round the course and so we set off with him filming from the passenger seat. Unknown to either of us at the time, the camera was faulty and all the effort would be wasted.

Even so, as the laps rolled by and ‘Weg’ seemed perfectly content in the suicide seat I became progressively more ambitious and we ended up lapping quite quickly – touching 135-140mph on the Lavant Straight and maybe 125-130mph after Fordwater although I was bit too occupied to look .

Then on one occasion as we came out of Madgwick Corner there was a small bus ahead, rumbling up towards Fordwater on the left side of the road. I concluded that the driver had been well-briefed by chief marshal Ted to keep a watch out for ‘the press’ track-testing a big Ferrari. So I stayed on the throttle, flat-strap, and with the tacho needle soaring towards 7,200rpm I lined-up to overtake – and changed-up just as I passed him on the inside, spotting a peripheral blurr of white faces against the bus windows as we rocketed by – the exhaust bellowing WAAAHHH-BAAAHHH! On the up-change. Glorious!

One lap more, and as we accelerated out of the chicane there was marshal Ted at the pit entry waving his black flag and pointing vigorously into the paddock. So I checked the mirror, backed-off, braked and turned straight in. Oh my? Had the car been seen to be dropping fluid?  Had I committed some dreadful infraction? What was the matter?

“Errr, Doug, my friend,” said Ted, leaning down beside my driver’s window. “Could you come in and let that bus go round on its own?  It’s just that we’re having a noise check from the Chichester council environmental health officers – and they’re all on that bus right now, with the local councillors – and Lord March”.

Oops.  Not for the first time – and not for the last – my drive that day at Goodwood in the 330LM/B had become a bit of a Doug-up… but thankfully another one that we all survived…

Images courtesy of The GP Library and Duncan Hamilton Ltd