Maserati's pioneering Tipo 26M roared back to life at the Goodwood Revival

The Maserati brothers experienced a landmark moment in 1926, when Alfieri Maserati himself drove the pioneering Tipo 26 to a stunning class victory at the Targa Florio, a ferocious statement of intent that set the tone for 100 years of racing heritage. 

Five years on arrived its successor, the Tipo 26M, which perfectly captured the brand's evolution. The Tipo 26M incorporated everything learned from intermediate variants — the Tipo 26B, 26C and 26R. Maserati lengthened the chassis, adopted a monoposto layout and swapped the original 1.5-litre engine for a much larger 2.5-litre unit, which gave it its alternate name, the 8C 2500.

This was a time when few manufacturers had mastered forced induction, and so this supercharged straight-eight handed Maserati a genuine technical edge over its early rivals.

Light, nimble and aggressively physical to drive, its narrow body offered zero creature comforts. It embodied the raw, unfiltered ethos of pre-war motorsport: a machine built purely for speed. Resting in the Revival paddocks, its exposed mechanical components and spartan cockpit made it easy to see why only the boldest drivers dared to master it.

Through the golden era of the 1930s, the Tipo 26M passed through the hands of racing royalty, none more legendary than Achille Varzi. In 1930 alone, Varzi tamed the Tipo 26M to capture the Coppa Acerbo, the Monza Grand Prix and the Spanish Grand Prix. This trifecta of victories catapulted Varzi into the pantheon of racing icons, and established the Tipo 26M as a dominant machine woven deeply into the wider tapestry of Grand Prix history.

That same fearless spirit was demanded on track almost a century on, during the Goodwood Trophy, where the Tipo 26M went up against a field of Bugattis, Frazer Nashes and ERAs. Majzub qualified 16^th out of a fiercely stacked 26-car grid, but sadly the Tipo 26M’s mechanical luck ran out early when a leaking radiator began spraying coolant onto the track, forcing a heartbreaking retirement after just two laps.

While a DNF is never the result a team hopes for, for a monument to motorsport history like the Tipo 26M the final standings were never the main focus of its apperance. A century after the Maserati brothers set out on a journey that would shape motorsport history, seeing the marque’s original racing DNA back on the circuit, driven hard and surrounded by its historic rivals was a triumph in its own right.

It is this legacy that Majzub’s magnificent, evolved Tipo 26M represented at the Revival. From Varzi’s triumphs in 1930 to the roaring grid at the Goodwood Motor Circuit, the Tipo 26M remains a living, breathing beast connecting Maserati’s past to its present, and proves that the brand’s racing soul was written into its DNA from the very first cars it ever built.

Photography by Charlie Brenninmeijer, Joe Harding and Rob Cooper.

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