By the time the smallest ever Maserati, the 150S, was built in 1955 the Maserati brothers were long gone from the company bearing their name working on their new OSCA vehicles.
The popularity of the 1500 cc / 91.5 CUI sports car class racing led Maserati to fill the gap in the lower end of their range with this vehicle.
Following Ferrari who in turn was inspired by the fuel efficient advantages of an HWM four cylinder Alta engine, Vittorio Bellanti also ditched the prevalent smooth 6 cylinder engine architecture in favour of a new 4 cylinder alloy block, dry sump lubricated engine featuring hemispherical combustion chambers, double overhead cams and twin plug ignition which produced 140 hp at 7,500 rpm.
Valerio Colotti designed the chassis with independent front and de Dion rear suspension originally covered in a 300S derived body by Celestino Fiandri in 1955.
For 1956 the slightly less derivative body seen here was designed by Medardo Fantuzzi. Stirling Moss drove one of the factory entered 150 S's in a sports car race to second place on the Nurburgring in 1956 beaten by margin of 'just' 3 seconds over 100 miles by Hans Hermann in a Porsche 550 A.
Stirling is alleged to have said of the 150 S that it was " sweet-handling and predictable but overbodied and gutless.”
EF (Edward Farnham) Spicer drove the #43 in the photo to 9th place in the final all comers race on July 20th, 8 spots behind the winning Porsche 550 of Newton Davis.
My thanks and best wishes to Ed Arnaudin and his son Steve for todays photograph, Jerry Entin for vehicle identification and Terry O'Neil for the results.
Hope you have enjoyed today's sweet & predictable edition of 'Gettin' a lil psycho on tyres' and that you'll join me again tomorrow, don't forget to come back now !
