1950 Ferrari 195 S

The V12 engine has long been a Ferrari signature tune, stretching back to the lightweight 125 S roadster of 1947, the first car to wear the famed marque’s badge. Designed in the main by engineer Gioachino Colombo, the 125’s short-stroke 1.5 litre engine produced some 118 horsepower in competition and was followed at the Turin show a year later by the first of the Ferrari 166s a roadster dubbed the barchetta plus a Berlinetta, or coupe.

WORDS BRUCE MCMAHON

IMAGES IAN WOOD

The 166 MMs (for Mille Miglia) became the 138-horsepower V12 weapon for long distance racing before the slightly longer, more powerful 195 arrived as a Sport or Inter version in 1950 the S tuned for racing and the latter more the gentlemans’ tourer and arguably the original Ferrari road car.

By now Enzo Ferrari was well-established, confident enough in the auto business thanks to his race-winning V12s, to swing some production time to limited runs of high-end, high-performance road cars. This, in turn, would help pay for Scuderia Ferrari’s motorsport programs.

Where the race-focussed Ferrari 166s had run a twolitre Colombo V12, the 195s’ engine had 5mm wider bores, taking capacity out to 2.3 litres and power up to 168bhp at 7000rpm in race trim. The V12 ran with an overhead camshaft for each cylinder bank, triple Weber carburettors and dry sump lubrication. The Inters apparently coped with a more modest 130bhp in a concession to the skills of less professional drivers.

The 195 S used the basics of a 166MM steel ladder chassis but with wider track and, at close on 90 inches, a touch longer wheelbase; along with improving road manners this allowed the Italian carrozzeria, body builders such as Ghia and Touring, to find a tad more cabin room for racers and travellers.

It used hydraulic, 12-inch drum brakes all round and a five-speed manual transmission dispensing more torque to a live rear axle with leaf springs, leveraction dampers plus two trailing arms. Independent suspension up front was transverse leaf springs and a lower A arm with leveraction shocks; all as found on the 166MM. Wheels were 15-inch Borrani wires.

The Touring-bodied 159 Sports, using that builder’s patented Superleggera technique with aluminium body panels over a skeleton of steel tubes, were longnosed, bob-tailed coupes with exposed headlights either side of large, egg-crate grilles. All quite handsome in profile. Sliding windows were plexiglass while interior trim, and instrumentation on the basic metal dashboard, was kept to a bare minimum. Most were right-hand drive.

In early 1950 the 195 Sport made an ignominious competition debut on Italy’s Giro di Sicilia, a 1078km lap (670 mile) of the island of Sicily. Two Scuderia Ferrari cars entered, neither finished. Two weeks later three factory Ferrari 195 S lined up for the 1645-kilometre Millie Miglia road race from Brescia to Rome and back, run in damp and foggy conditions. It was won by wealthy amateur Ginanino Marzotto reputedly wearing a double-breasted brown suit and tie for the outing in a blue 195 S Berlinetta. The 22-year old finished in 13 hours and 39 minutes with the winning car then displayed at the Turin auto show a month later.

And in keeping with the storied history of the Ferrari 195, in 1988 Californian father and son Dick and John Marconi took the car seen here from their prized collection to run the famed Mille Miglia, by now a touring event through Italy for classic race machines. Their right-hand drive Ferrari chassis 053S was originally built by Touring as a 166 MM Berlinetta, one of seven built between 1948 and 1950 according to the records. First sold into Europe, the car landed in the United States in the early 1960s before being bought by Dick Marconi in 1987; he then had the coupe’s V12 upgraded to Tipo 195 specifications, and the car restored, by legendary Bill Gojkov <ok> at Enzo Motors in Anaheim, California.

The red Italian coupe now sits proud in the Marconi Automotive Museum and Foundation for Kids in Tustin, Orange County, thanks to Dick’s successful career as co-founder of Herbalife, the world’s largest manufacturing company of vitamins and food supplements which afforded the enthusiast’s impressive multi-million dollar collection of high-performance street and race cars. In 2022 the Marconis’ Ferrari 195 Touring alone has an estimated value of US$6.3 million to US$7.3 million.