Author Randy Cook in 750 Monza (0518M) at Concorso Italiano.
Story by Staff
This year’s Concorso Italiano celebrated a little-known part of Ferrari history, which is covered in two recent books authored by Randy Cook of Tallahassee, Florida.
His books, Bowtie Ferraris and Blue Oval, et al, Ferraris, document almost 100 Ferraris of the 50s and 60s that were at one time powered by Chevy, Ford, Buick, Chrysler and Offy engines.
The two basic reasons for implanting American engines into very rare and exotic cars of the time were to make racing Ferraris faster and easier to maintain, and to keep street driven Ferraris on the road and out of the scrap yard at a time when it was almost impossible to repair a broken Ferrari engine. Two magazine articles appeared in 1959 documenting the installation of Chevy engines into two different Ferrari chassis for street driving. A car featured in one of the articles was an unexpected guest at the Concorso, actually it was the body of the car (0024) which is now on another chassis (0097). [Read more…] about Ford and Chevy-Engined Ferraris at CI