In 1952, Ferrari designed and built four Ferrari 340 Mexicos for one specific task: winning the Carrera Panamericana. Using the sole Spyder built and one of the three Berlinettas, we’re going to show exactly what distinguishes these thoroughbred ‘big-banger’ 1950s Ferraris and why they’re so sought after today…
It’s 1950 and you’re the head of the government body responsible for completing the Mexican stretch of the long-awaited Pan-American Highway – an incredibly proud moment for a country desperate to shake off its ‘old-world’ image. Devised to connect Alaska in the north with Argentina in the south, the ambitious multinational cross-continental road project was quite the feat, both logistically and politically.
With post-War prosperity fueling tourism and making the motor car – and thus travel by road – more accessible than ever, Mexico urgently needs traffic on the 2,200-mile stretch of road it has worked so defiantly to build. The solution? A marathon border-to-border road race to make the Mille Miglia and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Europe look like proverbial walks in the park.
Aptly christened the Carrera Panamericana, the fearsome weeklong competition was held five times between 1950 and 1954, attracting the era’s very best drivers from every discipline of motorsport and firmly establishing itself as the most challenging motor race in the world. In fact, from 1953, the Carrera Panamericana became a fully-fledged round of the FIA World Sportscar Championship (to the chagrin of many competitors, who were forced to start wearing crash helmets as a result).
Much of the charm of the Carrera Panamericana was the kaleidoscopic variety of machinery taking part. With the emerging North American market’s increasing appetite for automotive exports from Europe, thunderous stock saloons from the ‘Big Three’ in Detroit were pitched against comparatively exotic sports cars from Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari.
With Grands Prix, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and Le Mans victories already chalked on its competition record, the Prancing Horse might have been a young company at the turn of the 1950s, but its intentions in Europe, at least, were clear to everybody. North America was a lucrative yet largely untapped market for Ferrari at that time, which explains why Maranello sent two brand new 212 Inters and its star drivers Piero Taruffi and Alberto Ascari to Mexico for the Carrera in 1951. That and the generous government-funded prize pot, no doubt.
When the pair crossed the finish line near Ciudad Juárez first and second in front of 200,000 local spectators, clinching the handsome 23,000-dollar purse, Enzo Ferrari was encouraged. He appointed his old friend Luigi Chinetti, the Italo-American Le Mans winner and Taruffi’s invaluable Carrera co-driver, as Ferrari’s North American agent (Chinetti promptly sold both 212 Inters to Mexican drivers straight after the race). And back in Italy, development work began on a new car specifically for the next year’s Carrera Panamericana.
The result was the commanding and aptly named Ferrari 340 Mexico, which, unlike its 2.5-litre Colombo V12-powered 212 predecessor, was fitted with ingegnere Aurelio Lampredi’s 4.1-litre all-alloy long-stroke single-overhead-cam V12, the engine whose roots can be traced to the 275 Formula 1 monoposto.
Ferrari built just four 340 Mexicos for the 1952 Carrera Panamericana: three Berlinettas (chassis numbers 0222 AT, 0224 AT and 0226 AT) and one Spyder (0228 AT), all bodied by Vignale. A significantly improved car than the 340 America on which it was loosely based, the 340 Mexico was designed by a young Giovanni Michelotti. The all-alloy competition-focused Gran Turismo was beautifully unconventional. Original, creative and bold – characteristics that defined the Torinese coachbuilder, which was only responsible for a mere 160-or-so Ferraris.
Aesthetically in line with the 212 Inter (also a high-waisted pontoon-fender Vignale design), the Mexico Berlinetta melded function-first features such as the bug deflector spanning the entire width of the bonnet, the vertical vents on the doors force-feeding cold air to the rear wheels and the external fuel-filler cap with generous chrome trim and subtle tail fins no doubt implemented to tickle the Americans’ aesthetic fancy.
At 77.5 inches, the Mexico boasts the longest bonnet of any 1950s Ferrari. And for good reason: those long protruding fenders were designed specifically with steering any oblivious oncoming exotic wildlife clear of both mechanical componentry and, more importantly, the occupants behind the windscreen.
“Though clearly closely related to its closed counterpart, the unique 340 Mexico Spyder bore a number of subtle differences that actually lend the car a different and altogether less aggressive demeanour.”
Though clearly closely related to its closed counterpart, the unique 340 Mexico Spyder bore a number of subtle differences that actually lend the car a different and altogether less aggressive demeanour. Take the slightly lower waistline, for example, the narrower rear-wheel cooling inlets or the downward-swept air intake at the nose. And in going without the bonnet bug deflector (there are more scallop vents located here instead) and the small fins at the rear, it’s definitely a sleeker and more elegant car than its closed counterpart.
The interior of the 340 Mexico is typically sparse for the 1950s, though oozes the luxury and quality you’d expect from a coach-built sports-racing Ferrari. Headroom in the Berlinetta is only impeded slightly by the low roof. Presumably for the convenience of the Works-entered drivers on the Carrera, the two large ornate Jaeger dials displaying the car’s vitals are installed directly ahead of the driver in the Berlinetta as opposed to in the middle of the dash on the Spyder. The knurled steering wheel is large and wooden-rimmed.
In the closed car, the simple bucket seats are ventilated and upholstered with corduroy (because cooler), as are the unique door cards. There are two round closeable interior vents on the outside wall of each footwell and one larger square one atop the dash for additional cockpit ventilation. The parcel shelf aft the occupants is filled with Carrera Panamericana essentials: two complete spare wheels and a bespoke jerry can for emergency fuel. The Spyder is similarly appointed, though with leather seats and door cards as opposed to corduroy.
On at least one of the Berlinettas (though not ‘our’ car, 0226 AT), there was a manually operated vent aft the passenger that would allow the co-driver to check how much tread was left on the tyre. Managing the tyres was one of the Carrera Panamericana’s greatest challenges, predominantly thanks to the long stretches of gravel road.
The 340 Mexico was more conventional beneath the surface, though no less impressive. An evolution of the 340 America, the car’s ladder-type chassis was built from slightly smaller (read lighter) steel tubes. This prompted the change in chassis-number suffix from ‘AM’ to ‘AT’, the ‘T’ denoting Tuboscocca, or ‘tubular’.
Shall we begin with that glorious engine? As previously mentioned, it’s the same 4.1-litre all-alloy long-stroke single-overhead-cam V12 by Lampredi, though the compression ratio was raised to give a significant leap in overall power from 220bhp to 280bhp. Three Weber 40DCF carburettors fed the engine, while a five-speed gearbox replaced the four-speed unit in the America. The top speed was 174mph – a frankly enormous speed that the fearless drivers would be regularly nudging on the Carrera Panamericana.
Though the strengthened rear axle remained rigid with longitudinal leaf springs, the front suspension was an independent wishbone arrangement with a transverse leaf spring. There were Houdaille shock absorbers on all four corners, along with two-leading-shoe hydraulic drum brakes. Devoid of passengers and any fuel in the 150-litre endurance tank, the 340 Mexico Berlinetta tipped the scales at 900kg. In short, the 340 Mexico was designed for one thing: going hour after hour at full-chat on terrible roads, at altitude, in all weather conditions and in the face of all kind of oblivious exotic wildlife. It was designed for one thing: to win the Carrera Panamericana.
All four Ferrari 340 Mexicos (along with the unique 250 Sport Berlinetta which won the Mille Miglia earlier that year) left Maranello in September of 1952 and were loaded aboard the SS Constitution cruiseliner, bound for Mexico via New York.
The Texan oil magnate Allen Guiberson actually acquired chassis numbers 0222 AT and 0226 AT from Chinetti prior to the race. As part of the deal Chinetti would arrange for the two 340s to be raced by the Works Ferrari drivers – in the case of ‘our’ car pictured, by the then-reigning Formula 1 World Champion Alberto Ascari. Luigi Villoresi was assigned to the other.
In Mexico, the Ferraris were raced under the Franco Cornacchia’s Scuderia Guastalla banner, with title sponsorship from Santiago Ontanon’s Industrias 1-2-3 corporation and Sinclair Oil. Don’t let the entry fool you – these were de-facto Works cars, driven by the factory’s world-class pilots.
For reasons unbeknownst to us, the 340 Mexico Spyder was sent to Mexico and entered into the Carrera Panamerican by the multiple Le Mans class winner William ‘Bill’ Spear, though never raced. The three Berlinettas were given temporary Italian registrations, assigned race numbers and adorned with the same poppy ‘Industrias 1-2-3’ livery. The ‘No Hay Dos’ painted on the leading edge of the bonnet can be – fittingly – translated as ‘nothing better’.
For its third edition, the Carrera Panamericana had truly become the world’s foremost road race, attracting a raft of factory entries and prompting the organisers to introduce a separate class specifically for European sports cars. Mounting the strongest challenge to Ferrari was Daimler-Benz, which was fielding three of its new 300SLs with considerable assistance (including two chartered Douglas DC-3s for support crews!).
“At the end of a grueling race in which there were just 39 finishers, Luigi Chinetti and his co-pilot Jean Lucas upheld Ferrari’s honour in the remaining 340 Mexico, finishing third overall.”
Starting 14th of 92 entrants, Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Scotuzzi passed a staggering nine cars in the race’s opening 50 miles – a surefire indication of the world champion’s intentions. Alas, a combination of a loose road surface and an unfortunately positioned rocky ledge put a premature end to chassis number 0226 AT’s Carrera.
Fellow Works Ferrari driver Luigi Villoresi and his co-pilot Piero Cassani ultimately fell foul of Lady Luck, too. Their 340 Mexico was plagued by persistent gearbox troubles from day one. Despite a valiant resurgence from Villoresi, who won the second and third stages en route back to sixth position, the gearbox gave up the ghost on stage five.
At the end of a grueling race in which there were just 39 finishers, Luigi Chinetti and his co-pilot Jean Lucas in the remaining 340 Mexico, chassis no. 0224 AT, finished third overall. They had upheld Ferrari’s honour, finishing only six minutes behind the second-place Mercedes-Benz of Herrmann Lang. Chinetti kept chassis number 0224 AT, contesting three major European events the following year: the Mille Miglia, the 12 Hours of Reims and the 12 Hours of Pescara.
Having been returned to Italy right away to be repaired, chassis number 0226 AT was then finally delivered to Guiberson III, who promptly sold it to fellow Texan A.V. Dayton, who, in turn, took the car to Nebraska for the July Sports Car Club (SCCA) of America round. There, the young Texan chicken farmer turned racing driver Carroll Shelby drove a masterful race with this 340 Mexico, finishing second. It was the first time the Le Mans winner and decorated constructor ever piloted a Prancing Horse.
This Ferrari contested three further SCCA events, before it was bought by Luigi Chinetti in the spring of 1954. Chassis number 0226 AT would remain stateside for over four decades, during which time it passed through the hands of several prominent American Ferrari figures including the Ferrari Club of America co-founder Larry Nicklin (who also owned chassis no. 0224 AT) and collector J. William Marriott Jr. in New York.
You can read this Ferrari’s complete story by clicking here.
After a factory photo call in Maranello, chassis number 0228 AT was boarded on the same vessel as its scarlet Berlinetta counterparts and set sail across the Atlantic for the start of the 1952 Carrera Panamericana. However, despite the car reaching Mexico and William ‘Bill’ Spear being listed on the entry list, he and his new Ferrari pulled out of the race at the very last minute for reasons unbeknownst to us.
Instead, the Ferrari made its competition debut in the opening round of the 1953 Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) Championship at MacDill Air Force Base in Tampa, Florida. Once in the United States, Spear chose to finish his new 340 Mexico Spyder in royal blue with a white bonnet and boot lid. The six-hour endurance race at MacDill required two drivers so Spear called on Phil Hill, a 26-year-old from the West Coast embarking on a career in motor racing that would see him become the very first American Formula 1 World Champion.
Also a keen photographer, Hill’s images captured at this time paint a gloriously candid picture of amateur motor racing in the 1950s, worlds away from the corporate safety-obsessed sport today. The race at MacDill is wonderfully documented in his book Inside Track. Hill and Spear had a tremendous race, crossing the finish line second overall and only narrowly missing out on victory thanks to several broken wheel spokes. “We could have won easily,” he recalls in the book. “I had been lucky to be invited to co-drive by Spear, and lucky to find out I could do it, so it was a real shame. According to Road & Track’s race report, I was doing 140mph on the MacDill backstretch!”
While Spear took delivery of a new Ferrari 340 MM Spyder in the spring, he still tackled the following races at Bergstrom, Pebble Beach, Bridgehampton and Lockbourne with chassis number 0228 AT. And with considerable success – his proven and commandingly powerful Ferrari had proved the car to beat, accruing him two victories and two further podiums. Combined with his stellar results in the 340 MM Spyder, Spear was crowned the 1953 SCCA National Sports Car Champion.
As had become customary for Spear, a new year meant a new Ferrari. For 1954 he took delivery of a 375 MM Pinin Farina Spyder and the 340 Mexico Spyder was moved on courtesy of his friend Briggs Cunningham’s Alfredo Momo Corporation. Momo was also Spear’s trusted mechanic.
“That the 340 Mexico Spyder was still earning podiums in its final competitive races in 1957, five years after it left Maranello, was a testament to the model’s fundamental effectiveness as a sports-racing car.”
The Massachusetts European sports-car concessionaire Preston Gray acquired chassis number 02228 AT in 1955. Painted canary yellow, the car once again contested the fiercely competitive SCCA National Sports Car Championship. That the 340 was still earning podiums in its final competitive races in 1957, five years after it left Maranello, was a testament to its fundamental effectiveness as a race car. It’s also worth noting that this car was featured in both the 1952 and 1955 Ferrari Yearbooks.
We are currently offering chassis number 0228 AT for sale. You can read this Ferrari’s complete story by clicking here.
For sports-racing cars built as early as 1952, these Ferraris are remarkably approachable from a useability perspective. The Lampredi V12 has so much torque that at regular road speeds, the car is happy to pootle in second or third gear. Of course, the competition clutch is short, sharp and takes some getting used to. The brake pedal is long, though with foresight and a decisive prod, the 340 Mexico slows down much quicker than other similarly aged cars we’ve experienced. And the non-synchro gearbox requires concentration to master – particularly with the five forward gears. The satisfaction from a perfect rev-matched double de-clutch down-change is guaranteed to plaster a smile on your face.
On faster and more open roads, the Mexicos really come alive. The long wheelbase comes into its own and the large wooden-rimmed steering wheel giving you a surprising amount of feedback from the front wheels – and, of course, an intoxicating and focus-demanding throb of vibration from that enormous 12-cylinder engine. The cabin of the Berlinetta is, as you’d imagine, a hotter, less spacious and more intense place to be than the Spyder.
It's hard to comprehend how gladiators like Alberto Ascari and Umberto Maglioli would drive for hours on end at speeds well in excess of 100 miles-per-hour and often on loose road surfaces. For road rallies such as the Mille Miglia or the Colorado Grand today, we’d probably plump for the Spyder. With the wind in your hair, your arms dropped over the low doors and the unobstructed roar of the engine in your ears, it really is an unforgettable car to drive.
“The more of these ‘big-banger’ Lampredi V12-powered 1950s Ferraris I encounter, the more I’m are convinced that they really do represent peak Ferrari. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. They’re rare as hell. They were raced by true titans of motorsport. They boast aesthetically fascinating avant-garde bodies that embody the left-field thinking of Vignale and, in our eyes, are genuinely striking. They produce a rasp that can reduce grown men to tears. And they’re eligible for just about every prestigious event around the world, from the Mille Miglia and the Goodwood Revival to the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza.
“What’s more, they’re selling – and to genuine enthusiasts. Both the 340 America Touring Barchetta and 375 MM Spider we rehomed last year were out in action at The International Concours of Elegance in St. Moritz and will contest this year’s Mille Miglia. These Mexicos are a fascinating footnote in the fabled story of the Prancing Horse, contextualising an era of international growth, death-defying motorsport, technological advance and truly adventurous design. We’re totally smitten.”
Max Girardo
With only four examples built for a very specific task, winning the 1952 Carrera Panamericana, the 340 Mexico is a lesser-known but fascinating Ferrari that paints a perfect picture of the burgeoning brand at the dawn of the 1950s. They are sophisticated, exotic and powerful cars, which demand the attention of the most discerning and learned of collectors.
Crucially, all four are still accounted for. And we can scarcely believe that we have had the honour of offering half the production run: chassis number 0226 AT, raced by the late, great Alberto Ascari, and chassis number 0228 AT, the sole 340 Mexico Spyder built. For two connoisseurs of the marque, they will no doubt provide fantastic experiences rich with the benefits of owning such significant and special Ferraris.
Photos: Tom Shaxson for Girardo & Co.
We are currently offering this 1952 Ferrari 340 Mexico Spyder for sale. Please click here to discover more.
Reference Points is a series of extensively researched features here on girardo.com in which we will be exploring the most significant historic road, competition and rally cars in detail, showing what distinguishes them, from both a visual and mechanical point of view, and why they’re so desirable in the context of today’s collector car market.