The star of the very Italian opening of a new Maserati exhibition at the Museo Enzo Ferrari in Modena, Italy, was none other than our Sir Stirling Moss. Reason being that his first big break in Formula 1 came as a result of his family buying him a Maserati 250F for the 1954 season.
Of course at these events, the job of the celeb is to say nice things about the brand you've been jetted in to talk about, but at 84 year-old Moss can pretty much say what he likes. So when he replied to a PH question about his favorite engine, there were no Maserati gasps when he named the "unbreakable" straight eight in the Mercedes 300 SLR in which he won the Mille Miglia in 1955.
Moss's first 250F cost £4,000...
That made his subsequent praise about the 250F with its front-mounted 2.5-litre straight six much more believable. He described it as the best looking car he'd ever competed in, and also great fun. "The 250F was an extraordinary and rewarding car to drive".
It's a great story. Moss couldn't get a paid-for drive in F1, so his dad went out and bought him the Maserati for "about £4,000" partly using Moss's winnings earned during various horse-riding events (he's definitely jockey height). "My dad rang up and said, we've bought a Maserati. I said, who's money did you use? And he said yours! We bought it as a family."
He said he did consider British cars, and there's that famous quote of his saying that it's "better to lose honourably in a British car than win in a foreign one". But he couldn't find one that'd do the job. He couldn't buy a Ferrari "because Ferrari weren't selling cars, so that took one important possibility out of question". He said his decision was made after asking opinion of British motoring journalists, who reckoned the Maser was the one to go for.
The promise from Maserati was that it would keep his 'Equipe Moss' car the same spec as the factory ones. It didn't quite work out that way. "A few months later, the factory car comes past me as though I was standing still. When I went over to Maserati, they said well, they weren't going to give me any upgrades till we'd proved they were successful. So they got out of that one".
Great '54 season meant a Merc drive in '55
Moss didn't have a great season, retiring from four of the six races he competed in (the 250F wasn't the most reliable), but he did finish third in Belgium and during the Italian grand prix at Monza managed to overtake a couple of guys you might of heard of, Juan Manuel Fangio and Alberto Ascari, doing enough to convince Mercedes to sign him up the next year.
He bemoans the fuel restrictions in Formula 1 right now ("having F1 as a fuel economy run is ridiculous") but does praise the increased levels of safety. He recalls having "five or six" wheels detach from various cars in his relatively short racing career, including one from his Lotus in the 1960 Belgian Grand Prix, causing him to crash heavily. He tells a great story at the expense of Lotus boss Colin Chapman. "It was my birthday at the 1961 US Grand Prix and the team made me a cake with a Lotus on top. I cut the wheel off and gave it to Colin Chapman, and he didn't find it funny at all."
It was in a Lotus the next year in 1962 that Moss had the crash at Goodwood that left him temporarily paralysed. When he recovered he found he wasn't just wasn't fast enough and retired for good. He didn't say it, but perhaps his racing mindset had changed. As he told us in Modena: "You were better off not thinking about fear. I said, if I ever found myself thinking about anything other than cars or crumpet, I'd stop."