Maserati 250F: Naked and Dressed

This photo from the January 1980 issue of MotorSport Magazine shows Maserati 250F Lighweight #2527 as she was being prepared for a season of vintage racing. There’s no denying that this 250F is a very special car, having taken Juan Fangio to a pair of 1957 wins in Argentina, with further successes for Harry Schell. Today, driver Jeff O’Neill keeps 2527 in good practice and fighting trim on racetracks around the country, appearing recently at the 2008 Monterrey Historics.

It’s good to see that, despite the radical increase in the value of this machine between these two photos, a car like this Maserati 250F has avoided becoming a showpiece in a speculator’s warehouse and has instead maintained a presence on the racetrack. The stratospheric rise in the values of vintage racers, particularly the incredible price jump of the mid 1980s, has been both a blessing and a curse. These cars have been rescued from the junk heaps of history, but have all too often fallen into the hands of investors and kept off the track and out of view of the fans of vintage motorsport.

Thank you, Jeff, for keeping this example of one of history’s finest racing cars well within public view.

The Photo above is from a series of Monterrey pit area shots at TrackThoughts.

Photographer Michael Plitkins has several images of 2527 on AtSpeedImages.