The Ferrari 312P is one of the more unmistakable shapes that sports car racing ever saw, and has been appearing in magazines, historic racing almanacs and luxuriously produced history books in six decades.
It’s a 48 year old shape, with technology under the surface of equal vintage. Yet it’s still more than capable of showing those impetuant youths a thing or two.
Ferrari boycotted sports car racing in 1968 for, uh, political reasons. They were keen not to come back unless they had something strong enough to wipe certain other brands noses in the dirt.
In 1969 they came back, and the 312 was their weapon.
This car represents the 312’s first iteration, with open spyder bodywork. There was also a closed version and it was those that were contested at LeMans.
As with so many historic race cars this one has a fascinating history. It doesn’t effervesce with racing triumph, but has packed plenty of drama into its life. A full chronical of its career can be found here.
As has its owner and driver, David Franklin, with 50 years of racing under his belt. He is a British Hillclimb and British Sprint Champion, and is still in demand for wheel-man duties in historic racing today.
He’s 72 years old. So did he take it easy this weekend? Nope.
He took the 312p and hurled it up the hillclimb, coming seventh overall in the final shootout. In the process soundly thrashing a current British Touring Car and many, many other exotic, bang-up-to-date machines in the process.
As Goodwood keeps pointing out – age ain’t nothing but a number.
(All images copyright Chris Haining / Hooniverse 2016)
By RoadworkUK
RoadworkUK is the online persona of Gianni Hirsch, a tall, awkward gentleman with a home office full of gently decomposing paper and a garage full of worthless scrap metal. He lives in the village of Moistly, which is a safe distance from London and is surrounded by enough water and scenery to be interesting. In another life, he has designed, sold, worked on and written about cars in exchange for small quantities of money.
Jeff Glucker
Nice to see somebody driving their classic ,looks like fun to drive.
Such a beautiful clean, flowing, and uncluttered design. Those wings they use today are called ‘spoilers’ for a reason.
Very cool Chris, thanks for the showcase of this car.
Re Le Mans 1968, I wonder how much notice was given that they were going to restrict engine capacity, in terms of time to get ready? It obviously hit Ferrari harder because they couldn’t simply transfer their cars into the Sports racing category as Ford and Lola did, due to the tiny number built.