Nice shot of the huge 4.5 litre V12 Ferrari 375 Thinwall Special owned and entered by future Vanwall boss Tony Vandervell and driver here by Italian veteran Piero Taruffi in practice at Silverstone prior to the 1952 British GP meeting. The car was based on the 1951 F1 car, modified a bit and entered asThinwall Special as a not very subtle commercial venture to publicise the Vandervall Thinwall bearings that even Ferrari used at the time.
The car was raced widely by several top names including Mike Hawthorn and Peter Collins before Vandervell built the first Vanwall Grand Prix car in 1955.
On this ocassion it was entered in the suppporting race for the British GP of 1952 known as the Daily Express Trophy for Formula Libre against the BRM V16s and an ex Indy 500 Ferrari entered by the works for Villoresi. This race was a chance to run the redundant F1 cars because in 1952 and 1953 all world championship Grand Prix were held to F2 regulations.
The Daily Express Trophy was won by Taruffi in the Thinwall Special Ferrari at a speed some 3mph faster than Alberto Ascari managed in the Grand Prix itself (with an F2 Ferrari of course).
Taruffi was one of the top Italian GP aces of the post war era, won the Swiss GP in 1952 for Ferrari and won the last ever Mille Miglia in 1957 as well as breaking masses of speed records in various cars including the Nardi and his own TARF.
Nice shot printed up from an original 35mm negative held in our archives. Notice the total lack of spectators on practice day and the car in the background (Vauxhall?).
