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Maserati 450s


Alessandro Pollini

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Rilasciata la Maserari 450S per GT Legends

http://www.drivingitalia.net/forum/index.php?app=downloads&showfile=3926

Projected and made in a virtual garden for automotive dreams. We are very happy to present our newest creation! The mighty Maserati 450S.

Installation:

Copy the unpacked data into your GT Legends install which contains the GameData folder.

No responsibility for user errors.

A template for the painters to use will be provided. If you repect Maseratis and the cars history, please refrain from painting modern style liveries.

Thanks und Credits:

Cooky: 3D Modell, ZMod, 3DSimED, PS, templates, textures

Citytea: Sound design, PS, templates, textures

Mental Gear: Physics, technical and historic research, physics testing, PS, textures

Now sit down on your driving chair, imagine yourself back to 1957 where oil drenched drivers and even spectators often died when they had a crash and rekindle the manliness in you.

Big thanks goes to all our team members for the great cooperation and personal dedication

Car History:

The woodland creatures scurry, bolt and scramble, for the 'Bazooka', though still some way distant, is most definitely within earshot. This is not a car for the shy or sensitive, timid or tremulous. Vlad the

Impaler would have loved it, though. Maserati's Tipo 54, that's Mister 450S to you and me, sounds like thunder and goes like the clappers…It's big, beautiful and brutal. MotorSport magazine, January 2005.

Few sports-racing cars carry a fearsome reputation to equal Maserati's thunderous Tipo 54, better known as the 450S. Originally conceived in 1954 to challenge Ferrari's 'big banger' sports racers, the Tipo 54

project was bankrolled by South Californian cement and construction baron, team boss and partygoer Tony Parravano. Eager to win the Indianapolis 500, Parravano had ordered two 4.2 V8 engines and intended to put them into Kurtis chassis. Nothing came of this project, so instead Maserati developed a sports racing car around the engine which was intended to challenge Ferrari in the World Sports Car Championship.

The new V8, by now enlarged to 4488cc, "almost shook the factory walls down as it registered 400bhp on the dyno. The years of Ferrari outmuscling Maserati were definitely over." recalled MotorSport.

The determination, with whom, during the fifties, the Maserati factory dealt with Sport cars Championship, lead to the building of many cars more and more powerful. The last stage of this escalation was themonstrous 450 Sport. Its story started in 1954 with a new project called "Tipo 54". Maybe Gioachino Colombo, more than one year before, was the first to have such idea, but several factors forced to abandon the project for some time: the terrible accident of 1955's Le Mans race, the

lack of an ascendant from which it would have been possible to take inspiration. As for the Maserati 250F, the realisation of the project was entrusted to those members of the staff, directed by engineer

Alfieri, who were specialised in every part of the car: Guido Taddeucci projected the engine, Valerio Colotti chassis and transmission.

Maybe the most difficult task was Colotti's one that was a complex DOHC 8 cylinders, 90° V. Nevertheless he was helped by the experience of the 4 cylinders engines of the 150S and 200S : the carburettors were installed in the middle of the "V". Two magnets, posed in front of the engine, secured the sixteen candles working. Now, where Taddeucci's work finished, started Colotti's task: he had to project a transmission that was able to discharge almost 400 hp on the ground. He projected a big 5-speed transaxle which were posed inside the wheel-base. The big clutch had four steel rings and five aluminium rings. At the exit there were two cylindrical gears which permitted to change gears. The chassis was clearly re-engaged from the 300S: oval tubes with big section formed the base and it was integrated with an upper structure formed by circular tubes. The same scheme was adopted for anterior suspensions, whereas the rear axle with De Dion tube was drawn again: The tube passed behind the

differential housing.The 450S received a completely new brake-system: there were enormous drum-brakes (40 cm in diameter in the opposite, 35 cm in the rear).

The first engine was assembled, in August 1956, on the chassis n°3501 that was used by Stirling Moss during the 1956 Mille Miglia race. After a brief test, it was taken to Sweden, and on August 7th, it participated in Sweden grand prix. The new car was recognised for the big hump on the anterior bonnet which hid the carburettors, and for the four exhaust pipes which appeared in the side (but they substituted because they caused great problems in reliability. In particular, there was great worry for the engine, which caused great vibrations, which stretched to the transmission. This problem was solved during the next autumn, when ignition order was revised. The 450S was ready to face the 1957 championship, but its birth was overdrawn and over budget. The R&D cost of $ 400.000-500.000 was colossal by the standards of the era. The n°4501, with a new chassis and body, made its debut in Buenos Aires race. It revealed a great handling but it failed its success for youth's problems. But at Sebring race, the n°4503, driven by Fangio and Behra, won with great facility.

In the meanwhile, in Modena, the evolution of the model went on, and by n°4504 a new ignition-system with two coil ignitions, double shock absorbers, new oil tanks were adopted. On the n°4505 an additional

two-speed gearbox was assembled between the engine and the transmission: in practice it acted as an overdrive which permitted to pull down the revolutions number. It was adopted also on n°4507, n°4508, and n°4501 for LeMans race, which represented the most important objective for Maserati. 1957 LeMans and Nürburgring races were lost, but Maserati was still in race for championship winning, which after Sweden Grand Prix success, thanks to Fangio and Behra, was really within reach. Most of all the 450S suffered for guidability problems: the enormous power (430 hp at the end of 1957) requested great sensibility in acceleration distributing. However great handling qualities, invited to pull down one's foot, as much as this excess of confidence that the car gave, caused many problems.

As the backer behind its development, though, Parravano was destined to receive the first 'production' example, chassis '4502', which had been shipped to him at the end of 1956. Thankfully '4502' avoided the

Venezuelan carnage, stashed away near the Mexican border, supposedly out of reach of the Inland Revenue Service.

Tony ran a construction empire in Southern California and had trouble maintaining proper books pertaining to his businesses. As a result virtually no corporate taxes were paid until the Internal Revenue

Service caught up with him. Tony fled to Mexico in June, 1957, and the IRS people settled Parravano's tax liabilities in January, 1959, by auctioning off his extensive collection of Italian exotics, at least

that part not siphoned off to Mexico previously. One of the auctioned cars was the 450S, chassis 4502. Willem Oosthoek, The Maserati Club magazine.

The outcome of the 1957 World Sports Car Championship depended on the final Venezuelan 1,000km in Caracas on November 3. Two works 450S cars -'03' and '07' - were supported there by a special 4.7-litre customer car '4508' freshly-delivered to American entrant Temple Buell. Sterling Moss/Jean Behra/Schell were to handle the works cars, Masten Gregory/Dale Duncan would drive Buell's. Maserati ran a 300S for Jo Bonnier as insurance but the race became a famous Maserati disaster.

On only the second lap, Gregory flipped Buell's car. Moss led until lap 33 when a slow back marker wandered into his path, demolishing '4503's front end. Its sister '4507', then ignited during a pit stop, burning Behra, after which Moss and Schell took over in an attempt to fight back against Ferrari. Incredibly, Bonnier's 300S then lost a front wheel just as it was being overtaken by Schell in the already charred 450S.

Both cars crashed heavily; Schell's big V8 burning out while Bonnier's 300S demolished itself against a streetlamp.

So four front-line Maseratis had started this Championship deciding race, and all had crashed - leaving the World Championship title to Ferrari.

Perhaps unnerved by the big Maser's gargantuan performance (and that of Ferrari's 4 litre V12s) the powers-that-be implemented a 3 litre sports car formula from 1958, and the car's European career was over. The 450S were forced to immigrate to USA where it dominated races with Carrol Shelby, Eb Rose, Masten Gregory, Jim Hall, and Walt Cline. This enormous success was due to some disinterested benefactors: Tony Parravano, Temple Buell, Masten Gregory.From 1959 started 450 S's career, with its

sea version. The first engine that was developed, was type 59 with 5665 displacement (bore x stroke: 103x85), which gave 520 hp. In 1962 came three new versions: type 201 (5400 cc, 420 hp), type 62 (6462 cc, 580 hp), type 202 (4941 cc, 330 hp). These engines were assembled on race boats, which won many European and world championships during the sixties with Lino Spagnoli, Flavio Guidotti, Liborio Guidotti, Giorgio Guidotti, Nando dell'Orto, Ermanno Marchisio and Luigi Crivelli.

This awe-inspiring beast encapsulates all the spirit and majesty and disappointed failure that made Maserati the great marque it was. There are not very many racing cars of which we can say 'When it didn't break it won'.

The Maserati 450S was the most powerful front engine prototype-sportscar for about 40 years until Panoz came along with it's sports prototypes in the late 1990s.

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This mod is absolutely fantastic! The car is very challenging to drive with lot of power. Definitively a must have :thumbsup:

Check the vid I posted on my channel:

Thousand thanks to the modders

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