Greatest Racing Car of All Time!
It's Official: It is the Maserati 250F

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Maserati has produced many cars which became famous, such as the 8CTF, with which Wilbur Shaw took two Indianapolis 500 victories; the 5000GT, created at the behest of the Shah of Persia by slotting a racing V8 into a luxury coupe; the superlative 300S and Tipo 61 Birdcage by which small sports racers are still measured; the Bora, which raised the game for mid-engined two-seat sports car by adding civility to astonishing performance and handling; and, of course, the Quattroporte, the first car which combined luxury, performance and handling in a practical sedan. Yet one Maserati eclipses all of these – the legendary 250F grand prix car.

You don’t have to take our word for it – the 250F has been voted ‘Greatest Racing Car of All Time’. The noted British magazine Octane, which specializes in classic and historic cars, asked seven genuine racing luminaries to each nominate a car to compete for the title: from Formula One World Champion Damon Hill to multiple Le Mans winner Derek Bell, from CHAMP car champion and Indy 500 winner Bobby Rahal to the famous driver and constructor Carroll Shelby, they named a stellar array of cars including the Porsche 917, Lotus 49, Cobra, Mercedes-Benz W196. The Maserati 250F was nominated by British racer Sir Stirling Moss, who said “…it became clear that the Maser was a very honest car; it was like having a really good teacher at school, one who really gets your attention. I won my first Formula One point in 1954 in the 250F”.

The selection was voted on by readers via the Octane website, and votes were also taken on the Octane stand at the Classic Car Show in Birmingham. Could there be any doubt about the result? “The overwhelming and outright winner is the incomparable Maserati 250F.” The award was accepted by noted car collector Nick Mason, the Pink Floyd drummer, who took his own 250F to the headquarters of the Royal Automobile Club in central London to receive the award.

Fewer than thirty Maserati 250F cars were built; remarkably for cars of that era, the majority of them still exist, and are in great demand as historic racers that embody the same ethos as Maserati road cars. The 250F carried Juan Manuel Fangio to the Formula One World Championship in 1957, and along the way he won the German Grand Prix, on the Nürburgring Nordschleife, in what is often described as ‘the greatest grand prix of all time’. The 250F is, of course, extremely valuable – and Octane recently estimated that the Maserati used by Fangio to win that legendary race would be worth $6 million – but only if you could get its current owner to part with it at auction.

You can read more about Fangio, the 1957 season and the remarkable 250F at the Maserati Celebrates Fangio website. And if you pay a visit to your local authorized Maserati dealer, you will find that while enormous strides have been made in the intervening years, the sporting heritage of the 250F remains an integral part of the Maserati brand.