1954 Lancia D50 Formula One — Handmade Metal Model Racing Car
1954 Lancia D50 Formula One — Handmade Metal Model Racing Car
Model details
- Construction
- Handcrafted
- Collection
- Automobile Models
- Item no.
- AR019
The most radical Grand Prix car of the 1950s — and the one that bankrupted the company that built it.
Handcrafted in iron with rolling metal wheels and hand-painted red finish, carrying the D50's unmistakable feature: fuel panniers slung outboard between the wheels rather than carried in a tail tank.
Details
- Handcrafted iron frame and body
- Metal wheels that roll
- Hand-painted red finish with applied detail
- Outboard pannier tanks, open cockpit and exhaust detail
- Ready to display
The car
Vittorio Jano — the same engineer behind the Alfa P2 thirty years earlier — designed the D50 with the V8 engine as a stressed chassis member and the fuel carried in side pods, which kept the car's balance constant as the tanks emptied and let the driver sit lower.
Lancia ran out of money in 1955 and handed the entire racing operation to Ferrari. Juan Manuel Fangio won the 1956 world championship in a lightly modified D50 wearing Ferrari badges — a car Ferrari had neither designed nor paid for.