Picking up the gauntlet in 1957 to challenge Ferrari for sports-car racing honours, Maserati created a formidable weapon in its four-camshaft 4½-litre V-8 engine. Inspired by an Indianapolis initiative, the 450S was the era’s most potent racing car.
Not since 1950 had the dynamometer on the Via Ciro Menotti experienced this kind of power. In that year Maserati was testing the supercharged 3.0-litre engine of its 8CTF, which delivered 430 horsepower. With a similar design, the eight-cylinder pre-war 8CL gave much the same output. These were the highest power ratings of any Maserati yet built. In the summer of 1956, however, these engines had their first real rival. That’s when Maserati first tested the 4½-litre V-8 engine of the 450S, a car that has gone down in history as one of the most awesome sports-racing cars ever created.
Circa 1955 one of the three 4.2-litre V-8 engines for Tony Parravano was seen with Maserati’s Antonio Reggiani on the left and Ermanno Cozza on the right.
That the 450S was identified in Maserati’s technical annals as the Type 54 was an indication of the year in which its engineering began. According to Maserati-racing Stirling Moss the initiative for the project began in 1954. The interested customer was Tony Parravano, then 37, who had emigrated from Italy to the USA in 1934. Wealthy as a property exploiter in an expanding Los Angeles, Parravano invested his earnings in fine Italian racing cars and their drivers. By 1956, it was said, his stable held 13 Maseratis and as many Ferraris. Distinctive Parravano blue and white stripes on red racers were seen at both Monza and Riverside.
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