Customer Service—1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial

The early 1950s found Enzo Ferrari’s burgeoning company quickly climbing the steep end of the power curve. His sports and racing cars, powered by the company’s now signature V12 engine in its various displacements, were proving successful not only on the racetracks of the world, but commercially with customers as well. While Ferrari’s 2-liter V12 showed great success in Formula Two, by 1950 competition from four-cylinder power plants like the Alta engine in the HWM was beginning to give the Prancing Stallion a run for its money. Added to this was the decision by the FIA ultimately to do away with the 1.5-liter supercharged or 4.5-liter naturally aspirated formula, but strangely, not until the 1954 season. With almost two intervening years of a “lame duck” formula, it seemed highly unlikely that any manufacturer would invest money in an engine or program with only a one or two year shelf life. With a new 2.5-liter, normally aspirated formula on the horizon for 1954, it made more sense for teams to bide their time and prepare for the new formula.

Four for the Future

During this same period of time, Enzo Ferrari had two primary engine designers in his employ, Gioacchino Colombo and Aurelio Lampredi. Colombo had been the primary architect of the smaller displacement 2-liter V12 engine being utilized in Ferrari’s then current F2 car. However, looking toward the future, Lampredi argued that a 2-liter, four-cylinder engine would benefit from being smaller, having more torque, fewer moving parts and less internal frictional loss. Ultimately, Ferrari agreed to let him prove his hypothesis, and by the beginning of 1951, Lampredi had the first of his 2-liter, four-cylinder power plants on the dyno in Modena. Using a 90-mm bore and 78-mm stroke, Lampredi’s four-banger produced a solid 170-hp right out of the box, giving it a 10-hp advantage over the existing 2-liter, Colombo-designed V12.