Celebrating 55 years of the 1969 European Hill Climb Championship crown, where the Ferrari 212E Montagna finally gave Scuderia Ferrari its first title in this motorsport discipline, Sports Car Digest presents its readers with an in-deep story of this mythical vehicle, in a form of a detailed summary of its development and the complete analysis of the 212E racing record.
In the third and final part of this report, readers will follow the second part of the 1969 European Hill Climb Championship, observing how the 212E really established itself as an exquisite machine, gaining total admiration from both the public and its rivals. In the final section, the Montagna’s post-Scuderia days will also be revealed, with the reader being able to observe the (mis)adventures of the 212E in its life away from its original owners.
XXX INTERNATIONALE BERGPREIS FREIBURG-SCHAUINSLAND
EUROPEAN HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP (ORGANIZED BY THE ADAC)
The fifth stage of the European Hill Climb Championship reserved a return to German territory; but this time the background would not be the Bavarian Alps, but rather the mysterious Black Forest and the picturesque towns that dotted the Baden-Württemberg region. Although the 1969 edition was officially recognized as the 30th edition of the Freiburg-Schauinsland, in reality, the race was much older than this numbering would indicate, with the first reports of a race taking place in the site dating back to 1925.
Since then, countless drivers and manufacturers had put their name on this German hill climb, with Gerhard Mitter and Porsche dominating the three editions (1966/67/68) before the arrival of the Ferrari 212E in 1969. The Scuderia landed in Germany with a boosted morale, after Schetty’s positive feedback on the modifications made to the car before the Trento-Bondone stage. The 212E performed superbly, and it seemed that any glimmer of hope that still existed of an outsider betting the scarlet car had simply disappeared.
The good omens for Schetty were not only transmitted by his own car, but also by other external observers. The main one was Peter’s biggest challenger of the year: Gerhard Mitter. Although the German was not actually competing in the championship, due to reasons associated with Porsche and the driver’s own personal life, almost all of the records that were being broken by Schetty had been set by Mitter in the previous years. Days before the race, Schetty and Mitter met in Freiburg, and, contrary to what one might imagine, the German was not hostile to the Swiss. On the contrary, he was excited and astonished by the performance of the 212E, a car that surpassed the performance of the venerable Bergspyder in all possible aspects.
Even with these incentives for Schetty’s side, this did not stop other teams from dreaming of a miraculous possibility of beating the car from Maranello. As had been happening up until now in the championship, registrations were quickly piling up in the hands of the ADAC organizers. The already recurring Abarth & Co., Scuderia Brescia Corse and Alfa-Romeo Deutschland squads were joined by the Autohaus Lehmann (Walter Lehmann/Abarth 2000 SE010) and Sigi Lang Racing (Siefried Lang/Porsche 907) teams, as the main forces opposing Ferrari.
Saturday’s training sessions were dedicated to technical observations and possible improvements that could be made to the cars for the official races the following day: in this case the term “races” in the plural was applied, since, as had happened in Berchtesgaden a month and a half earlier, each pilot would be required to make two climbs to the top, with the sums of times being used to define the final ranking of the race. Despite this double journey, this was not a problem for any of the drivers hoping for victory (even more so with the stable weather that prevailed over the place that weekend). The short, fluid track layout, 11,200-meters-long, was appreciated by the drivers, with the fastest cars generally completing the climb between the village of Freiburg and the top of the Schauinsland mountain in less than 6 minutes.
The first heat of Sunday’s races would take place early in the morning, with the traditional order of release of cars in groups being followed to the letter: Abarth, Alfa and Porsche would clear the way, so that Ferrari could finally make its way up. Peter Schetty’s biggest goal in the 1969 edition of Freiburg-Schauinsland was to beat the track record, set by Gerhard Mitter the previous year, with 5m26s1/10.
The shorter length of the track meant that the time differences between the cars would be smaller, and Schetty knew that, once again, he would have to present an impeccable performance to achieve his goals. Arturo Merzario had set the best time in qualifying until Ferrari’s start, with German Walter Lehmann being the big surprise so far, with the second fastest mark of the day and just seconds behind the Italian.
But Schetty was focused solely on his goals. Authorization to start was given and the Ferrari began its climb up the Schauinsland mountain, with its height of 780 meters and 170 curves. The 212E gained ground on the straights, with the power of the Tipo 232 engine playing a fundamental role in breaking Mitter’s mark. Time passed quickly and, at the end of 5m22s1/10, Schetty crossed the finish line, once again promoting the 212E as the record holder. Therefore, the first objective of the day had already been accomplished – now it was up to the second, to ensure overall victory in the contest.
And Peter Schetty had no problem in also securing this achievement for Scuderia Ferrari. Making his second climb with a time of 5m25s8/10, the Swiss continued the team’s consecutive winning streak, maintaining 100% success in all the races that the 212E had participated in so far. 40 seconds off Schetty’s aggregate time came second-placed Merzario who, once again, performed better than his teammate (with Johannes Ortner finishing in a poor 7th position). Completing the podium, to the delight of the public, was the German Walter Lehmann, who had lived up to the great fame and legacy of German hill climb pilots in Schauinsland.
IX PROVA IN SALITA CESANA-SESTRIERE
EUROPEAN HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP (ORGANIZED BY THE A.C.I.)
As the teams set off again towards Italy for the sixth stage of the championship, Ferrari was already in a celebratory mood. After so many failures the automaker that had been accumulating since the beginning of 1968, especially in the departments responsible for the F1 and WSC programs, a light was finally glimpsed at the end of the tunnel, with the European Hill Climb Championship title providing a brief respite from the internal pressure that was mounting within Maranello’s walls.
The setting for the definitive crowning of 212E as winners of the 1969 edition of the tournament could not be better: the small Piedmontese towns of Cesana and Sestriere, located in the foothills of the Italo-French Alps. As an important detail for the ’69 race, it is worth remembering that just over a month earlier, FIAT had concluded an agreement to purchase 50% of Ferrari’s shares, which partially resolved the economic problems faced by the Maranello manufacturer. However, what made this story even more interesting is that Cesana was only 90 kilometers away from Turin, the headquarters of FIAT.
Therefore, it was undeniable that between the lines, there was some pressure from FIAT for the 212E to continue its winning streak right in the giant automaker’s backyard, as a way of publicizing the Ferrari-FIAT partnership with good omens. Furthermore, the almost certain presence of a large contingent of tifosi, who would show up en masse at any event on Italian soil, would only serve as an extra spice for the great expectation that was forming around Schetty.
Activities on the 10,400-meter circuit began on Friday, August 1st. Ferrari and Abarth monopolized the timetables, with Peter Schetty setting the following times on the three climbs he was entitled to: 5m10s1/10, 5m0s5/10 and 4m56s. Arturo Merzario, in the works SE010, was right behind, setting the marks of 5m18s2/10, 5m8s4/10 and 5m52s2/10. Completing the top-5 of fastest drivers of the day were Johannes Ortner, who returned to drive the 2000 “Cuneo”, Luigi Taramazzo in the Scuderia Brescia Corse 2000 SE010 and the Scuderia Pegaso, with the 206S Spyder Corsa Montagna of Ferdinando Latteri.
On the second day of training, times dropped even further, with Schetty reducing his mark to 4m52s5/10. On the other hand, for the first time in the season, Merzario managed to set marks that truly began to bother Ferrari, with times reasonably close to those of the 212E. A climb of 5m1s demonstrated that the 2000 SE010, in the right hands and conditions, could indeed be a threat to the unbeatable scarlet car from Maranello. The gentle and gradual rise between the cities of Cesana and Sestriere (with a difference in level of just 683 meters) denied the 212E the great advantages it had over the SE010, which were acceleration and recovery speed.
This was a point that certainly bothered Schetty (as the Swiss stated in interviews with the Italian press before the race) but that certainly did not prevent the driver from having full confidence in being able to break another championship record. The mark to be surpassed belonged once again to the German Mitter, who, in 1968, had made the climb between Cesana and Sestriere in 4m54s6/10. Peter’s training time demonstrated that this mark would not be that difficult to attain; but to be officially recognized, the Swiss would have to do the same in one of Sunday’s ascents.
And race day was finally on the horizon. Cloudy weather set the tone for the 9th edition of the Cesana-Sestriere, with the first pilots struggling to get the grip from the curves of the route, having to deal with a patchy asphalt for much of the climb (due to a light shower during the night). Despite the minor misfortune for those at the front of the line, this meant that the track was already considerably dry by the time the race’s main contenders prepared to make their ascents.
It was known that, due to the large number of registrants, each driver would only have one opportunity to complete the route on Sunday, and, therefore, concentration and focus proved essential in the moments preceding the start signal. After the session reserved for cars from group 4 up to 1600cc had concluded, it was time for the machines from Group 4 up to 2000cc (Abarth) and vehicles from Groups 5,6 and 7 (Abarth, Alfa-Romeo and Ferrari).
The first to leave were the factory Abarths, with Merzario and Ortner easily achieving the two best marks of the race so far. The first, in the normal 2000 SE010, again set a time of 5m1s, while the Austrian, with the Cuneo model, crossed the finish line in 5m4s6/10. Another Abarth that positioned itself among the first was the SE010 from Scuderia Brescia Corse, driven by Franco Pilone.
But Abarth’s moments of celebration proved to be ephemeral – something constant for the manufacturer in the 1969 European Hill Climb season. First with Ferdinando Latteri (known by the nickname “Codones”), who took his 206 Spyder Montagna to third place, beating Pilone’s Abarth. Latteri’s Ferrari was a special case, as the car was a combination of mechanical parts from his own personal 206S (#66-018) with a 212E style-bodywork, furnished by Scuderia Ferrari/Carrozzeria Drogo.
Despite this small initial challenge imposed by Latteri’s “Frankenstein” Ferrari, the big shock at Abarth would come again from Peter Schetty’s official 212E. As soon as the flag was given to the Swiss, Peter went in search of the victory that would officially guarantee Ferrari the championship title.
The difficulty in properly warming the Ferrari’s tires in those conditions was just another challenge for Schetty, who, crawling slowly, but inexorably, managed to get ahead of Mitter’s mark in the final section of the climb. In the end, the Swiss had yet another triumph crowned by a record. 4m53s3/10 was the mark that once again placed Ferrari at the top of the podium, and finally gave the team the result that mattered most: the title of 1969 European Hill Climb champion!
Peter Schetty now had incredible 48 points in the tournament’s overall standings, compared to Merzario’s 24 and Ortner’s 17. For the first time in the history of the tournament, a driver had achieved the maximum score in the first 6 stages of the championship. Neither Porsche nor Mitter had achieved this feat in so many years in the European Hill Climb Championship. This fact attests to the supremacy of the Ferrari 212E over its rivals; but there was still one last act reserved for 212E before it could finally enter the annals of great automobiles of the 1960’s.
IX COURSE INTERNATIONALE DE CÔTE DE OLLON-VILLARS
EUROPEAN HILLCLIMB CHAMPIONSHIP (ORGANIZED BY THE A.C.S.)
Ollon-Villars could not be the longest climb, nor the most historic, neither the most arduous of the 1969 championship; even so, the challenges offered by the race held in the canton of Vaud were always present. Composed of an 8-kilometer-long ascent, the Ollon-Villars climb was extremely fast – which instantly made it a favorite among drivers. Furthermore, the beautiful landscape, which includes the Rhône Valley and Mont Blanc as its main geographical points, was undoubtedly an element that inspired drivers and audiences in this great contest.
While most of the drivers showed up for their first track activities on Friday, August 29th, the tireless Peter Schetty had already settled in the village of Villars almost a week before his rivals. Despite already having the title in hand, this fact demonstrated the focus and restraint of the Swiss, who was racing in his homeland, and who, in the previous days, had made several ascents along the race route.
Obviously, the 212E could not be used for these training sessions, therefore, Schetty “borrowed” a Ferrari touring car, which had become his great companion in the week preceding the official Ollon-Villars hill climb. According to what was reported in the press at the time, Schetty had made the 8km route no less than 50 times (between climbs and descents), covering roughly 900 km in a week with the car. So, it’s no surprise that when the first official practice sessions began at the venue on Saturday, Peter had a huge advantage in terms of knowledge of the route.
Following the championship script, the 212E’s usual opponents also converged on the canton of Vaud: Abarth & Co, with two SE010s for Arturo Merzario and Johannes Ortner; the Scuderia Brescia Corse, also with SE010, for Luigi Taramazzo; and Alfa-Romeo Deutschland, with Michel Weber’s T33/2. However, it was the unusual entries that caught the public’s attention most – in particular, that of two Swiss drivers who entered Formula-type cars in the event.
The first and strongest of these was undoubtedly the Brabham BT24 entered by the Silvio Moser Racing Team, owned by the Swiss driver Silvio Moser. The car was the same Formula 1 used by the pilot in the category’s international championship stages, and, with its 350HP engine, it presented as the 212E’s biggest challenge so far in the championship. With a lower displacement Formula, but no less dangerous, was Xavier Perrot, in Squadra Tartaruga’s Brabham BT23C, a car built to the F2 specifications, and which was also used by the driver in this category.
However, the big challenge that faced Formula and single-seater cars in hill climb races was that, despite their enormous power, they were not vehicles built with the intention of being used in this type of event. They lacked traction and stability in parts with a high inclination rate, which caused mechanics and pilots to come up with creative solutions to overcome such problems.
After the refusal of Firestone (which was Ferrari’s official supplier in the European Hill Climb Championship) to sell a set of wide-tread tires, specific for this type of discipline, Silvio Moser opted to use rain tires during the whole weekend of the Ollon-Villars contest, despite not a single drop of water falling from the sky throughout the entire racing weekend. Moser’s choice was based on a simple thought: the rain tires partially compensated for the vehicle’s traction problems. On the other hand, this meant that after 8km of climbing, the pneumatics were in tatters, due to the high abrasion of these tires on a dry surface.
The duel between compatriots Moser and Schetty began to develop on Saturday: in two opportunities that Schetty had to do training on the track during that day, the driver established the marks of 4m6s8/10 and 3m50s, with Silvio Moser regularly being behind 5-10 seconds on each heat. Arturo Merzario, who could pose another challenge to Schetty in this session, had problems on his first climb due to a suspension collapse, that caused significant damage to Abarth. It seemed at first that Merzario would not even return to compete in the official races the following day, due to the extent of the problem – but the Abarth team found a way, with a collective effort (which involved the cannibalization of parts from Ortner’s Abarth) fixing the car by the time of the first race on the Sunday.
The Automobil Club der Schweiz would follow the competition formula that had been recommended for the championship: as Ollon-Villars was a short climb, the sum of the times of the 2 climbs made by each driver would be used to form the final classification. Starting with sports cars and prototypes with smaller displacement engines, progress would be made through all the categories sanctioned of the event, until the completion of each of the heats.
Abarth, Alfa and Porsche led the way, with Arturo Merzario (4m05s8/10), Luigi Taramazzo (4m07s7/10) and Michel Weber (4m12s6/10) being the fastest drivers in the first part of the provisional classification. Peter Schetty followed soon after, opening the activity of the Group 7 cars. Schetty and Ferrari’s goal was to beat the 1967 record held by Gerhard Mitter, who had made the climb in 3m55s4/10. After the start authorization, the pilot set out in search of another record – and the perfect conditions that day in Villars-sur-Ollon already signaled that this objective would easily fall into the hands of the inexorable pilot.
In his first heat, Schetty completed the course in 3m47s5/10, a spectacular mark that promoted Ferrari to the first isolated position in the race. But the Brabham of Moser was still missing; and, just a few minutes later, the F1 driver found himself making the ascent to the Villars ski resort. Moser even tried to overtake the Ferrari in the standings, but a time of 3m52s was all Moser could grasp.
It was the end of the first heat and, as the drivers waited again to be called to the starting position, they reevaluated their performances to date. It was early afternoon when the second batch of climbs began to unfold. The positions remained unchanged among the top 5, with only Schetty and Merzario improving their marks compared to the first heat: a reduction of 3 seconds in Merzario’s time served to bring the Italian closer to second position overall, but not enough to make the Italian take the position of Moser, who remained firm in his post.
However, it was Peter Schetty who once again eclipsed the competition, further improving the record set by the driver in the first heat. 3m47s5/10 was the mark that definitively crowned Ferrari’s campaign in the 1969 European Hill Climb Championship, with a perfection that would have been unimaginable to even the most optimistic tifosi. Ferrari now joined the select pool of manufacturers, such as Maserati and Porsche, that had won titles in closed and open circuit events. It was yet another achievement, for the many already attained by the Maranello’s prancing horse brand.
POST-1969: A NEW CHAPTER FOR THE 212E
Although there was still one leg remaining in the 1969 European Hill Climb Championship (the Grosser Bergpreis von Österreich, in Gaisberg), both Ferrari and Schetty were already satisfied with the goals achieved. Due to this and other factors, such as lack of financial incentive from the Ö.A.S.C. in attracting the Scuderia to attend the event, the team then decided to not pack its bags to the contest, in order to give Peter Schetty and the mechanics involved in the project a well-deserved rest. This left the way open for Abarth, with Arturo Merzario taking his first victory in the tournament – a consolation prize for Ferrari’s valiant opponent in 1969.
The end of the 1969 season did not, however, mean an end to the race history of the 212E. Despite being officially retired by Scuderia Ferrari, the Montagna would find a second life in the hands of privateers, who would continue to perpetuate the model’s winning history in the early years of the 70s.
The first to continue the vehicle’s legacy in the post-Scuderia years would be the Austrian Egon Hofer, who had purchased the original 212E bodywork (pre-Trento-Bondone) directly from Scuderia Ferrari at the end of 1969. Before that, the driver had purchased a 206SP chassis (#66-016), which would serve as the base to the pseudo-212E. Hofer then commissioned Piero Drogo to join both parts, producing in the beginning of 1970 the 206SP/212E Hofer. The car was to be powered by a V6 Dino engine, taken from one of the ex-F2 Ferraris stored in the team’s workshops.
Despite some conflicting data on Hofer’s vehicle (with claims that, in reality, his car was the original #66-020/0862 – which, for the author, is pure speculation, due to concrete evidence of #020 in the hands of another driver in the same period), what is concretely known is that the Austrian entered only two races with the vehicle: the Erzherzog Johann Pokal (in April 1970) and the Behamberg Hill Climb (May 1970), before the 206SP/212E mysteriously disappeared, supposedly stolen by an employee hired by Hofer to transport the vehicle between races. Fortunately, the most important parts of the original 212E Montagna, the chassis, engine and the post-Trento-Bondone bodywork, would be saved from such dark fate, in the hands of a driver who would truly do justice to the vehicle’s genealogy.
As was known at the end of 1969, Ferrari had no intention of renewing the 212E project for the following year, with the team’s efforts returning exclusively to the F1 and WSC programs. And since the 212E had proven to be a superb vehicle in 1969, it was no surprise that many eyes turned to the car, with the expectation that Ferrari would put the vehicle on sale in the interlude between the 1969-1970 seasons. To the surprise of the privateers, who were the most interested in this prognosis, the team did not bother at first to capitalize on the desire generated by the vehicle, initially preferring to send the car for storage, in the team’s workshop in Maranello.
Despite numerous offers on the machine, the Scuderia remained resolute in its position, ensuring that the 212E would not be sold so easily. The negotiation difficulties began to bother potential interested parties, who lost patience with the intransigence of the Maranello negotiators, thus opting to do business with other Italian manufacturers (such as Abarth and AMS). However, one interested voice remained insistent on his objective: Edoardo Lualdi Gabardi.
The Italian, who had invested in the failed Abarth SP project at the beginning of 1969, was able to see first-hand the full potential of the 212E throughout the entire season, being, at the end of 1969, one of the main characters interested in purchasing the vehicle. Lualdi had been insistent with the Scuderia and Enzo Ferrari (a person he already had contact with, having been a customer of Ferrari cars in the 60s), and after a year of negotiations, Gabardi had finally managed to build an agreement with the team, with Maranello principals accepting an offer of 21 million lire (at the time, roughly US$34,000) for the 212E.
The car went through an extensive overhaul before being handed over to Lualdi Gabardi, with the bodywork undergoing a remodeling process in the hands of Enzo Ferrari’s son, Piero Lardi. Gabardi had high expectations for the car, and, despite winning the Italian Hill Climb Championship in 1971 with the vehicle, adding four more victories (Salita Castione Barati-Neviano Arduini, Coppa della Colline Pistoiese, Trofeo Città di Orvietto and the Coppa Teodori) to the total tally of the 212E triumphs, the driver confirmed for the first time that the 212E was not such a perfect car.
Without logistical support from Scuderia Ferrari, Lualdi had considerable problems with the vehicle’s reliability in several stages of the Italian Championship, the most serious of which was at Cronoscalata Castell’Arquato-Vernasca, when part of the 212E’s suspension gave way, with Lualdi losing control of the car and crashing in one of the curves on the climb. Due to these and other mechanical complications, Lualdi decided to abandon the car for 1972, putting an end to the history of the 212E Montagna in official events.
FERRARI 212E MONTAGNA: INFLUENCES AND LEGACY
The 212E’s magnificent campaign in 1969 had several ramifications for cars linked to the Maranello manufacturer. The first of these could be felt during the 1969 season itself, when some “pseudo-212” began to appear in the European and Italian Hill Climb Championships. One was that of Ferdinando Latteri, the 206S Spyder Montagna bodied to resemble a 212E, used by the driver in 1969 to win the San Giustino- Bocca Trabaria, Svolte di Popoli and Ascoli-San Marco hill climb races, and which had also appeared in the Cesana-Sestriere of the same year, causing some nuisance in some continental rivals.
There were, however, other 206S that sought to imitate the style of the 212E, clearly coping the lines of the most successful member of the family: for example, Pietro lo Piccolo’s 206S, which it was one of the best cases that demonstrate how the 212E impacted small Italian privateers who still used the 206S in open road events. And, as incredible as it may seem, these copies of the 212E even had a certain degree of success (as in the case of Latteri), regularly managing to reach the podium in several Italian national races.
However, the great influence of the 212E could be felt in the years after the magical year of 1969. The car’s aerodynamic and clean design had a sheer impact on other Ferrari designs, in particular, the 312PB, which seemed to carry several lessons from the Montagna project to the racing tracks. Despite being completely different mechanically, it is undeniable to notice the influence of the 212E on the 312PB design, with the 1971 car embracing the concept of a light, fluid and aerodynamic open-top bodywork, more associated with the 212E than the preceding 512M.
The victory of the Ferrari 212E Montagna in the 1969 European Hill Climb Championship was one of those fantastic motorsports acts that will endure throughout history and that certainly caused transformations in the entire context of the sport. Beating much better prepared and consolidated rivals in the category, such as Abarth and Alfa-Romeo, Ferrari demonstrated that with a conscious development process and focus on an objective, the goals, no matter how ambitious they were, could be achieved.
The hiring of Peter Schetty in 1968 to be part of the test program of the 212E was also a decisive factor in this mix, with the Swiss driver taking the project to a level that could never have been achieved by Ferrari designers alone. Schetty’s extensive experience in hill climb races, in addition to the driver’s recent stint with Abarth, Ferrari’s soon-to-be main rival in the 1969 championship, provided a valuable resource for mechanics and engineers, who had first-hand accounts of observations that could be inserted into the car, since the driver knew what would be determining characteristics in confrontations along the mountains and peaks of Europe.
Ferrari’s decision to focus on just one vehicle throughout the duration of the championship was also a bet that paid itself off in the end. As an example, just look at what happened to Abarth and its constant problems in keeping two cars competitive throughout each leg of the tournament. Whether due to a technical decision by Ferrari or the team’s own financial constraints in 1969, the diversion of resources solely to Schetty was one of the keys to success that year.
As the epigraph to this story, it is worth highlighting a speech by Enzo Ferrari to the Italian press before the Roßfeld race, which sums up the spirit of the team along with the 212E Montagna and Peter Schetty: “Noi veniamo com solo una macchina e li batiamo tutti” (Autosprint, 1969) – well, I think that the Commendatore was right in the end…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
- Italian Magazine AutoSprint: various editions from 1969, 1970 and 1971
- Italian Magazine Auto Italiana: various editions of 1969
- German Magazine Automobilsport: edition of April 2019
- Article La Stagione dei Gentlemen Drivers Italiani, by the AISA
- Article Il Dr. Latteri & Mr. Codones, by Giuseppe Valerio
- Book Da Saline a Volterra: La Corsa del Vento e del Macigno, by Mazzoni Maurizio
- A special “thank you” is addressed to everyone who kept photographic records of 212E over all these years – it is impossible to mention everyone’s name in this space, but without them, it would be impossible to build this narrative
