The murky world of chassis numbers

It’s common today, especially in Ferrari circles, to waffle on about individual cars by reference to their chassis serial numbers. Often such enthusiast websites as Ferrari Chat are awash with information about ‘0736’, ‘0744’ and ‘0054’, before any reference to a model type or helpful explanation to the newcomer of any period or even to basic matters as general class or design. When references advance into such road car models as ‘08545’, which turns out to be a 275 GTB which had a lengthy concours career before selling for £2.6m in a 2023 US auction sale, I glaze over and think of England…

For donkey’s years this relatively modern habit has sat uncomfortably with those fortunate enough to have grown their enthusiasm through periods in which the cars were a) current and b) purebred racers.

Some of us developed as born rivet counters, aka ‘chassis number nerds’, but even if this is your personal persuasion there is a limit beyond which the habit becomes, almost literally, a pain in the proverbial.

Denis Jenkinson was one of the first motor sports reporters to go to the extent of, firstly, noting down car chassis numbers from the machine itself and, secondly, actually publishing that identity as part of his subsequent race reports. While such detail had been common in the heyday of the ERA Voiturette racing cars such nerdyness had been squeezed out of even the most specialist motor sporting press come the 1940s/50s. With the notable exception of ‘Jenks’. He did so initially in an effort to keep track of who had just achieved what with the first effectively ‘mass produced’ Grand Prix car, the Maserati 250F. He would note how ‘2518’ had been raced by the Italian factory team before being sold to Baltasaro Creikeylookatimgo or whoever the latest hotshot might have been to have arrived in Modena from Brazil replete with enthusiasm, ambition… and cash…

Through the 1960s/70s chassis numberism became far more widespread. An entire generation of Jenks readers found their way into motor sporting reportage and many of us adopted his practises. I was one of the first to extend such a level of nit-picking interest beyond Formula 1, in a Formula 2 seasonal review I compiled for Motor Racing in 1967. I remember Brabham commercial manager Alain Fenn being amazed when I extracted from him information on BT-series – ‘Brabham/Tauranac’ – chassis numbers at such an “inconsequential” level. Study Allen Brown’s magnificent oldracingcars.com today and see how times have changed.

“The more significant the car, the more significant the nerdyism”

The more significant the car, the more significant chassis number nerdyism has become. In recent weeks I have spent much time revisiting the preposterously dangerous series of Porsche 917s. Through 1970/71 the Gulf-JW Automotive team was one of the most consistently successful of all professional long-distance endurance racing equipes, largely campaigning 917s as the quasi-works team.

Under the all-embracing team direction of John Wyer, supported by the pit management of the great David Yorke, they built upon their Gulf Oil-backed World Championship of Makes achievements with the GT40s after forging their Porsche tie in the winter of 1969-70.

In 1970, after that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, team co-director Arnold Stafford wrote about ‘falsifying’ 917 chassis numbers to factory engineer Helmut Flegl at Porsche: “Just a note to advise you (as we agreed during my last visit) that we have transferred the chassis plate from 917026 which was wrecked at Le Mans to the new chassis 917031; and that the wrecked chassis which we are returning to you will therefore carry the number 917031.” So the mangled wreck of 917 chassis ‘026’ as crashed at Le Mans in the hands of Mike Hailwood returned to its manufacturer, ostensibly to be verschrotten. In fact the damage proved to be not as severe as first feared, and after a relatively simple repair ‘031’ née ‘026’ raced again.

I vividly recall the normally stern-faced John Wyer telling us how he had seen ‘Mike the Bike’ wandering into the team’s pit on that Saturday night carrying the steering wheel from his freshly damaged 917. John – known to his mechanics and drivers as ‘Death Ray’ for his withering glare – took his cigar from his lips, then said, gesturing at the steering wheel, “Is that what came off, or is that all that’s left…?”.

Another one of the 917s I have been researching, again a Gulf-JWA car, also had its chassis number tag swapped by team and manufacturer consorting in falsifying the record. Each car’s originally stamped serial would be on a plate tack-welded onto each individual chassis’ rear top cross-tube. To replace a tag entailed hacksawing through the old welds to lift the plate, then tack-welding the replacement into place. Often an earlier number would remain part-visible beneath.
So for those students of racing eager to reconstruct individual car careers I would advise caution, especially with such great classics as Maserati 250Fs, probably most Formula-racing Ferraris or indeed 917s.

Significantly, the Arnold Stafford Gulf-JWA letter confirms that it has not just been post-period wheeler-dealers who have muddied the issue. The revered owners and operators also did a good job in that respect… No surprise that earnest young enthusiasts, looking on from behind the fences and memorising the race reports, also got it wrong.