Ferrari's Sharknose roars again: behind the wheel of replica 156

For reasons I will never quite understand, Enzo Ferrari, a man with an extraordinary passion for motor racing had a distinct lack of sentiment when it came to his racing cars. Instruments for winning races they might have been; objects of his affection they most certainly were not. And yet at least one example of nearly every car that raced under the banner of the prancing horse remains to this day to be hoarded by private collector, displayed in museums or raced by those who want to sample the mystique.

There is, however, one notable exception to that roll call of desirables, a car that marked a turning point in Ferrari’s history as a Grand Prix constructor and became the first racer to bring both the drivers and manufacturers world championships to Maranello. For no trace of Ferrari’s charismatic 156 ‘Sharknose’ – the class of the 1961 field – exists today; no exhibition centrepiece or historic race entrant. All that is left is a significant chapter in the history books. Five victories may have come and gone but the cars themselves went forever.

If then you are confused by the appearance of such a car on the cover of this magazine, some explanation is clearly required. The Sharknose illustrated here is, in every way except its engine, an exact replica of the very car that helped Phil Hill to become America’s first and only world champion and in the same year claimed the life of the flamboyant and popular Count Wolfgang Berghe von Trips on a stiflingly hot September Sunday at Monza. Its stands alone as the only current example of Ferrari’s first successful mid-engined creation thanks to musician and confirmed tifosi Chris Rea, who commissioned the car as the centrepiece for his film La Passione. If you need assurances of just how faithful a reproduction was produced then Phil Hill’s look of incredulity at Goodwood’s Festival of Speed a few summers ago is evidence enough. This Sharknose may not have been wheeled out of Maranello in the 1960s but as 156s go, it’s as good as it gets.

Good now and not a bad car in its heyday either, for despite the successes of Fangio and Hawthorn in the mid-1950s Ferrari had in terms of race wins been going through a poor run. Tactical acumen and talented drivers had brought two world titles but in the seven seasons between 1954 and 1960 the marque won just eight races. While rival teams such as Lotus and Cooper forged ahead with the switch to mid-engined cars Ferrari, never one to be seen following the crowd, pressed on with his wieldy front-engined machines. Only when it became clear that to follow his own route was akin to racing suicide did the instruction go out to investigate the design and building of this new breed of car.

Under the new 1.5-litre safety rules of 1961 all cars had to be “on the button” as push starts were banned. That is all it takes to get this 156 firing into life but no 1.5-litre V6 screamer nestles behind your neck; to build one of those from scratch would have been prohibitively expensive. The 2.5-litre Dino 246 engine that replaces it is, in fact, a clever alternative, for its 192bhp output is almost an identical match to the original 120-degree V6. What the replica may give away in a few more kilos weight, it makes up for in a few more pounds of torque.

Wait patiently for some heat to ease through the moving parts and then depress the ultra-light clutch pedal to snick first gear. The Ferrari eases smoothly away, the popping and cracking from its exhausts clearly audible as you make your way out onto the track. First impressions as always in cars such as these are often misleading. I have probably only driven three or four cars in my life that were so forgiving that you could go flat out from the start. The Sharknose is not one of them. Put at its most basic, the car is a film prop, albeit a glorious one, and such luxuries as set-up and development were presumably not the highest priorities when the time constraints of filming were at their worst.

On cold tyres on a cold day the car is unnervingly skittish and the brakes at first seem non-existent. With use the discs gain a little more potency but with a power to weight ratio of 400bhp per tonne the Sharknose is equipped with fearsome acceleration. In present form it has neither the brakes nor the mechanical grip to really cope.

That’s not to say the car is unenjoyable to drive. Get used to its little foibles and learn to drive around them and progress, while not in the von Trips league, is rapid enough. While the original engine would, as indicated by the rev-counter, pull to nearly 10,000rpm, a modern Dino engine runs out of puff this side of 8,000. That’s no problem on a day like this though, for the V6’s powerband is broad and assuredly smooth. As a driver all you need to do is keep a mindful eye on the needle and ensure that your gearshifts are steady and not too violent and this car in present form will outrun nearly and supercar you might care to mention. The steering however is vague, and while the simple act of finding the correct tyre pressures might well transform the feel of the Sharknose it is perhaps the single biggest problem you have to overcome.

Rounding Silverstone’s fast Copse corner, the urge to push on is tempered by the visual realisation that ever-increasing inputs through the wheel produce very little in terms of concrete results. Constant understeer forces the nose wide and off line but come off the power in an attempt to tuck the front end back in and the Ferrari begins to feel increasingly pendulous as oversteer creeps in. The Sharknose will round the corner, and at quite considerable speed, but whether this driver was in total control at the time is probably open to debate.