Anthony Wang’s Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa: Music for the soul.


By William Edgar
Pictures copyright William Edgar

Tony and Lulu Wang share a moment together at Monterey. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

I listen to Marian McPartland’s "Piano Jazz" on National Public Radio because what this marvelous musician does is bring the best of our jazz world to the front, allowing remarkable tunes and artists of the past to be heard and remembered again. It’s the same with exploring the pageant of historic Ferrari race cars and giving them voice once more. It’s simply irresistible music. Now hear this, these twelve cylinders of Anthony Wang’s 1958 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa. Without online audio, imagine Miles Davis and Charlie Parker together.

Like a jazz riff in metal, stunningly yellow and black for the sheer pitch of it, Wang’s TR is way cool. I couldn’t take my eyes off this car at the most recent Monterey Historic Automobile Races where we first met face to face. I’d seen pictures of it, had spoken with its owner by phone. Now, here they were at Laguna Seca Raceway, man and machine in person.

First, this TR’s owner/driver. Anthony "Tony" Wang (pronounced Wong) emigrated from Shanghai with his parents and two brothers in 1952, settling in the New York borough of Queens. Tony went to Yale, graduated Cornell law, got into software, earning great success. In 1992 he retired to pursue vintage racing with his wife, Lulu, a Wellesley and Columbia grad, herself an avid vintage racer—subject of my coming VeloceToday story on Lulu and her Alfa-Romeo SZ. Away from racing, the Wangs are devoted to giving to institutions and causes committed to improving life quality for people everywhere. At the track, Tony and Lulu are composed, liked and admired by fellow enthusiasts, and together visibly adore vintage motorsport, which they have ardently supported for years.

At speed and at home on the track. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

Now, the car. Ferrari 250 TR serial number 0722, out of Maranello early enough to still bear the "pontoon" fenders of those first Testa Rossas, this Scaglietti-bodied 2953cc V-12 spider was born of 1957’s prototypes that had proved promising at the Nurburgring 1000km and better still at Le Mans, where one reached P-2 before retiring. Even more impressive were the 250 TR prototypes’ 3rd and 4th place finishes in the 1957 GP of Venezuela. There was much talk about, and admiration for, this new "red head" Ferrari by the time its official public presentation came in late November of ‘57, only five days after Carroll Shelby in a 450S Maserati won the first SCCA National held at brand new Riverside Raceway. Point, counter-point, in that 1950s Maserati-Ferrari rivalry.

Wang waits for his turn to take the TR out at Laguna Seca. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

The new Ferrari TR’s bodywork remained nearly the same as its prototype’s, while steering/driver position moved from right to left. Perfectly scaled for America’s market, the 250 TR quickly impressed potential customers when Scuderia Ferrari TR 250s scored a 1-2 overall victory at Sebring in 1958, driven by Phil Hill/Collins (0704) and Musso/Gendebien (0726). Another factory 250 TR, Hawthorn/von Trips (0728), completed 159 of the 200 laps before gearbox failure, and the Fitch/Hugus private entry of Harry Kullen (0732) sidelined with sour engine on lap 85. And then there was the John von Neumann entrant, with Richie Ginther and Johnnie in that very first customer pontoon 250 TR (0710). Running P-3 in the tenth hour, their drive train broke after 168 laps. At Sebring ‘58, despite the retirements, this new Ferrari sports racer secured an early reputation as winner.

Angled view of the TR 250, Ferrari's race car for privateers. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

The customer car that three decades later would become Tony Wang’s had its initial outing at Havana’s 1958 Grand Premio, where first owner Alfonso Gomez-Mena crashed heavily during February 24th’s Monday practice. The car was subsequently repaired in Italy before its clutch-failure DNF at Le Mans (Gomez-Mena/Piero Drogo) in June of 1958. 0722 then came to the States through Luigi Chinetti ownership, was sold by Luigi to Jim Hunt in Florida, and entered for 1959’s Sebring. With Lloyd "Lucky" Casner and Hunt slated to drive, it did not start the 12-Hours. Sold again, this time to David Lane of Miami, 0722 was driven by Lane to 6th overall and first in class at Daytona’s National in November, then failed to finish Nassau’s Governor’s Cup and Trophy races before Lane sold it to Casner—and once more 0722 went to Cuba. This time it was the 1960 GP, held not on Havana’s famed Malecon, but rather at Cuban dictator Fidel Castro’s nearby military airfield, the old U.S. Camp Columbia, paradoxically renamed "Camp Freedom." Entered there by Camoradi, on Sunday, February 28, Rodger Ward paired with Lane to drive the TR, finishing 12 spots back from Stirling Moss’ winning Birdcage Maser.

Ferrari changed sides with the 250, from the traditional right hand drive to left. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

After Cuba, 0722 traded ownership several more times before Tony Wang bought the car and had Frank Kehr restore it. Painted yellow with black stripe, running its 1958 Le Mans number 17, Tony has vintage raced his TR now for the past decade. Wang, basing the core of his vintage stable in Long Island, New York, keeps 0722 out West for his driving Steve Earle’s Monterey and Wine Country historic events. So, Tony’s TR actually "lives" in Reno, Nevada, at Intrepid Racing, an enterprise formerly belonging to the Wangs’ friend, Lou Sellyei, Jr., and purchased from Lou in 1989 by Bert Skidmore. I asked Bert about Intrepid and of his minding Tony’s TR. "Our customers are arrive-and-drive. We transport the cars, maintain them, provide trackside service." And Tony? Skidmore smiled. "He’s low maintenance. And I’ve been fortunate enough to ride with him on the California Mille with the TR. We split up the driving and enjoyed the car." A good team, working well.

Three liters, 280 hp, perhaps the quintessential Ferrari V-12. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

Sitting with Tony in the awning shade of Intrepid’s big transporter, Wang talked about his Ferrari. "It’s a very neutral handling car, very predictable and fairly easy to drive. I have a good time with it." What, I asked, separates this one from other TRs? "When you look at them they are all a little different. Nine years ago when it was Ferrari year in Monterey we had five or six of them parked in a row, and you look at the noses and every one’s different. Whether they came out of the factory that way, or came out of restoration shops that way, I don’t know." Tony laughed, glancing over at his. Time to drive.

The Webers are almost as impressive as the 250 TR's race history. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

The car gets its go from the front-engine 3-liter Ferrari V-12 fueled through six Weber 38 DCN twin-choke carburetors. With 9:1 compression ratio, 280 horses are there for Tony’s asking at 7000 rpm, but anywhere from 1500 rpm up there’s muscle on tap—not to burn precious vintage engines but not to baby them, either. Says Tony in general about his Testa Rossa, "There aren’t any major design quirks that we had to get around, but every race car needs to be sorted out."

Suspension is pretty basic. Says Skidmore, "It’s unequal length control arms and coil springs on the front, solid axle and coils on the back. Houdaille shocks." Engine? "Single overhead cam, one on the right, one on the left." Spark to 12 plugs comes from two Magneti Marelli distributors. Final drive is 4.27 and the gearbox is 4-speed. Brakes? "Drums all around," Bert informs. "Probably one of the most difficult things on the car is to keep the drums in good shape and keeping everything stopping fairly well." Said Tony of driving Laguna Seca, "It’s fine. The races aren’t long enough for these drums to start fading. But this has enough long straights to still exercise its legs." Mounted on 16-inch Borrani wire wheels, his TR’s tires are Dunlop Racing, 5.50 front, 6.50 rear. The car flat moves.

Wang has been an ardent supporter of vintage racing since the early 1990s. Here he is on the grid with S/N 0722. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

The distinctive and aesthetically rousing "pontoon" fenders of Wang’s early TR were factory-designed to facilitate cooling of its heat-hording drums, but, while doing so, this dramatically scooped-out body treatment created ancillary problems with the car’s otherwise effectual aerodynamics. Hence, by May of 1958, the new 250 TRs were appearing with Scaglietti’s revision—conventional smooth fenders. Dean Batchelor in his Ferrari writings made note of that year’s Targa Florio: "Gendebien and Musso led from start to finish in one of the new TRs, and the older models driven by Hawthorn, and Hill/Collins, were 3rd and 4th." Enough said of form over function, and visa versa.

0722 on the hill at Laguna. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

But what is beauty if not to compromise, at least in some degree, order and task? Stand back from Tony Wang’s 250 TR and you see sculpture, hear jazz. And when this yellow and black Ferrari number 17 goes by and Tony is on it, and shifting up just right to crown the hill with the sun glinting off the car’s attractive tail, you want to go with it, be it. Just like a note from Bird’s alto sax, way up high, almost over the top.

The TR's cutaway fenders proved inefficient but beautiful. Courtesy Edgar Motorsport Archive.

William Edgar co-authored the Dean Batchelor Award-winning American Sports Car Racing in the 1950s with Michael T. Lynch and Ron Parravano. The website for Edgar’s period racing images and writings is online at:
http://www.edgar-motorsport.com