{"id":498204,"date":"2019-05-21T21:24:01","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T04:24:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sportscardigest.com\/\/?p=79553"},"modified":"2025-01-06T00:47:30","modified_gmt":"2025-01-06T00:47:30","slug":"behras-hybrid-1959-behra-porsche-f2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.supercars.net\/blog\/behras-hybrid-1959-behra-porsche-f2\/","title":{"rendered":"Behra\u2019s Hybrid\u20141959 Behra-Porsche F2"},"content":{"rendered":"

For the burgeoning Formula Two category for 1\u00bd-liter cars, French star driver Jean Behra based a new racing car of his own on Porsche components. In 1959, it showed its class by beating the factory Porsches in the year\u2019s biggest F2 race.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Built in Modena, Italy, in 1959, for French racing champion Jean Behra, the Behra-Porsche was a handsomer and, in its time, more successful car than Porsche\u2019s own first open-wheeled effort. \u201cI like Porsches very much, above all because I had such great successes with them last year,\u201d said Behra, explaining why Ferrari\u2019s number one team driver would take the trouble to build his own car. \u201cI\u2019d like to try out a few things I\u2019ve thought up on the basis of my racing experience in recent years. This project with the Formula Two car is tremendous fun for me!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Jean Behra, left, and Valerio Colotti enjoyed a laugh in Modena, Italy. That was Colotti\u2019s base during engineering stints with Ferrari, first, and later Maserati.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

At a time when Formula One cars used 2\u00bd-liter engines, Formula Two was nicely placed at 1\u00bd liters. Introduced in 1957, it quickly picked up speed thanks to the wide availability of suitable power plants from the likes of Coventry Climax, Alfa Romeo, Borgward and indeed Porsche. Interest picked up as well when it became known that in 1961 the mandated engine size for Formula One would be 1\u00bd liters.<\/p>\n

The basis of Behra\u2019s Formula Two car was a set of 718 RSK components obtained on very favorable terms from Ferry Porsche. The RSK was advanced enough in its suspension, especially at the rear, to be suitable in this role. This is the most credible account, although some reports credit the use of a complete RSK, 718-016, as the basis for the Behra-Porsche. However, recent restoration of the car suggests that this was not the case. Mysteriously its chassis plate is that of a 550.<\/p>\n

Behra took his RSK parts to Valerio Colotti, a young engineer who had left Maserati to set up his own design office, in Modena, at the end of 1958. This was the Studio Tecnica Meccanica, known as Tec-Mec for short. One of its first projects was the Tec-Mec Formula 1 car, which is more successful in vintage racing that it was in its heyday. Colotti was perhaps best known as a maker of racing transaxles.<\/p>\n

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Colotti’s Maserati-powered Tec-Mec Formula One car. Photo: Roger Dixon<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Following Behra\u2019s suggestions, Colotti prepared drawings of a new frame to unite the Porsche running gear and a body to clothe the result, which its initiator named the Behra-Porsche. Although a tubular lattice design like the RSK\u2019s, the new frame was a unique Colotti creation.<\/p>\n

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In 1958 Colotti established his own design company, Studio Tecnica Meccanica, known as Tec-Mec. He created this bespoke tubular space frame for Behra\u2019s racer.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Inevitably the Colotti design had some attributes in common with the Porsche works single-seater, especially the tubular structure of the front bay, between the suspension and the dash. The RSK\u2019s 82.6-inch wheelbase was kept. The front torsion bars and their carrying tubes were shortened by about five inches to reduce the front track to 46.9 inches.<\/p>\n

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Viewed from the front, Colotti\u2019s steel space frame accommodated Porsche Type 718 sports-car components in its trailing-arm torsion-bar front suspension and steering.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n


\nAt the rear, the Behra-Porsche\u2019s track was reduced by two inches to 47.6 inches. Rear suspension remained the original RSK design, with low-pivot swing axles located by Watt linkages. Although these were heavier, bulkier and harder to adapt to an open-wheeled auto than the semi-trailing wishbones at the rear of the single-seater that Porsche was building, Colotti made a good fist of it. In fact, he put the coil\/damper mounting platforms outside the frame instead of inside so that the main tubular structure could be narrower for strength and better body lines.<\/p>\n

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Porsche\u2019s Type 547\/3 four-cam 1\u00bd-liter engine, giving at best 155 bhp, was tightly tucked into the rear of Behra\u2019s special. Gearbox was five-speed versus Porsche\u2019s six.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Valerio Colotti and \u201cJeannot\u201d Behra gave their improvisation the look of a thoroughbred with an oil-cooler inlet in its pointed nose, a distinctive sharp peak line ahead of the windscreen, shapely bulges above its carburettors and screened air inlets in the tail. Its shell was hammered out of aluminum by one of Modena\u2019s many artisans while an ex-Maserati mechanic rebuilt the chassis. The workshop of another former Maserati man, Giorgio Neri, was the site of the car\u2019s final assembly, supported by Behra\u2019s personal mechanic Auguste Stocklin.<\/p>\n

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Behra\u2019s aim was to have the car ready for a Formula Two race at Pau on May 18, 1959. However, the project was coming along well enough, Behra decided, to enter it for the Monaco GP eight days earlier. This was for Formula One cars but F2 entries were allowed to take part. However, they had to qualify among the 16th\u00a0<\/sup>fastest cars, this being the maximum number of cars that were then allowed to compete on the twisty two-mile circuit.<\/p>\n

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Photo: Peter Harholdt<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There was no time to paint the Behra-Porsche before the race in Monte Carlo. It missed Thursday practice and arrived on Friday to be driven by Behra\u2019s choice, Maria-Teresa de Filippis, a relative newcomer to Grand Prix racing although with experience of the Monaco circuit from a qualifying attempt the year before. Getting under 1:45 was the bogey, but at first she could not improve on 1:49. A handicap was the RSK gearbox, with only four synchronized ratios and \u201ccrash\u201d engagement of low gear, which was needed on the tightest corners.<\/p>\n

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Maria-Teresa de Filippis attempted to qualify the Behra-Porsche at Monaco, in 1959.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Finally, Maria-Teresa reduced her time to 1:47.8, which did not threaten the man on the bubble\u2019s 1:44.8. It was her last attempt at Grand Prix qualification. Behra, who was in the front row and fastest Ferrari qualifier for the race, offered his F2 car\u2019s cockpit to Porsche\u2019s hill-climb star Edgar Barth, but as a newcomer to the circuit he was unable to better the best time of de Filippis. The Behra-Porsche sat out the race while her owner retired his Ferrari at quarter-distance.<\/p>\n

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Pau, on May 18, was destined to be one of only two races in which the great French driver personally piloted his Behra-Porsche. \u201cMuch to Behra\u2019s continual regret,\u201d wrote Denis Jenkinson, \u201cEnzo Ferrari would not give him permission to drive the Porsche in Formula Two races. While he could not stop Behra running the car and lending it to people, the whole project was not received with enthusiasm at Maranello.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Behra tries his new creation on for size.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

With his own Formula Two car having been wrecked at Monaco a week earlier, along with the first works Porsche single-seater, Enzo Ferrari granted Behra permission to race his special on Pau\u2019s twisty street circuit. Only a tenth of a second in arrears of the fastest practice time, he put it in the middle of the front row for the start. On the fourth lap he took the lead, only to spin and bend a wheel on the wet track. Behra spent a frantic five minutes in his pit searching for a replacement, then set the race\u2019s fastest lap while pressing hard\u2014too hard\u2014to get back in the running. He spun and bent two more rims but kept going to place fifth in spite of the delays.<\/p>\n

The Pau performance proved that with a world-class driver at its wheel the Behra-Porsche was one seriously fast Formula Two car. The best outing enjoyed by the rakish-looking French-blue car was in the biggest F2 race of the year at Reims on July 5, 1959. Staged after the French GP, 23 cars started a contest that was seen as a preview of the Grand Prix competition coming when the 1\u00bd-liter Grand Prix Formula took effect in 1961. The Behra-Porsche was driven by Germany\u2019s Hans Herrmann, to whom Behra said, \u201cYou drive it, Hans. You\u2019ll get more out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hans Hermann at the wheel of the Behra-Porsche, at Reims, in 1959.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

His was not the decisive voice, however, for Porsche\u2019s Huschke von Hanstein also had a say in the selection. This could well have been the result of a likely deal between Behra and Porsche to cover the cost of a fresh drive train for the demanding and important French race.<\/p>\n

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Hans Hermann in the Behra at Reims, 1959.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Huschke had lined up Briton Colin Davis when Herrmann \u2014 a notorious oversleeper \u2014 was delayed in getting to practice. Whoever was fastest in training, Huschke said, would race the car. The canny Herrmann arranged for a friend to time the laps and stand in advance of the pits, where he was to lift the front of his red sweater if Hans were the faster. \u201cThen when I roared by after a few laps,\u201d said Hans, \u201che had taken it off completely and was waving it in the air!\u201d<\/p>\n

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Hermann leads Moss during the 1959 Reims F2 race.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Herrmann gave the car one hell of a ride. He set practice times faster than the works single-seater Porsches. In broiling heat he fought hard for the lead in the race with Stirling Moss\u2019s Cooper-Borgward. \u201cOn lap four,\u201d wrote Denis Jenkinson, \u201cHerrmann and Moss were side by side, where they stayed for the next eight laps in a typical Reims circuit dice, Moss being quicker round the back part of the circuit but the Porsche gaining on maximum speed and braking, in spite of its old-fashioned drum brakes. On this very fast circuit its performance was a tribute to the aerodynamic ideas of Colotti and Behra.<\/p>\n

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\u201cThe battle for the lead finished when Herrmann took the escape road at Thillois,\u201d added Jenkinson, \u201cwhich left Moss unchallenged in first place.\u201d A front brake had finally seized and thrown Hans into a skid. The Behra-Porsche finished 12.6 seconds behind in the 129-mile race and almost a minute ahead of Jo Bonnier in the Porsche factory\u2019s F2 car.<\/p>\n