1952 OSCA 20

By the late 1940s, most of Europe was in the midst of rebuilding lives, cities and industry. But, by 1947, the final destruction of Maserati had come sweeping through. The story had been one filled with great promise, death, unfortunate events and the eventual loss of identity.

The brothers from Bologna had shown great engineering promise and ingenuity. Unfortunately, the death of Alfieri set the fledgling automotive manufacturer on a pathway of struggle and strife. On the verge of collapse, Maserati was kept on life-support by Adolfo Orsi for a period of ten years. In an effort to keep the manufacturer going the brothers had to sell the most important item in the business—their name.

In 1947, the deal was done, the contract over and the name taken. Maserati continued to exist, but without the brothers from which the name was derived. This left Ernesto, Ettore and Bindo without a name, but not without vision for the future.

The first car the brothers and their new company would produce would be the MT4. The Maserati Tipo 4 cilindri would race for the first time in 1948. The brothers would find a pretty good driver to give the car its first real test. They would end up hiring Luigi Villoresi to drive the new car in two races in 1948. He would drive the MT4 at the Pescara Circuit and the Grand Prix of Naples.

Most of the cars OSCA would produce would be sportscars that would take part in such races as the Mille Miglia and other endurance events. But then, going into the 1952 season, the brothers would be lured back into grand prix racing.

At the end of the 1951 season, Alfa Romeo had left not only Formula One racing, but all forms of grand prix racing. This left the new Formula One World Championship with a problem. Coincidentally, it would be the same problem the Maserati brothers had faced which forced them to sell their company to Orsi.

The absence of Alfa Romeo for the 1952 season left the Formula One World Championship without a suitable competitor for Ferrari. In addition, the costs of Formula One racing were threatening to destroy the World Championship. While the Maserati brothers didn't have the funds to create a new and competitive car to keep their name afloat on its own, the governing-body for the World Championship did have some options. The option they would choose would open the door to the Maserati name returning to major grand prix racing, even if it wasn't technically Maserati.

The lack of competition was, for all intents and purposes, a direct result of the rising costs of Formula One racing. At the time, Europe was still rebuilding from World War II. Resources were becoming more available, but many industries and individuals found themselves stretched thin. Formula One, at that time; therefore, threatened the existence of the World Championship. Many teams, like BRM, were becoming national efforts merely because that is what it cost. And, like BRM, there was little guarantee on investment. This was driving manufacturers, teams and individuals away. Something had to be done.

New regulations were needed. But the governing-body and race organizers needed time. They needed a stop-gap measure. Formula 2 was the logical step to take. The costs were less because of the more-stringent regulations and because it already existed. It also enabled cars that didn't exist to be built at a cheaper cost than that which were associated with new builds for Formula One. This opened the door to the Ettore, Ernesto and Bindo.

One of the last designs the brothers had a hand in before leaving their namesake was the 4CLT/48. The car would be one of the more successful grand prix cars and would even continue to live on into the 1952 season as the team Enrico Plate would take the car and evolve it to make it comply for Formula 2 regulations so to take part in non-championship and championship grand prix races. Therefore, it was obvious the brothers could make a competitive grand prix car. The question, almost like always, was whether or not they had the capital to make it happen.

The company had already made its presence known in the World Championship with its OSCA 4500 Tipo G back in 1951. However, blinded by their ability, the brothers had sunk a good deal of their capital in the car when it would end up being banned from the World Championship as of 1952. The new company would need a design that would provide them with time and competitive results. With the decision to run the World Championship according to Formula 2 regulations for the next two years, OSCA had time to produce a competitive car that would help them build. But it would have its challenges and risks. Despite the obvious challenges and investment of resources it would take to design a Formula 2 car, the work would go on. What would be produced would become known as the '20'.

The design for the '20' would start with the 4500 Tipo G. The overall shape of the car would bare great similarity, but with some minor differences. The main difference in the overall design of the 20 from the 4500 would have to do with the nose of the car.

The 4500 Tipo G had a 4.5-liter V12 engine powering its chassis. Due to the Formula 2 regulations being used in 1952, the area needed to house the 20's engine would be obviously smaller. A maximum of 2.0-liters was allowed in Formula 2. Therefore, the engine in the 20 would be much smaller in size. The car would use a longitudinal 6-cylinder engine instead of the V12 used to power the 4500. The smaller engine; therefore, enabled the brothers to design a car with a lower-profile nose although it would still sport a large oval-shaped grille covering the radiator and oil cooler. The smaller 6-cylinder engine would have the added effect of shortening the wheelbase and overall length of the car.

In an effort to help the stability of the car, the design of the car widens as it travels aft. While the nose was designed with an oval shape, the tubular ladder frame chassis changes and becomes more tear-drop in its shape. This helped to widen the car. And since the wider portion is the lower part of the chassis, the center of gravity is lowered. This widening and lower center of gravity was further aided by the addition of fuel tanks attached to the lower portions of the sides of the car. The weight of the fuel would help to stabilize the car.

While the radiator and the oil cooler received all-important cooler air to helped reduce the temperatures of the oil and the engine internally, care needed to be taken to remove the heat that built up around the engine during operation. This, like many other cars throughout history, would be accomplished through the use of louvers. These louvers would use the air passing over the top to create a vacuum and literally pull the hotter air out from under the engine cowling.

The exhausts for the 6-cylinder engine exited the car down low on the left side of the car. This allowed the exhaust pipes to run down almost underneath the car. This meant the exhausts avoided being run right by the driver's cockpit.

Air induction was also positioned along the side of the car, but along the right side. Air fed through an aerodynamic air scoop and into the carburetors. The fuel-air mixture channeled in from the carburetors enabled the engine to produce enough power to push the car up to speeds in excess of 150 mph.

Handling and suspension for a car capable of reaching such speeds was of great importance. For their '20', a similar arrangement to that of the 4500 was used. The front suspension utilized a solid upper arm and a wishbone designed lower arm. Cushioning would come as the result of telescoping dampers. The front suspension also made use of anti-roll bars to offer greater stability while cornering.

The braking power for the car came courtesy of drum brakes. Each of the brake housings would include screened inlets to provide cooling air into the housing in order to help keep the brakes cool. To aid in cooling, fins were machined directly into the brake housings. These fins allowed the hotter air inside the brake housing to be absorbed by the cooler air passing between them.

Despite the one-piece windscreen, the driver sat up inside the car rather exposed. Flanked by small mirrors to either side of the large wood-trimmed steering wheel, the driver's cockpit remained relatively sparse and unfinished. While Ferrari would finish the inside of the many of their car's interior with leather, only a leather seat awaited the driver of the OSCA 20.

And in 1952, one of the first drivers of the OSCA 20 would be Elie Bayol. Bayol had participated in rounds of the French Formula 2 Championship with an MT4, but would put in an order for a 20. Bayol would use the car for the rest of the season, but would have to wait until August before taking delivery of the car.

The late delivery of the car meant Bayol had missed using the new car in his home World Championship event, the French Grand Prix. But it wouldn't totally miss out on the World Championship.

Once taking delivery of the car, Bayol would promptly take the car and take part in the seventh round of the French Formula 2 Championship, which was the 16th Grand Prix de Comminges.

Straight-away, the car showed impressive speed as Bayol would manage to start the race from 6th place on the grid. During the race, Bayol was continuing to impress but a pit infraction would lead to him being disqualified in the results.

At the car's next race, Bayol would take the chassis and start the Grand Prix de la Baule from 7th and would finish the race in the same position. The car's ability was surely proving itself. While it wasn't able to keep up with the Ferrari 500, Gordinis or HWMs it was still showing itself capable of earning good positions on the starting grid and in the race results.

All indications were the OSCA 20 would have a decent first World Championship experience. Elie Bayol would take the car to the Italian Grand Prix. While the entire HWM team wouldn't have a single car qualify for the race, Bayol would take the OSCA and would start the race 10th. While appearing to be promising, the race would end up rather embarrassing.

About the time the green flag waved to start the race, the gearbox on the OSCA came apart. Bayol's race was over before having completed a single lap. This was a truly embarrassing moment for OSCA, but it would not be the end of the World Championship hopes for OSCA and its 20 chassis.

In 1953, Elie Bayol and Louis Chiron would both drive an OSCA 20. In the two rounds of the World Championship in which Elie Bayol would drive an OSCA 20, the French and Italian Grand Prix, he would retire due to failures. Chiron would experience different results.

Chiron would also take part in the French and Italian Grand Prix. However, he would manage a 15th place result in the French Grand Prix and a 10th place result in the Italian Grand Prix.

While Chiron's results were better than Bayol's, it would still spell the end of the 20 and OSCA in the World Championship. After the 1953 season, the new Formula One regulations would be imposed, which made the 20 chassis non-compliant. In addition, the rather poor results would lead the Maserati brothers to switch their focus. From 1954 onwards, OSCA would focus, almost exclusively, on sportscar racing.

In spite of the odds, and their history, Ernesto, Ettore and Bindo Maserati were able to create a new racing car manufacturer after losing their name at the end of the 1940s. They would manage to experience a number of successes. However, all of the successes would come from sportscar racing. The costs and the regulations and practically chased the brothers out of the form of racing from which they had become perhaps most recognizable. They would try their best to rediscover the past via the future. The company's 20 chassis was to be the car that could reach into the past to forge a bright new future in grand prix racing. While it showed promise, the limited resources the Maserati brothers had at their disposal made it almost impossible. As they had all throughout their history, the Maserati brothers would appear on the grand prix scene, show some promise, but ultimately would fade into mere memory. Fittingly, the OSCA 20 lives on only in memory and is an almost forgotten about page in OSCA's history.

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By Jeremy McMullen