The Maserati 8CTF is an open-wheel Grand Prix motor racing car designed, developed, and built by Italian manufacturer Maserati from 1938 to 1939. To date, it remains the only Italian-made car to win the Indianapolis 500 (excluding Dallara, which only supplies the chassis to the teams, not the engines).[1]
Racing and competitive history
The model was created after Adolfo Orsi took over Maserati, thus solving the economic problems that the manufacturer had. Ernesto Maserati was no longer so constrained by budgetary issues in the design of his models, and conceived a supercharged 3-liter where, for this type of fuel, he had accumulated good experience. The abbreviation "8CTF" means:[2]
Its main feature was an independent power supply for each series of four cylinders. It therefore fitted two Roots-type compressors. After subsequent improvements, in 1939, the engine came to deliver 366 hp. Another peculiarity that the 8CTF possessed was that the oil tank also acted as a central cross member of the frame.[3]