Chris Amon, a name familiar to long-time Queensland motor sport
enthusiasts has been reunited with the car that kickstarted a career
which took him all the way to the Ferrari Formula One team.By Barry Green
Recently, the New Zealand motorsport legend got behind the wheel of the very same Maserati 250F for the first time in nearly five decades. “It felt very special – the more I drove it, the better it got and the more the memories came flooding back,” Amon said after the drive at Manfield Park.
Amon, who won the 1969 Australian Grand Prix at Lakeside, outside Brisbane, showed why the 250F has been called the best Grand Prix machine of all time, with a spirited run that had a near-capacity crowd on their feet and clapping.
The 250F is a special machine – just 26 were built and it had a remarkable success in the 1950s – and this particular car enjoys a singular status in New Zealand motorsport history.
It was only the second racing car raced by Amon and he was just 17 years old when he won at Levin and was placed 11th in the 1962 New Zealand Grand Prix.
The Maserati also provided the springboard for his international career. British team owner Reg Parnell saw him drifting it at Wigram and told the teen later he’d never seen a 250F driven like that since the great Juan Manual Fangio retired.
The car’s return was thanks to the Southward Car Museum, which has owned the 250F since 1967 and over the past year has refurbished it from a static display to one that is fully able to relive its glory days.
