Maserati 200SI

Manufacturer	Maserati
Class	Race car
Production	from 1957 to 1959

The Maserati 200SI was a race sports car developed by Maserati in 1957 .

History 

The Maserati 200SI was the race version of the Maserati 200S introduced in 1958. Sport International was the short form of the type designation SI. New technical standards for international sports car races were implemented in 1957, and they were used in this year's events of the sports car world championship. The 200S was a sports automobile with a 2-liter in-line 4-cylinder engine. The new laws required closer approach to traffic once again, and racing cars had to be utilised as road vehicles with only a few exceptions.New chassis were built for the 200SI; The production was done by Gilco Design . The Spyder bodies were all from Fantuzzi .

Dangers became the 200SI of both the Maserati factory team and private teams. Giorgio Scarlatti was in April 1957 behind Olivier Gendebien in the Ferrari 250 GT and teammate Piero Taruffi in 300S , third in the Giro di Sicilia . The first victory for this Maserati model came two weeks later in the US , where Jim Kimberly won a national sports car race. The first success in Europe was celebrated by Franco Bordoni-Bisleri in June 1957 at the Grand Prix des Frontières .

Although some races were won with the 200SI, including Nino Vaccarella won the Pergusa Grand Prix in 1959 and Willy Daetwyler in the overall 1957 European Championship , the 200SI is one of the more moderately successful cars from Maserati. Above all, there was a lack of countable successes in the major sports car races, such as the Targa Florio , the 12 Hours of Sebring the 24 Hours of Le Mans , or the 1000 km race at the Nürburgring .