A Targa Winner

The Targa Florio was indeed one of the truly great open road races. In this running on May 8, 1960 it was done on total elapsed time over 10 laps of the 72 km Piccolo Madonie circuit in Sicily. The length of the circuit made it very difficult to learn and experienced rally drivers were often very effective, as were those pilots with extensive local knowledge. The main challengers for the overall win were from Ferrari and Porsche, with a possible outside chance to the Lucky Casner Camoradi team’s Maserati T61. Ferrari had entered a pair of their latest Dino 246S spyders plus two V-12 250TR/60s and a smaller Dino 196S from the North American Racing Team while Porsche had brought no less than three of their type 718 RS60 spyders.

Here at the starting line, waiting for the starter’s signal which was given to cars one by one every 15 seconds, is a factory Porsche RS60 with Joakim Bonnier at the wheel. He will have Hans Hermann as his co-driver. They would be simply invincible in the race, although not without serious competition from the Camoradi T61, until felled by a hole in its fuel tank from a stone thrown up from the road. The Bonnier/Hermann team then won by just over six minutes with the Ferrari Dino 246S of Wolfgang von Trips and Phil Hill being second. Although von Trips had set the fastest race lap, it was still 13 seconds slower than what Bonnier had put up in practice.

Third and fifth were the other Porsche RS60s with the second Ferrari Dino 246S in fourth position. Interestingly, the Dino 196S of the Rodriguez brothers finished seventh, albeit in a somewhat modified state as shown below. The Targa did not reward off-road excursions without exacting a significant price!

The two Ferrari 250TRs had unfortunate ends. One was crashed in practice when a tire failed and the other was also an accident victim at mid-race distance.

Photos by Edward Eves and Peter Coltrin ©The Klemantaski Collection

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