The team drivers found it was far from 'user-friendly'; though shatteringly quick in a straight(ish) line its brakes were inadequate, its cornering stomach-churning and its lap times inferior to its sister 300Ss'. It seems that this prototype was then scrapped, while back home in Modena Maserati began construction of four redesigned and stiffer new chassis to carry the revised rear suspension and greatly improved drum brakes of such diameter they had to be offset inboard from the road wheels to avoid fouling the inside rim ledge. It seems that alternative disc brakes were evaluated but discarded in view of the car's great speed and great weight. Maserati had no experience of disc brakes and were wary of the unknown... drums they understood, and their befinned, well-cooled drum brakes were probably the best in the world.

The first Tipo 54 chassis '4501' emerged initially with a 4.2-litre V8 installed, while '4502' was sold to Parravano as a full 4.5 in October 1956. His purchase-package also included 4.2-litre V8 engines '4201' and '4202' for the Indy project, but it would be stillborn. The third Tipo 54 chassis then became the works' first 450S, carrying a full 4.5-litre engine under the serial '4503'. It was joined by a sister '4505' and Maserati felt confident they possessed the weaponry necessary to dominate the new year's World Sports Car Championship.

As the series opened in Argentina on January 20, 1957, Fangio and Moss led imperiously in the Buenos Aires 1,000km, only to retire after early clutch failure, followed by a minor crash and final transmissiom breakage. Even so, the 450S had immediately proved itself to be in an uncatchable class of its own.

The Sebring 12-Hours was run in Florida on March 23. There Moss shared the back-up 300S with Schell, finishing second, but Fangio/Behra led throughout, and their 450S won at record speed.

For the Mille Miglia, the 1995 race-winning partnership of Moss/Denis Jenkinson used a 450S; clearly the most prodigious performer in the entire field. Maserati felt confident that here at last they could win their country's great classic race, but Behra smashed his 450S - '4503' in a road accident a few days before, then barely seven miles from the start on May 11, Moss had '4505's brake pedal shear off at its root - this shattering banal failure ending the 450S challenge before it had really begun.

That month saw the first customer 450S - '4504' - supplied to American Jim Kimberley, while in the Nürburgring 1,000km on the 26th, both factory 450Ss again seemed jinxed, despite demonstrating all their immense acceleration and speed. Moss's ex-MM '4505' this time lost its right-rear wheel, he and Fangio then switched to the sister '4503' originally assigned to Schell/Hans Herrmann . . . only for its tank mounts to break.

June 22-23 - Le Mans - Maserati fielded '4505' for Behra/André Simon plus a wicked-looking Coupé on chassis '4501' for Moss/Schell. This car should have carried an aerodynamic, closed bodyshell designed by Frank Costin, but Zagato had rushed the work at the last moment, much of Frank's design had been bastardised and the result was an impossibly claustrophobic, badly ventilated, noisome beast which Moss recalls as "the second-worst car I ever drove" (the V16 BRM having previously won the premier prize in perpetuity).

Behra's open car led Le Mans, until a rear UJ seized soon after Simon had taken over. The awful Coupé suffered similarly after Moss had uncomfortably held second place.

That month also saw '4506' despatched to American entrant John Edgar, and then by the time of the Swedish GP at Kristianstad on August 11 '4507' joined the factory team. The Swedish race regulations allowed limitless driver swopping, so Maserati planned to use only its three best drivers - Fangio/Moss/Behra - for '4503' and '4507', the former car winning while '4507' lost second-place when its trasmission seized.

The outcome of the 1957 World Sports Car Championship then depended on the final Venezuelan 1,000km in Caracas on November 3. Two works 450S cars - '03' nad '07' - were supported there by a special 4.7-litre customer car '4508' freshly-delivered to American entrant Temple Buell. Moss/Behra/Schell were to handle the works cars, Masten Gregory/Dale Duncan would drive Buell's. Maserati ran a 300S for Jo Bonnier as insurance but the race became a famous Maserati disaster . . .

On only the second lap, Gregory flipped Buell's car. Moss led until lap 33 when a slow back marker wandered into his path, demolishing '4503's front end. Its sister '4507', then ignited during a pit stop, burning Behra, after which Moss and Schell took over in an attempt to fight back against Ferrari. Incredibly, Bonnier's 300S then lost a front wheel just as it was being overtaken by Schell in the already charred 450S. Both cars crashed heavily; Schell's big V8 burning out while Bonnier's 300S demolished itself against a streetlamp.

So four front-line Maseratis had started this Championship deciding race, and all had crashed - leaving the World title to Ferrari.

The loss of the three factory cars was a final straw for Maserati finances. The 450S programme alone is said to have cost $400,000. Caracas now coincided with other desperately hard times for the company, and the Orsi family was forced to withdraw Maserati's factory team from racing threrafter.

The factory concentrated upon supplying money-earning cars and parts to wealthy customers; mainly of course American. Two final 450Ss were despatched, '4509' for Eb Rose of Houston, Texas, and '4510' for J Frank Harrison of Chattanooga, Tennessee. A number of enlarged 450S-series V8 engines, taken out to 5.7 and even 6.6-litres, were also supplied respectively for US sports car and power-boat racing.

In America the 450Ss with 4.5 or the enlarged 5.7-litre engines were raced by Carroll Shelby, Jim Hall, Masten Gregory, Walt Cline and Eb Rose, but as the original Maserati engines - which had proved totally reliable in 1957 Championship racing - were consumed, so replacement Chevy V8s and GM gearboxes became popular as the cars shuffled into obscurity and obsolescence. J Frank Harrison's car, '4510', apparently totalled its original V8 engine early in its career and was fitted instead with spare engine '4514' and a Chevy gearbox. The car was acquired by Colin Crabbe in England in 1971. It then passed to the Hon John Fellowes as a stable mate to his '4509', and he had it restored close to original condition with Maserati transaxle while also fitting front disc brakes. From him the car returned to America, from where it was sold recently at the Monaco auction, for £1.1-million . . .

Looking back on Maserati's biggest works car, thirty years later, Stirling Moss told me bluntly how it was: "Really a case of brute force and ignorance, lacking any of the delicacy essential in most road races . . .".

Experience it and one can understand how the works mechanics simply burst into tears when they heard Moss and Jenks limping their brakeless '450S' back to the Brescia garage just minutes after setting off into the '57 Mille Miglia. And their elation at the great win at Sebring, and mortification after the bonfires at Caracas. This great beast encapsulates all the spirit and majesty and disappointed failure that made Maserati the great marque it was. Crude? Maybe. Impressive? Ceratainly. There are not very many racing cars of which we can say 'When it didn't break it won' - but take it from me, the 450S is certainly one of them.