After the fatal crash and the death of Lucky Casner at Le Mans in April 1965, John Simone – the French Maserati importer – ordered this Tipo 65 by Maserati.

Ing. Giulio Alfieri constructed it with the identical 5 liter V8 used in the Tipo 151 and the car was numbered s/n151.002. Maserati finished this project in 35 days only and so it wasn’t well prepared for Le Mans 1965.

Nevertheless it took part in the race driven by Jochen Neerpasch and Jo Siffert. Neither Siffert nor Neerpasch wanted to drive the first turn in horror of the bad handling. And so they threw a coin – Siffert lost !

After three rounds he came off the track and into the sand destroying the radiator. The race and the short career was over ! 

John Simone died 1967 in a road accident while driving to Modena.