This 1936 Maserati 6CM Factory Works Could Fetch More Than $1 Million

There’s no arguing that the most relevant Italian automaker in racing today is Ferrari. After all, the Prancing Horse marque has the winningest team in Formula 1 history and has finished first overall at the 24 Hours of Le Mans since 2023. Yet three years before Enzo joined the competitive fray under his own surname, the Maserati brothers banded together to enter their Tipo 26 in the 1926 Targa Florio endurance test. Then, in 1929, the 16-cylinder Maserati V4 set a speed record for the day, reaching nearly 153 mph with Mario Umberto Borzacchini in the driver’s seat. Equally fast was the speed at which Maserati was making a name for itself in motorsport.

An early lynchpin to that legacy was the Maserati 6CM, which was built from 1936 through 1939 and intended to dominate what was known as the “Voiturette” class of diminutive race cars. One such 6CM, campaigned extensively both before and after World War II, will be offered through Broad Arrow’s inaugural Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este Auction on May 25.

“This particular car, the very first of approximately 33 examples built, was commissioned for Maserati chairman Gino Rovere and entrusted to the legendary Count Carlo Felice Trossi for the 1936 racing season—yielding impressive results,” says Yves Boitel, car specialist at Broad Arrow Auctions. “Also, its later palmarès reads like a who’s who of prewar motor racing, with no fewer than 50 documented entries stretching up to 1949.”

The car on offer, chassis No. 1531, is one of the 11 chassis kept by Maserati to be factory works racers, and it was piloted by Rovere himself at its debut contest—the Coupe de Prince Ranier in Monaco—where it failed to finish. Subsequently, Count Trossi fared better behind the wheel, garnering a win at the Nürburgring Internationales Eifelrennen a couple of months later, followed by a second-place result at the Coppa Acerbo.

According to a report from Germany-based Maserati expert Walter Bäumer, chassis No. 1531 then came under the ownership of Pietro Dusio of Turin in 1937, where, with Dusio’s Squadro Torino team, the car took an outright win at Circuito di Milano.

Two years after that benchmark performance, while under the stewardship of another Turin resident, Andrea Brezzi, the vehicle had its original 175 hp, 1,493 cc six-cylinder engine—bolstered by a Weber carburetor and a Roots-type supercharger—swapped out for a 1,496 cc supercharged inline-four engine. The change in power plant gave it more competitive punch, and it finished eighth at both the Gran Premio di Tripoli and Targa Florio in 1940.  

By 1947, the intrepid single-seater was owned by Lucy O’Reilly Schell, a pioneer in women’s racing as a driver and team owner. She, along with her son Harry Schell, who went on to make a name for himself in Formula 1, campaigned the car throughout Europe, often loaning it to other notable drivers of the era. From 1949 through the present, chassis No. 1531 has changed hands at least 11 times. In the last 25 years or so, the car has been a regular at numerous classic-car races, and after a thorough restoration in 2017, took second at the 2022 Grand Prix Historique de Monaco.

Interestingly, this car’s sibling, chassis No. 1532, was on the auction block through RM Sotheby’s in 2023, fetching $720,000. As for the first-of-its-kind example available at the end of this month, it carries an estimated value that ranges between $951,000 and $1.063 million.

“What makes No. 1531 truly exceptional, however, is the combination of its extensive racing history and remarkable originality,” Boitel tells Robb Report. “In the world of historic race cars, collectors often must choose between provenance and preservation—rarely does one find both in equal measure. Yet, No. 1531 defies this norm: it boasts a rich competition pedigree without ever having suffered a major accident, remaining impressively intact to this day.”

Click here for more photos of this 1936 Maserati 6CM Factory Works race car.