ATS Tipo 100 History

Construction of the Tipo 100 Formula One car began in mid-1962 in a farmhouse near Bologna — legend holds that a wall had to be demolished to extract the finished chassis. Carlo Chiti designed a spaceframe chassis with an underslung Colotti 6-speed transaxle, inboard rear disc brakes, and a new 1.5-litre fuel-injected DOHC V8 that claimed approximately 190 horsepower, in line with the contemporary 1.5-litre F1 formula.

The team entered the 1963 Formula One World Championship with reigning World Champion Phil Hill and Italian driver Giancarlo Baghetti. The debut at Spa-Francorchamps ended in retirement for both cars with gearbox failures; the season was a catalogue of reliability disasters — cooling failures, broken axles, and oil-circulation problems. The sole classified finish came at the 1963 Italian Grand Prix at Monza, where Hill crossed the line eleventh and Baghetti fifteenth — the only occasion ATS cars were officially classified as finishers.

Financial overextension forced ATS to close before the season was fully complete. The remaining assets were acquired by Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata, whose Scuderia Serenissima continued a brief, largely uncompetitive campaign; a modified version known as the Derrington-Francis ATS appeared once in 1964 before the project disappeared entirely.