1953 Ferrari 500 Swaters

This yellow Ferrari 500 was raced by Belgian Jacques Swaters for his Ecurie Francorchamps in the 1953 AVUS-Rennen and German Grand Prix. Swaters won at AVUS, round of West German Formula 2 Championship, and was 7^th in the German Grand prix few weeks later. The Belgian started his racing career in 1948 when he bought a pre-war MG with his best friend Charles de Tornaco. The car was entered in the Spa 24 Hours for Swaters and Paul Frere. They finished fourth in class, and this experience motivated  Swaters to establish a team called Ecurie Belgique and ran assorted pre-war cars for an ever-widening group of Belgian friends, including Roger Laurent and Andre Pilette. In 1950 the team had enough cash to buy a Talbot-Lago Grand Prix car. Swaters himself drives the yellow Talbot-Lago T26C on various occasions, including the two rounds of the World Championship, the 1951 German Grand Prix and 1951 Italian Grand Prix. At that point the Royal Automobile Club de Belgique decided that the name of the team was not acceptable and so it was renamed as Ecurie Francorchamps.  Pilette crashed the Talbot at the Dutch Grand Prix in 1951 and so Swaters purchased a Formula 2 Ferrari 500 from Gianni Agnelli, thus beginning a relationship with Ferrari which would continue for more than 50 years. In 1953 Ferrari asked Swaters to be their representative at the Brussels Salon and then he became the Ferrari distributor for the Benelux area. Swaters then concentrated on sports cars, taking the team’s D-Type to third place at Le Mans with Johnny Claes in 1955. That same year Swaters and Johnny Claes from Ecurie Belgique  set up Ecurie Nationale Belge at the behest of Shell Belgium. After retiring from competition in 1957, Swaters became director of the Belgian National Team.  Ecurie Francorchamps continued, however, competing in sports car racing until the end of the 1970s and became one of the most respected Ferrari privateer organizations alongside Luigi Chinetti’s North American Racing Team (NART).

Season	Series	Event
1953	F2	AVUS-Rennen
Driver	No.	Entrant
Jacques Swaters	18	Ecurie Francorchamps
Scale	Manufacturer	Collection
1:43	Quartzo
Cat. No.	Quality	Rarity
Q4170

2419 of 3000 pcs. Limited Edition