This is a life-size 1:1 scale model of the legendary Ferrari V12 Colombo engine that was painstakingly made from wood over a period of three years by model maker Bill Dietz.
Dietz used various kinds of wood and wood finishes for different parts of the engine, to help highlight them, and the level of fine detail he’s achieved with the model is quite remarkable – it almost looks like it could be dropped into a car and sent to the track.
The engine is 1:1 scale and it measures in at approximately 36″ long, by 22″ wide, and 24″ tall with a weight of 50 lbs. It comes with a protective perspex box.
The Colombo V12 was Ferrari’s first V12 engine and their longest running production engine ever. It debuted in 1947, just two years after World War II, and would remain in production until 1988, after decades of upgrades and modifications to keep it current.
The engine was designed by Gioacchino Colombo and it’s now widely known simply as the Colombo V12 to differentiate it from Ferrari’s other V12s, primarily the Lampredi V12 which was larger and debuted in 1950.
The Colombo V12 started out with the relatively diminutive swept displacement of just 1,497cc or 1.5 liters. It was initially used in the Ferrari 125S race car, and it had an alloy block, alloy heads, a V-angle of 60º and a single overhead cam per bank operating two valves per cylinder.
Over the coming decades the engine would be changed significantly, the displacement would be expanded all the way from 1.5 up to 4.9 liters, it would get double overhead cams per bank with four valves per cylinder for better breathing, and it would switch over from carburetors to electronic fuel injection.
Power would go from 116 bhp all the way up to almost 400 bhp, and the Colombo V12 would power many of Ferrari’s most iconic models, including the 250 TR “Testa Rossa,” 250 GT SWB, 250 GTO, 400 Superamerica, 365 California, 365 GTB/4 Daytona, and ending with the 400 series in the late 1980s.
The 1:1 Scale Wooden Colombo V12 Shown Here
The V12 you see here in this article is the only wooden engine we’ve ever featured on Silodrome. As noted above it was made by model maker Bill Dietz over a period of three years, and it’s remarkable how much fine detail has been incorporated into it.
The attention to detail with this engine is exemplary, with all the carburetors in place, the finer elements all accounted for, and even the twin distributors and oil filters.
The model includes the block and heads of course, as well as the intricate stack of carburetors, velocity stacks up top, and throttle linkages. There are a pair of distributors, twin oil filters, a generator, water pump, starter motor, clutch, and even the “Ferrari” script on each of the cam covers.
It measures in at approximately 36″ long, by 22″ wide, and 24″ tall with a weight of 50 lbs. The model is now being offered for sale on Bring a Trailer out of Thousand Oaks, California with a display stand and a protective perspex cover. If you’d like to read more about it or register to bid you can visit the listing here.
Images courtesy of Bring a Trailer
Articles that Ben has written have been covered on CNN, Popular Mechanics, Smithsonian Magazine, Road & Track Magazine, the official Pinterest blog, the official eBay Motors blog, BuzzFeed, Autoweek Magazine, Wired Magazine, Autoblog, Gear Patrol, Jalopnik, The Verge, and many more.
Silodrome was founded by Ben back in 2010, in the years since the site has grown to become a world leader in the alternative and vintage motoring sector, with well over a million monthly readers from around the world and many hundreds of thousands of followers on social media.
