It would be hard to argue against the inclusion of the 250F in this feature – it’s even won our Greatest Ever Racing Car poll over the last three issues – and most accept that it represents the high point in one of the finest eras of Grand Prix racing.

Many years ago it was established that the most important 250F was the one in which Juan Manuel Fangio heroically won the 1957 German Grand Prix at the lethal Nürburgring Nordschleife circuit, widely accepted to be the great man’s finest drive.

There was a period, during the 1960s in particular, in which several cars were referred to as ‘Fangio’s 250F’, but we now know that Fangio’s 250F is serial number 2529. This car spent many years in the Cunningham Museum before being sold in 1988 to collector Hartmut Ibing in Germany.

NEXT: No. 8 - Mercedes-Benz SSK