Category Archive 'Ferrari'

14 Feb 2016

1957 Ferrari 335 S Spider Scaglietti Sets New Auction Record for a Racing Car

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ferrari-335-sport-scagliett
1957 Ferrari 335 Sport Scaglietti Spider

Telegraph:

A 1957 Ferrari driven by the great British motor racers of the 1950s broke the record for the world’s most expensive racing car sold at auction after fetching just over €32 million ($35.7 — £24.7 million) on Friday.

Despite the stratospheric price at the Artcurial auction in Paris, the buyer cannot use the vehicle on the roads as it was designed purely for racing.

Only four Ferrari 335 S Spider Scagliettis were ever produced, and this one had been in the hands of a private French collector for more than 40 years – hence the feverish excitement at the Rétromobile classic car show in Paris, where the auction took place.

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FCAuthority:

Chassis 0674 left Enzo Ferrari’s Maranello workshop in 1957 and in March of that year was entered in the 12 Hours of Sebring in Florida. It was driven by Peter Collins and Maurice Trintignant in the endurance race and finished sixth. In May, Ferrari brought the car back to Italy and entered it in the 1,600 km Mille Miglia with Wolfgang von Trips at the wheel. It was one of four cars Ferrari entered in the race and it finished second behind Piero Taruffi and his Ferrari 315 S.

Following the 1957 Mille Miglia, which turned out to be the last-ever edition of the road race after 12 people were killed, the car was returned to the Maranello factory and upgraded to ‘335 S’ spec. This entailed boring out the 3.8-liter V12 to 4.1-liters, which boosted output from 360 horsepower to 400 and raised the top-speed to 186 mph (300 km/h).

Following the modifications the car was entered in the 1957 24 Hours of Le Mans where it was raced by F1 champion Mike Hawthorn and Luigi Musso. It was unfortunately retired in the fifth hour due mechanical problems, but not before it took the lead ahead of the Maserati and Jaguars and set the first lap record at Le Sarthe with an average speed of over 200 km/h (203.015 km/h).

Following its Le Mans showing the car finished fourth in the Swedish Grand Prix, second in the Venezuela Grand Prix and helped Ferrari win the World Constructors’ Title. In 1958 it was piloted to victory in the Cuba Grand Prix by Masten Gregory and Stirling Moss and was also raced in various American races by Gaston Andrey and Lance Reventlow.

The car has sat in Bardinon’s collection since 1970.

1957-Ferrari-3335-Interior

21 Apr 2012

Mourning the Now-Neutered Lamborghini

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Jack Baruth describes how it’s not only the modern population that has become demasculinized. The same thing has happened to great automotive brands, and with the arrival of the Urus, it has happened to Lamborghini, alas!

Sports cars and supercars — yes, we are finally getting to cars — used to be real ass-kickers themselves, you know. Think of a Miura blowing down the autostrada at 170mph when the average Italian car couldn’t break a hundred. Or an early short-wheelbase 911 trying actively to kill its driver on the Stelvio Pass. Or a ’69 big-block ‘Vette snarling down Mulholland. Men’s cars. Driven by the men who ruled the world, who had built the world. And created by those men, too. Ferrari himself, sacrificing drivers like pawns and burning the essence of his life to obtain victory. Ferry Porsche, who had to build and engineer a racecar to ransom the life of his own father. David Brown, earning a fortune and then throwing it away so he could put his own intials on the Aston Martin. Ferrucio Lamborghini, who famously started his company because Enzo showed him a lack of respect (or because he found out how much the markup on Ferrari parts was, depending on which story you believe.) These were real men, building appropriate conveyances for other men of means, courage, and accomplishment.

Those men are all as dead as Caesar now. Their famously fragile businesses, which often held together simply on the faith of their workers that “the old man” would find a way to pay them next week, have been plucked from uncertainty and nestled safely within the bosoms of monstrous corporations or the accidentally oil-rich.

And the cars those men made? They’ve been replaced by products, which are branded and marketed to “high net worth individuals”, our infamous one percent, existing within a safety net of corrupt banks, protective governments, and barriers to entry. The “heritage” those men manufactured on the fly has become a precious resource to be doled out by turtleneck-clad designers timidly riffing on the tracks cut by their betters long ago, like a club DJ spinning Parliament in scratches and squeaks because he never learned to play the bass himself.

Worse yet, the “products” themselves have ceased doing the man’s work of the company. Porsche used to live or die by 911 sales, the same way Lamborghini relied on selling the Countach to keep the doors open. No longer. Today, the Panamera and Cayenne drive the business. They trade on the image of the 911 to move the metal, but the 911 itself has become irrelevant. It’s a trophy wife on the arm of the Panamera. It’s there to make the Pano look good.

Read the whole thing. Good article.

Hat tip to Glenn Reynolds.

06 Dec 2011

All-Time Expensive Traffic Pile-Up

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Sunday: Dead Ferraris all over the Chugoku Expressway in Shimonoseki, southwestern Japan.

8 Ferraris, a Lamborghini, three Mercedes Benz, and two Toyotas, a total of 14 vehicles bought the farm when one Ferrari driver trying to change lanes lost control, bounced off a barrier, and came spinning back into the middle of a luxury car caravan heading for an enthusiasts’ event in Hiroshima.

No one, besides the automobile insurance company executives seen leaping from high windows, was seriously injured in the accident, but a lot of very expensive metal was seriously bent.

Yahoo News

1:11 video

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

31 Dec 2009

Extreme Motorcycle Designs

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Ferrari V4 Superbike

WebUrbanist posts photos of 20 spectacular motorcycle concept designs.

Unfortunately, most of these will probably never actually be built for sale, and all of them are apparently not street legal.

09 Sep 2008

Ferrari Stolen 15 Years Ago Found in Connecticut

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Old Cars Weekly:

A classic Ferrari stolen from a warehouse in Spain 15 years ago surfaced recently in Connecticut.

The man who had it apparently did not know the car was stolen, state police said. He bought the car in 2000 for $550,000 and added it to his collection of exotic cars, state police said.

According to local news sources, the man in possession of the stolen car could not be reached for comment.

In spite of the seemingly hefty price tag of $550,000 paid by the enthusiast, on the open market, the car would have fetched more than four-times that amount, according to current Ferrari pricing.

The car was seized late last week after troopers with the motor vehicle and auto theft task forces obtained a search warrant for property of the man in possession of the car.

The 1957/58 Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet Series 1 Pinin Farina was one of only 40 built.

According to authorities, the car was among four Ferraris stolen from a warehouse in Marbella, Spain, in 1993. It was sold in Spain, Portugal and Italy before arriving in the U.S. in 1994.

The car is owned by Dr. Andreas Gerber of Switzerland, who purchased the vehicle in 1989. State police said their investigation showed that the car was smuggled into the United States through New Jersey in 1994 and was registered with a phony vehicle identification number. It then changed hands several times before ending up in Connecticut.

The Connecticut man in possession of the “hot” Ferrari, apparently unaware that the car was reported stolen, drove the Ferrari and entered it in car shows, such as the 2005 Greenwich Concours D’Elegance, where it won the award for “most outstanding Ferrari,” presented by Ferrari North America.

07 Aug 2007

Paris: Ferrari 275 GTB Eye View

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On an August morning in 1978, French filmmaker Claude Lelouch mounted a gyro-stabilized camera to the bumper of a Ferrari 275 GTB and had a friend, a professional Formula 1 racer, drive at breakneck speed through the heart of Paris.

No streets were closed, for Lelouch was unable to obtain a permit.

8:39 video

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Hat tip to Karen L. Myers


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