Category: For Sale

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Classic Sportscar Ferrari For Sale

Available in the UK: Ferrari 296S “Dino”

That’s right friends. 296.

I know when we see “Dino”, we automatically think of the simply stunning 60s-70s mid-engined, Pininfarina designed, Dino 246, and with good reason; the 246 is an absolute masterpiece of automotive design. This Dino, however, is a bit earlier and every bit as beautiful. The 1959 296S Dino (chassis # 0746) has a fascinating history of her own to be proud of.

She debuted at the 1958 Silverstone race with racing’s best dressed driver Mike Hawthorn at the wheel pushing her hard to a 3rd place finish. Some sources, however, claim 0746 actually had an earlier race at the hands of Wolfgang Von Trips; finishing 3rd at the January, 1958 Nurburgring 1000km. In either event, the Scuderia quickly sold 0746 to retired racing driver, N.A.R.T. founder, and America’s first Ferrari distributor, Luigi Chinetti. Luigi soon had a handful of North American talent driving talent throughout the US and beyond. The car’s primary drivers in this era were Mexican phenoms the Rodriguez brothers, who had early success with 0746 in Nassau (1st and 2nd in various races that weekend) and Sebring (3rd).

Pedro Rodriguez, of course, went on to major international success as a Formula 1 driver for the Scuderia, Lotus, and BRM in various seasons from 1963-1971. He also won the LeMans 24 Hours race in 1968 with co-driver Lucien Bianchi in a Mk. I Ford GT-40. His brother, Ricardo, had his promising career tragically cut short in a fatal crash in 1962 during a practice session for the Mexican Grand Prix. Ricardo’s potential was staggering, barred by the LeMans officials from driving in 1958 because he was too young, Ricardo returned in ’59 to claim 2nd in an OSCA with co-driver André Pilette. A string of Formula 1 races for Ferrari followed, making Ricardo the youngest-ever Formula 1 driver at the time. He also claimed outright victory in a Ferrari Testa Rossa in the 1962 Targa Florio. With such an amazing string of successes, it’s all the sadder to think of the amazing career he might have had.

Following Luigi Chinetti’s stewardship of 0746, The car went on to further successes with American driver, George Constantine, who had top-five finishes with the car in three 1961 SCCA National races and won the 1961 Grand Prix Watkins Glen.

Today, UK dealer Duncan Hamilton offers Ferrari 296S #0746 in fantastic condition in her Rossa Corso N.A.R.T. livery. She’s a sight to behold. Included with the car are two of the underrated Ferrari V6s and wrapped in disc brakes all around. Sure, Ferrari means V12 to most, but I have an affinity for the early 6 and 8 bangers. She’s an absolute beauty and I hope to see her slicing around Goodwood or the Monterrey Historics soon.

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For Sale Porsche

Porsche Powered Lotus 23

Trans Ocean Motors Lotus-Porsche

A Lotus Chassis. A Porsche 4-cam. Is it the best of both worlds? George Follmer probably thought so.

George spent a good bit of the early 60’s lapping Southern California tracks in a variety of Porsches before he got the itch to move into sports prototypes. Naturally, a Lotus 23 fits the bill nicely. He set about modding the chassis to accept a Porsche 550 motor, before ultimately swapping it for the newer 904 powerplant. With the help of former Shelby American team-member, Bruce Burness, George knocked together one hell of a combination.

The 1,966 cc motor just eeks under 2-liters, and soon proved to be highly competitive in the class; taking 3rd in her debut race. The real beauty of the car though, was it’s consistency. Several weeks later, after a string of podiums and after their first class-win, the team realized that their point totals put them not only at the top of the class, but in the outright points lead for the the USRRC series. After an additional string of class wins at Bridgehampton, the Glen, and others; one maneater of a race was all that remained to determine if this little scrapper of a 2-liter car would steal the outright championship away from the big-bore boys. The Road America 500 Miles race.

Road America remains a giant of a track by American standards. For a low-powered (comparatively) car, 500 miles of it would be quite a task. But George finished 3rd behind Jim Hall’s mighty Chaparrals, clinching both the class and overall championships. George Follmer, of course, went on to a very successful career through the 70’s; racing everything from Formula 1 and Can-Am, to Nascar and Trans-Am. I’m guessing this little Lotus-Porsche remained a favorite of his despite the impressive array of machinery he would later compete in.

Today, Gooding & Co. offers the ex-George Follmer Lotus 23 through their private sales department. Wearing it’s original Trans Ocean Motors team livery, she’s a remarkably beautiful car. I particularly like the hand painted team logo and engine-turned gold leaf number 16. Gorgeous!

You can read the complete results of the Road America 500 Miles 1965 at the encyclopedic Racing Sports Cars results database.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Barchetta: Italian for Awesome.

Stanguellini Barchetta

Actually it means “little boat”; but still, have you ever seen a barchetta that wasn’t absolute beauty on wheels?

Take this 1949(!) Stanguellini Barchetta Sport Colli 1100 currently in the inventory of Digit Motorsport in Arizona. In a method that Carlo Abarth would perfect decades later, the car is based on a Fiat chassis with an 1100 cc Fiat motor—both heavily modified by the Stanguellini crew in Modena. This is a pure Mille Miglia machine, with FIA papers tracing it’s history all the way back to it’s 1948 build date.

While there doesn’t seem to be any specific provenance placing this car at the Mille or Targa Florio, it’s hard to imagine that it never competed in either. 1949 was, after all, very early in sportscar manufacturing. It may only make a whopping 60 horses, but I imagine the thrill is every bit as visceral as driving the latest from Lamborghini or Ferrari.

I fell in love with the barchettas fully and completely at this year’s Continental Grand Prix at Autobahn Country Club at the foot of a Siata 300 Barchetta. I could barely tear myself away from it. Is there any barchetta of any make that isn’t magnificent? The Ferrari 166MM. The Maserati A6. The OSCA MT-4. The Siata I love so dearly. Each deserving of their own posts in a future installment of The Chicane. Hmm.. that’s a good idea.

The early Italian carrozzerias had it right, small engine, small body, beautiful lines.

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Classic Sportscar Ferrari For Sale Video

Available in Los Angeles: 1956 Ferrari Tour de France

Don’t get me wrong, I like Rosso Corso as much as the next guy. Isn’t it a bit refreshing though, to see a classic Ferrari in a color other than red? This French racing blue 250 GT LWB on offer from Symbolic Motors looks fantastic with it’s tri-color French racing stripes. The long wheel base cars don’t seem to get as much respect as the ridiculously popular 250 SWB, the 250 GT California, and the later GTO; but the extra 8 inches hardly seems worth quibbling about when a car looks as absolutely fantastic as this.
Like all 250s, the Tour de France draws power from the Colombo designed 3-liter V12. Although restricting engine size in the wake of the tragedy at the ’55 Le Mans was a bit unpopular at the time, the engine is still impressive, drawing 240 hp in the early Tour de France configuration. This, coupled with the very lightweight body, allowed to 250 Ferraris to be strong GT competitors.

This car, chassis 508, is the 8th Tour de France of 9 bodied by Carozzeria Scaglietti using the original Pinin Farina designed body style. True to its name, gentleman racing driver Jacques Peron and his co-driver, Jacques Bertrammier, debuted #508 in the 5th annual Tour de France Auto, placing 8th. Peron continued to track the car, largely in mainland Europe, for another 2 years with fairly high levels of success. Notable races include wins at the ’56 Rallye des Forets, ’56 USA Cup at Montlhéry, ’57 Grand Prix of Paris, and what must have been an exotic rally indeed, the 1957 Rallye Allier in Algier.
After Peron returned the car to it’s lessor (who knew you could lease Ferraris in 1956?), the car was sold to Bruce Kessler in the States and dropped out of competition.

Damaged in the 1970’s the car sat dormant until a series of restorations in the 80’s and 90’s brought it to the concours quality you see today. 508 took 2nd in it’s class at the 2003 Concours at Pebble Beach and since then has been bouncing around from auction to auction.

There’s no question that the car is beautiful; and a 250GT is an impressive addition to any collection. I’d prefer the car’s interior was kept the original black in the restoration. And the current climate of 250GT sales is atmospheric, even for cars without long racing provenance (the ridiculous price brought in by the ex-James Coburn 250GT California comes to mind). I say that, of course, but if I had the funds I’d be jumping on the opportunity to put this amazing car in my garage. The car last sold for $4.5 Million; certainly a princely sum, but given recent 250 prices, I wouldn’t be terribly surprised if it breaks that price.

Here’s some footage of the ’56 Tour de France Auto. Keep your eyes peeled for #75—the number this car wore for the race.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

1947 Cisitalia D46

Fantasy Junction is offering this 1947 Cisitalia D46 Monoposto racer. The middle of the 20th century had a lot of people comparing cars and airplanes; from Turbine powered cars to Tailfin madness. These frequent comparisons make it easy to dismiss any comparison between the two. This Cisitalia shows that the comparison was apt long before it was cliché. Just look at this thing, It’s a biplane on the ground, screaming through the turns like a barnstormer on display.

The joy of early aerodynamics is that it was largely guesswork or borrowed. Car manufacturers didn’t have wind tunnels, just a gut feeling of what felt right—which was surprisingly accurate. The only other source of aerodynamics cues were from the airplane industry. The Italians in particular excelled at taking their post-WWII airplane technology and adapting it for the ground (Vespa, anyone?).

The Cisitalia, or Consorzio Industriale Sportive Italia, was financed by Footballer turned textile and sporting goods manufacturer, Piero Dusio. Mr. Dusio had a long passion for motorsport, having competed in the Mille Miglia many times (taking a class victory in a Siata 500 in 1937). He also placed 6th in the 1936 Italian Grand Prix.
The D46 has a Fiat heart in the form of a race prepped Fiat 1100cc engine and Fiat suspension. Wrapped in this elegant Dante Giacosa designed body, the D46 was ready to take all comers in the highly competitive Voiturette class. This example is number 20 of approximately 30 D46s built, and among the very few to feature the expanded side fuel tanks shown here in chrome. The car has extensive race history in Europe and Australia before coming to the States for restoration in the 1980s. I love an inventory page that describes the car as “Pebble Beach ready”. With this Cisitalia, I believe it. Oh how I wish I could strap on a leather helmet and some goggles and tear around a wooded country road in this D46.

Dennis David has more information on the Cisitalia D46 on his Grand Prix Pages.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale

Available in Brussels: Abarth Corso Spyder Boano 207A

Feast your eyes on this remarkable little Abarth on offer from Automobiles Vanderveken Bruxelles. This Boano-bodied spyder looks every bit of intimidating, despite its diminutive stature of only 37 inches tall at the peak of the windscreen. The 2-tone paint accentuates the streamlined and purpose-built appearance all the more, emphasizing the incredible belt-line: Can you even call that a belt-line? knee line?

Abarth Boano Spyder

Placing an aluminum tonneau cover over the passenger seat is a sure win for any drop-top to increase its appeal in my book. The fact that this little racer has a completely separate opening in the bodywork for the passenger to sit in is downright fantastic. And bask in the delight of the twin exhaust pipes snaking their way out of the passenger side.
Sadly, 207A had little success on the racetrack—it lead its class at Sebring in ’55 until an illegal refueling stop disqualified the team. But every ounce of this car begs to be noticed on the track and off. I absolutely adore the spirit of these Abarths. Although as few as 10 207As were made, the idea of taking the fairly pedestrian Fiat 1100cc engine and wrapping it in this slippery, aquatic shape with Abarth’s famous tuning team squeezing every horse out of the power plant is the fantastic thing about body-on-frame design. Think of the top tuning houses today: the Spoons, Mugens, RUFs, and the like. Despite the endless effort of these facilities, unibody construction leaves the car’s appearance virtually unchanged once it leaves the garage. Body-on-frame allows for an endless stream of possibility to create one-off, coachbuilt specials like this amazing Abarth Corso Spyder Boano 207A.

You can read more about the history of this outstanding racecar at Ultimate Car Pages, including some photos of a 207A in action at the 2004 Zolder Historic Grand Prix. Below is just a taste. And as is so often the case, the mighty Etceterini is a deep well of information on this model in particular, and Abarth in general.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale Grand Prix

Jimmy Clark’s Championship Winning Lotus 25 at Auction

The car he won the ’63 World Championship in

This weekend, Bonhams & Goodman is hosting an incredible collection of Lotus Formula cars in Sydney. The Important Sports, Competition and Collectors’ Motor cars, Motorcycles and Automobilia certainly lives up to its name, offering TWO ex-Jim Clark Lotuses.

One, a ’66 Tasman Series Lotus 39 carried Clark through several races in this important series: a first in the Warwick Farm International 100, a second at Levin, Wigram, Lakeside and Sandown Park, and third place finishes in the Australian Grand Prix and in the Examiner 45 at Longford, Tasmania.

Already, this is an amazing auction opportunity. Shocking then, that this car can be completely overshadowed by another offering at the auction. The other car available, and drawing an estimate of $1.8-2Million, is Jimmy Clark’s & Richard Attwood’s 1962 Lotus 25. The car that Clark won the Formula 1 World Championship with in 1963. Any Lotus single seater is a rare collectible. Any that was driven by Clark, even more so. This car however, represents the absolute pinnacle of any collection. It was the Lotus 25 that leapfrogged Lotus from Formula 1 also-ran to dominant force of the 1960’s and beyond. The rear engine layout that Cooper proved was the way of the future was embraced by Chapman full-force, even perfected here in the Lotus 25.

Lotus built only seven examples of the Lotus 25. Of these, serial numbers R1, R2, R3, and R5 were destroyed in period accidents. This example, R4, rose to the top as Clark’s longest serving and winningest chassis. Carrying him to on a trot victories in 1963 at the Belgian, Dutch, French and British GPs, a 2nd at the German GP, then further victories in Italy, S. Africa, and Mexico. This chassis has won SEVEN world-championship Formula 1 races. and a further victory at a non-championship Oulton Park race. Those are just the Jim Clark wins! the car has a further history with Richard Attwood under Reg Parnell racing.

What an amazing car this is, and what an amazing opportunity this auction represents for a very lucky collector. If you happen to attend this event, I’d love to see some photos.

Update: Clark’s Championship Winning Lotus 25 sold for a final hammer price of $1,350,000. with his Tasman Series racer bringing in $320,000.

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For Sale

1968 Lotus Formula 2 available


Symbolic Motors in La Jolla, CA is offering this extremely photogenic Lotus 51A. Originally a Formula Ford, this monoposto racer has been uprated to dual overhead cam Cosworth powered Formula 2. There are dozens of wonderful photos of this slippery Lotus in various stages of undress.

Sitting in its bare form, you start to see how deceptively simple these cars really looked. When you see a sixties formula car without the body panels, you get a flash of what it must have been like to set out to join in the fray of Formula racing. What would be the absolute folly today to start building a formula car was once an attainable goal for a small group of dedicated gearheads.

Lotus 51A Frame

Naturally, this is all radically understating the sophistication that lies within these steel and aluminum chassis members. But that’s the appeal, isn’t it? You can look at these chassis and think to yourself, “I could build that.” I say this not to belittle the tremendous effort that these small racecar manufacturers put into their cars, but to celebrate the spark of creativity, hope, and courage that makes us as laymen think it’s within our reach. This might be the single biggest heartbreak of modern racing, that it’s become so technical that you may as well try to build a space shuttle at home.

So drink in the pure joy of this humble tubular frame. And maybe pick up a welder.

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For Sale

Petersen Auction Offers McQueen’s 1st Trophy

In May of 1959 Steve McQueen drove his little ’58 Porsche Speedster 1600 Super up to Santa Barbara to compete in his first race. Now we tend to merge the legend of McQueen as an actor with his racing exploits. But that had to start somewhere; and it started in the E-Group Production Class at the airport. Starting from the middle of the pack, he leapt up several positions on the first lap, and by the fourth was in the lead. Amazingly, he won the first race he competed in; cementing the reputation that would define him among racing fans long after his death.

This weekend, Bonhams will offer lot 177 at their annual Petersen Auction. The pewter goblet that served as his trophy for that first race. I’m sure this little tankard was filled and refilled as it was passed around many times the table at wherever Steve celebrated that night.

Steve sold the Speedster that he won that event with, returning to Santa Barbara later that year in a Lotus XI. He finally bought back the Speedster in 1974. Chad McQueen still owns it.

There’s a brief writeup of the race on this McQueen site, and here’s a photo of the Porsche Speedster from the “Friends of McQueen” car show held earlier this year.

Update:

This lovely piece of McQueen history SOLD for $6,600. Sounds like a lot of loot for a pewter goblet. “Well bought”, I say.

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Classic Sportscar For Sale Porsche

Ex-Matsuda Porsche 904 For Sale

The Porsche 904 once owned by renowned collector/museum curator/tycoon/lucky bastard Yoshibo Matsuda is currently among the cars for sale by German dealer Jan Lühn. Ordinarily the non-racing owner of a car doesn’t improve it’s provenance terribly, but Mr. Matsuda is no ordinary car collector. In the 1970s and 80s, Matsuda started pickup up exotic Porsches: the first Porsche to win outright at LeMans (a 917), a 910 Spyder, a 550 Spyder, an RSK Spyder, a 906, 908. The guy’s collection was no joke. So fantastic was it, that he opened a historic Porsche museum in Tokyo. After several years, Mr. Matsuda decided to shake things up and sold off the bulk of his collection and replaced them with historically significant Ferraris and hung a new sign on the door of his museum. I understand that he’s now sold off the Ferraris as well.

But getting back to Porsche 904-092. The car was originally delivered in 1964 to gentleman F1 driver, Count Carel de Beaufort. This 904 was his third—he also owned 904-019 (which he raced at Sebring), and 904-072 (which was crashed by his friend Gerard van Lennep).

The Count only owned 904-092 for a short time before selling it to England, where it was raced by Patrick Godfrey and Alain DeCadenet. After a short time in the states, Matsuda picked up the car in the late 70’s.


Such was Mr. Matsuda’s love for the 904, that he wrote an absolutely marvelous book on the history, development, and current whereabouts of the remaining 904s. I spent several years trying to track down a copy of “Porsche 904 GTS Great Cars of Great Collections Volume 3”, with little luck. I finally tracked down a copy at online bookseller T.E. Warth Autobooks, but $180 seemed a bit steep. Ultimately I was able to order a copy from the publisher at cover price. Go order a copy right now, it’s an amazing book – and the price is fantastic when compared to the odd prices it’s fetching in the secondary market.

Mr. Matsuda sold the car at RM’s Monterrey Auction in 2000—for the now astonishingly low price of $264,000. (Is it wrong for me to hope that the current financial market causes classic car prices to tank and once again become attainable?). After that sale, however, the story becomes even more interesting. The Floridian buyer repainted the car to its original Silver color and shortly thereafter sold the car to a man in Germany. Incredibly, the German tracked down the car’s original twin-cam 4 cylinder Koenigswellen engine, which had been spending some time as a decorative piece in a retired Porsche engineer’s home. Now that is an art piece I’d love to have in my living room.

So now, impeccably maintained and newly reunited with her original engine after 25 years apart, Porsche 904-092 is available. Jan Lühn doesn’t list a price, but I’m sure they’ll be receptive to an offer of the $264,000 that this car fetched in 2000.
Sure they will.