Road Legal Ferrari's A Brief History - Niello Serrano Concours

For Ferrari Friday GALPOT continues yesterdays perusal of vehicles on display at the Niello Serrano Concours thanks to Geoffrey Hortons photographs.



First up a Ferrari 250 GT/E 2+2's, one these models was Enzo Ferrari's daily driver, early GALPOT readers may remember such a vehicle appearing in a previous blog, albeit modified into a replica 250 GT SWB Competizione.



More exclusive, one of just 200 models built between 1965 and 1968, is this Ferrari 275 GTS powered by a 3.3 litre / 201 cui V12.



The V6 Ferrari Dino had been in production for two years and two distinct series from 1969 to 1971 before the first Series III Dino's were manufactured for the US market, this is one of 1,431 Series III Dinos produced between 1971 and 1974.



Manufactured between 1971 and 1972 the Ferrari 365 GTC/4 is a 2+2. One of the 500 examples produced appeared in the 1977 film Herbie Goes To Monte Carlo alongside several other Ferraris including a slightly more powerful 365 GTB/4 Daytona with which the GTC/4 shares a common chassis.



Representing Maranello's prancing black horse for the 1980's at Niello Serrano was this Ferrari 328 GTS of which some 7400 were manufactured between 1985 and 1989.



Ferrari returned to manufacturing motor cars with the engine in front of the driver in 1996 with the beefy 550. With a boot / trunk large enough to carry a set of golf clubs the Ferrari 550 was turned into a handy racer at Le Mans by the likes of Prodrive.



Twentieth model in Ferraris catalogue of street legal exotics is the Ferrari 360 a model produced from 1999 - 2005 which you may remember from an earlier blog was made available with an optional Tubi Style exhaust to provide extra horsepower and amplify the sound.



With a 200 mph top speed the Ferrari F430 that replaced the 360 in 2004 arguably had no need of gimmicks like optional Tubi Style exhausts. It looks good, sounds good and goes fast, pretty much everything one could want from a Ferrari except of course it's replacement the F458 Italia.

My thanks to Geoffrey Horton for sharing the delights of the California Concours season with us at GALPOT, I look forward to seeing what motoring delights he will find next year.

Thanks for joining me for Ferrari Friday, I hope you will join me again tomorrow when I'll be looking at an innovative Lotus with a body designed by Peter Kirwan-Taylor. Don't forget to come back now !

Post Script, this will be the last Ferrari Friday post coming from the Blogger site that I have been using for the last year, from Monday I shall be publishing from the dedicated GALPOT site and I'll be posting a weekly digest on this site for the foreseeable future. If you have been keeping in touch with this blog via Facebook you have no need to worry I'll be posting links to FB as usual.

For the forseeable future no posts will be removed from this site and all of the posts on this site will be available on the new GALPOT site.

I hope you will all find the transition to the stand alone GALPOT site a smooth one, one of the advantages of the new site will be that you will only have to sign in once to leave comments, if you have any questions or comments please do not hesitate to e-mail me the address is at the bottom of this page and in my Blogger Contact details.

Thanks to every one on all five continents that have made GALPOT such an unexpected success. I look forward to making this transition and look forward to hearing your candid comments.

Superfast2 - Ferrari 430 Scuderia

The Ferrari 430 Scuderia, launched in 2007, fell between the standard road F430 and the race only Ferrari F430 GTC as a track day car.



A 430 Scuderia benefits from a weight saving over the standard F430 of 100 kg / 220 lb.



Performance of the 430 Scuderia was further enhanced by electronic upgrades including Superfast2 software for the semi - automatic transmission which facilitates 60 'millisecond' shift times.



The Scuderia engine produces 508 hp at 8500 rpm enough to give the vehicle a rest to 62 mph time of 3.6 seconds and a top speed of 198 mph.



When tested around the test track by a popular TV series the Scuderia proved to be even Stevens with the Nissan GTR and fractionally faster than the Porsche Carrera GT and significantly faster than a Mercedes Benz SLR.

Thanks to the pistonhead who brought this fabulous Ferrari along to January's Sunday Service.

Hope you have enjoyed today's Scuderia edition of Ferrari Friday and that you'll join me again tomorrow, don't forget to come back now !

Air bag exempt - Ferrari F 430

Last week on Ferrari Friday we looked at seven magnificent Ferrari F430 GT2 racing cars this week were looking at the road car that the racer was based on. The F430 was launched at the Paris Motor Show in 2004.



This USD $225,000 vehicle came loaded with electronics including limited slip active differential which varies the distribution of torque from the engine to the rear wheels based on information on steering angle and lateral acceleration, Electronic Stability Control which detects and minimises skids, Skyhook electronic suspension and is fitted with little knobs on the steering wheel to adjust all of the above to ones personal preference. Unusually US authorities granted the F430 exemption from US airbag requirements.



These brake discs / rotors are cast from an iron molybdenum alloy developed in collaboration with Brembo and are claimed to be good for over 300 laps of the Ferrari Fiorano test track with out fading.



196 mph capability is afforded courtesy of a 483hp 4300 cc / 262 cui V8 a shared Ferrari / Maserati design that is a complete departure of all previous Ferrari V8's that trace their ancestry and architecture back to the 1950's Dino V6 racing programme.

Hope you have enjoyed today's air bag exempt edition of 'Gettin' a lil psycho on tyres' and that you will join me tomorrow for a look at a fast cat from Coventry. Don't forget to come back now !

Magnificent Seven - Ferrari F430 GTC

The F430 was in production from 2004 - 2009 starting with side vents harking back to the Ferrari 250 TR 61 Spyder Fantuzzi this car wreaks racing business from it's nose to Enzo inspired tail lights.

Particularly popular amongst sports stars and minor TV celebrities the F430 was tasked with going up against the teutonic might of Porsche in sports car classes GT2 and GT3.

These 4 litre F430 GTC photos are from the GT2 Class during the Silverstone 1000 kms last year.



Chassis #2408 Bruni/Bell, JMW Motorsport 23rd overall, 1st GT2.



Chassis #2636 Melo/Garcia/L Mansell, 26th overall, 4th GT2.



Chassis #2608 Kaffer/Montanari, Hankook Team Farnbacher, 27th overall, 5th GT2.



Chassis #2402, Rosa/Montermini/Cadei, FBR, 29th overall, 6th GT2.



Chassis # 2476, Basso/Tenchini/Plati, Easyrace, 34th overall, 11th GT2.



Chassis #2450, Daoudi /Hartshorne/Kutemann, JMB Racing, 35th overall, 12th GT2.



Chassis #2612, Farnbacher/Ehret/Beltoise, FBR, Not Classified.

Missing from this set is the Griffin / Bamford, Advanced Engineering car which came in 33rd overall, 10th GT2.

In case you have still not had enough Ferrari's I have updated last weeks 250 GTO blog with another photo I found of '250 GTO #3757' taken last year.

Wishing everyone a Happy and Healthy New Year.

Hope you have enjoyed my first 103 posts and you'll join me again tomorrow, don't forget to come back now !