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.

Ferrari by David Bailey - Ferrari 550 Maranello GTS

Some of you who read my Rowdy blogs may remember a blog about the 2002 celebrity Prodrive Ferrari 550 Marranello GTS (03).



That chassis took part in at least 42 Races in the GT/GTS class for at least four different teams from 2002 to 2006 and had a host of celebrity drivers including,



Colin McRae World Rally Champion, British Touring Car Champions Rickard Rydell & Alain Menu, British, Luc Alphand former World Cup Skiing Champion and Dakar winner, David Brabham Japanese GT Champion and Le Mans winner 2009, Jan Magnussen Danish Touring Car Champion, Danica Patrick queen of IRL, Darren Manning IRL driver, Christophe Bouchut 1993 Le Mans Winner, and one of my former racing instructors Tim Sugden former British and Asia Pacific GT Champion.



Prodrive prepared a batch of 20 550 Maranello GTS's for racing in Europe and the States where they were regular winners in the GT/GTS class in 2001.



In 2003 today's #88 550 Maranello GTS Chassis ZFFZR49B000108462, the 6th of the 20 Prodrive built, was driven by Thomas Enge, Jamie Davies and Peter Kox,



with around 750hp coming from it's V12 engine,



beat the Corvettes by 10 laps at the Le Mans 24 hour race winning the GTS class coming home 10th overall.



This vehicle entered exclusively by the Prodrive team is known to have run in at least 9 races in 2003 in all bar one carrying the #88, this chassis carried the #08 in it's last known final at Petite Le Mans.



When the effervescent Jackie Irwin, who has petrol running through her veins, told us on my recent visit to the Prodrive factory we were allowed to sit in some of the vehicles parked in the display area like a 12 year old I headed straight for the 550 Maranello,



the experience of sitting in this fabulous car was an odd mixture of agony and ecstasy, the seat was made for someone with hips the size of a 12 year old, yet at the same time the purposefulness of every last detail inside the vehicle sent my mind straight to Le Mans, by some strange fate I also found my self posing for this photograph taken by David Bailey , I am sure Twiggy would have felt far more comfortable in the seat, but then I doubt she would ever find herself posing for David Bailey of the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club.

My thanks to David Bailey, everyone at the Bristol Pegasus MC and Prodrive who made my visit such an interesting day out.

Hope you have enjoyed today's David Bailey edition of 'Gettin' a lil' psycho on tyres' and that you will join me again tomorrow. Don't forget to come back now !

West Coast Spyder - Porsche 550

My thanks go out again to Ed Arnaudin & Son for today's photograph, Ed purchased this photo by Carlyle Blackwell of Jack McAfee in his John Edgar owned 550 most likely being driven to victory at Pebble Beach, a track I know very little about, on 22nd April 1956.



Photo Carlyle Blackwell, Publised Courtesy Blackwell Archive, for sales enquiry's please e-mail infoATpsychoontyres.co.uk and your contact details will be forwarded to the Blackwell Archive.

Jack McAfee was an extremely successful West Coast driver who started out in hot rod racing by tuning a neighbour friends mother's model T, unbeknown to the fellow's poor mother.

Jack is best known for driving cars owned by John Edgar highlighted by a couple of international appearances including the Nurburgring 1000 kms. Driving the 550 seen here Jack became National class F champion in 1956.

At 29 Jack became the youngest ever Porsche Dealer and was responsible for the often copied McAfee aftermarket wheels for Porsche and VW cars long before Porsche cars were fitted with the iconic Fuchs alloy wheels.

Just 90 Porsche 550 purpose built racing cars, inspired by the 356 specials built and raced by Walter Gloecker, were produced from 1953 - 1956.

Allegedly one of these low slung cars was driven under a pair of railway crossing gates by Hans Hermann during the 1954 Mille Miglia. A light weight 550 A variant was driven to Porsche's first major out right sports car victory by drivers Umberto Maglioli and Huschke von Hanstein in 1956 Targa Florio.

However all of the 550's racing successes are dwarfed by it's position in 20th century movie culture, outside a restraunt on the 23rd of September 1955 Alec Guiness, the original Obi-Wan Kenobi, was shown the #130 Porsche 550 known as 'Little B*st*rd' owned by an emerging acting talent and part time race driver.

Sir Alec thought the vehicle looked sinister and advised the owner 'If you get in that car, you will be found dead in it by this time next week.' Sadly, a prediction that came true on 30th September 1955 when the legend of James Byron Dean was born.

My thanks to Arnaudin & Son for the wonderful photograph and to racingsportscars.com for the race information.

Hope you have enjoyed today's edition of getting a little psycho on tyres and that you'll join me again tomorrow for a look at a Porsche in need of a little TLC. Don't forget to come back now !

28 07 12 PS My thanks to Pamela Blackwell who has kindly retrospectively given me permission to post the photo's her father took.

East Coast Spyders - Porsche 550 Spyder

Thanks to Ed Arnaudin for 3 more superb photographs from Thompson CT on July 20th 1958.

From race 7 we have three Porsche 550 Spyders.



Newton Davis, 550 Chassis 550-04 Finished 1st. Newton is known to have raced both Porsche and later Lotus cars from at least 1957 to at least 1965. He appears to have raced this one from 1958 - 1960.



Bernhard Vihl's career is much less well known he appears to have entered races in 1955 and 1962 but not much is documented about him in between except we know that he finished 10th on this day in July behind the #123 Lister Bristol, #52 Jaguar C-type and #76 Aston Martin DB 3S mentioned in previous posts.



Warren James is known to have raced a Porsche 356 from '54 to '56 and then showed up with this 550 in 1958, this photograph extends Warrens known career by at least one race.

The fact that Newton Davis beat much more powerful V8 Maserati, Jaguar - Cadilllac Special a C-Type and an Aston Martin show's he must have been an exceptional talent for handling the far nimbler 550 round the tight Thompson CT circuit, I'll cover some of the technical details tomorrow with a photograph of a 550 on the West Coast.

Thanks to Arnaudin & Son for the photographs and to Terry O'Neil for the results information.

Don't forget to come back now !