OPPORTUNITY KNOCK S

Old Ferraris are golden both in monetary and intrinsic value, and the chance to own one of these classics doesn’t come along that often. However, two examples have recently come to light and are being advertised for sale in the US, with price on request in both cases.

These two cars have a colourful past. The 375 Plus is a 1954 model that was imported into the US by a race team owner Tony Parravano. The owner at the time seems to have been as colourful as the car. After the Internal Revenue Service began to investigate his business affairs, he and some of his car collection left for Mexico and were never seen again.

Name drivers, including Carroll Shelby, drove this car — in fact, Shelby drove both of these Ferraris. Before he crashed this car, it had Scaglietti coachwork, although, after that, it was re-bodied by Jack Sutton, a Californiabased coachbuilder. Today, this car is known as the ‘Ferrari 375 Plus Sutton’.

Enzo Ferrari developed the 375 Plus from a championship-winning car the previous year. This is where the ‘Plus’ comes from — everything from the previous model, plus a bit more. The car had a 4.9-litre engine that produced 340bhp (254kw), up from the previous model, and it also now had a five-speed gearbox. This combination meant that the car won at Le Mans that year, hitting almost 162mph (260kph) down the long Mulsanne Straight — very fast for 1954.

Different sources quote different production figures, but there were either five or eight of these cars produced. This is reflected in the value of the last one sold (in the UK) in 2014 for NZ$26.6M.

Number two

The second of these two rare pieces is a 1955 Ferrari 750 Monza. These cars used a threelitre, four-cylinder engine that Ferrari had developed earlier in the ’50s. He was still using the larger displacement V12 engines but had also developed the lighter and smaller four-cylinder motors to suit various competition situations. These four-cylinder cars were producing 250bhp (186kw) and were equipped with a five-speed transaxle. Jaguar had moved on to disc brakes, but, at this stage, Ferrari was still satisfied with the drum brakes it was using.

Scaglietti was again responsible for the bodywork, although, in the case of this particular car, he had two attempts at it. In 1955, the car was badly damaged in a European race (Targa Florio) and was rebuilt after that. It was then exported to the US, where it became a part of the colourful Mr Parravano’s racing stable. These cars were more common than the 375 Plus, with 37 of them built. This also seems to be reflected in the sale price of the cars, with the last two in the NZ$5– 6M range.