Barn Finds
Jaws drop as a Ferrari 512BBI is dragged off a Gloucestershire driveway
This is one of only 42 right-handdrive Ferrari 512Bbis built, and the only white one. When it last changed hands in 2006 it was reputed to be the best example in the country and it still has only 6420 miles on the clock. Since then, it’s seen very little use, with none at all in the last 12 years. It lived outside, on a driveway in a town in Gloucestershire, and became something of a landmark.
‘I heard about it during the first lockdown in 2020,’ says new owner Scott Chivers. ‘I started getting lots of leads on barn-find Ferraris after I posted a video about an abandoned F40 once owned by Saddam Hussein’s son.’
Scott’s Youtube channel is called Ratarossa after the rat-look 1987 Ferrari Testarossa Spider project that he found and completed, and it’s generated something of a cult following. ‘People think it’s my name – even the postman calls me Ratarossa,’ says Scott somewhat ruefully. ‘But I was so intrigued by this car that when lockdown ended, I drove to Gloucestershire on a whim and met the owner. He was adamant he wouldn’t sell.’
Scott found the car to be highly original, apart from an aftermarket stereo, and with no obvious fault that kept it out of use – though it was heavily encrusted in lichen and the keys had gone missing. But a lot can happen in six months, and when Scott spoke to the owner again at the end of 2020, he’d had a change of heart.
‘We agreed a price and I went there with a transporter to take the car home to London. The owner has since bought a Jaguar E-type to replace it!’
The car’s extremely crusty appearance suggests a near-wreck, but the early signs are promising. Scott hasn’t found extensive rust and once he’d got some new keys cut from the numbers in the history file and
hooked up a battery, he was amazed to discover that every electrical function still works despite its prolonged exposure.
‘I was so keen on the car that I forgot to check whether that flat-twelve engine was seized before I bought it,’ he says. ‘Luckily it isn’t, and since I got it home I’ve been rotating it a little every day and adding penetrating fluid to each cylinder.’
Scott is taking things slowly, planning an immense clean-up and then engine removal to change the drive belts and replace the fuel tanks. After that, he’s hoping to get the car running for the first time since 2008. There is one dark cloud on the horizon, though.
‘I never quite got to the bottom of why the car was laid up,’ says Scott, ‘so I’m wondering what’s going to jump up and bite me as I work through it all…’
You can follow the restoration by searching for Ratarossa on Youtube.
This 1966 Ferrari 330GT 2+2 has been barn-bound in a small village near Montpellier in south-west France since 1974. The car’s Parisien owner bought it when it was a year old and seems to have enjoyed it to the fullest, discovering the downside of Ferrari ownership when the French authorities introduced speed limits on faster roads. According to Osenat, the French auction house that recently announced the car’s discovery, it was the accumulation of fines that persuaded the owner to lay it up at his second home.
The owner’s two children later drew straws for the chance to buy it, but the winner – who acquired some mechanical knowledge for the purpose – never found time to restore the car. Despite the partially stripped paint and grubby interior, the car looked sound and complete and fetched €244,200 on an estimate of €150k-€200k.