1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Shooting Brake. Photos by Matt Howell, courtesy Gooding & Company.
When real estate developer and builder Bob Gittleman paid a circa-1973 visit to Chinetti-Garthwaite Motors in Paoli, Pennsylvania, shopping for “something different,” Luigi Chinetti, Jr. envisioned just the automobile, one that would blend the performance of a Daytona 365 GTB/4 with the practicality of a small station wagon. Two years later, his 1972 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Shooting Brake was delivered to it first owner, and on Saturday, August 20, the rebodied Ferrari will cross the auction stage in Pebble Beach, California, giving a new buyer the opportunity to park this practical prancing horse in his stable.
Known at Coco to his friends and associates, Luigi Chinetti, Jr. had a passion for shooting brake models and a talent for automotive design. In 1967, Coco was given a green light to design the Chinetti family’s latest car, based upon a Ferrari 330 2+2 as a starting point. Turning to coachbuilder Vignale, Coco supplied sketches to the company’s craftsmen in Turin, Italy, and the resulting one-off creation debuted at the 1968 Turin Motor Show before later appearing in the Chinetti’s driveway.
For Coco’s second attempt at a shooting brake, he turned to artist Gene Garfinkle to transform his sketches into renderings, and relied upon the artisans at Panther Westwinds in Brooklands, Surrey, England to bring his creation to life. The Chinetti family was quite familiar with the quality of work performed by Panther, which at the time was building the retro-styled J72 roadster also imported by Chinetti and sold through his Pennsylvania dealership.
The starting point for the Coco’s latest car would be the 1972 Ferrari Daytona 365 GTB/4, which offered exceptional performance from a four-cam, 4.4-liter V-12 rated at 352 horsepower and 319 pound-feet of torque. Fed by a sextet of Weber 40 DCN 20 carburetors located in the valley between cylinder banks, the engine revved to a then-stratospheric (for a street car) 7,500 RPM and sent its power to the ground via a rear transaxle for optimized weight distribution. In stock form, the run from 0-60 MPH was said to take a tick shy of six-seconds, on the way to a top speed of 173 MPH.
The team at Panther Westwinds reportedly retained (most of) the Daytona’s doors, windshield and A-pillars, fabricating replacement panels out of aluminum. Chinetti’s sloping roofline and Kamm tail design with fixed rear glass was retained, as was his specification for side-opening rear windows to access the cargo area. Up front, the car’s nose is familiar in shape, though different in execution with a longer overhang and a pronounced rectangular grille composed of horizontal bars. The body-width reflector is an unusual touch, one that, perhaps unintentionally, makes the car look wider that it would otherwise appear.
Inside, Panther Westwinds upped the luxury factor, adding highly polished wood trim to the dashboard, door cards and even the cargo bed floor, where it was protected by stainless steel strips. Among the cars more interesting modifications, the instruments were relocated from the conventional position behind the steering wheel to the center stack, a suboptimal location for those concerned with keeping eyes on the road at all times.
Building the 365 GTB/4 shooting brake was a time and labor-intensive process, with the conversion ultimately costing more than the purchase price of the Ferrari. Delivered to Gittleman’s Florida address in early 1976, the car remained under his care, used sparingly, until the early 1980s. After passing through a series of U.S. collectors, the bespoke Ferrari ended up in Belgium in 1999, and was purchased by the consignor in August of 2013.
In need of restoration, the new owner entrusted the car’s mechanical care to a local Ferrari dealer, but called upon the services of former Panther Westwinds employee Andrew McKenzie to consult on its cosmetic refurbishment. Following the work, the Ferrari shooting brake, said to be the only Daytona model modified in such a fashion, debuted at Salon Privé in 2015. Showing less than 4,500 miles on the odometer, the unique 365 GTB/4 model is expected to fetch between $750,000 and $1,000,000 at the Pebble Beach sale.
The Gooding & Company auction will take place at Pebble Beach on Saturday, August 20 and Sunday, August 21. For additional information, visit GoodingCo.com.
See original article at" https://blog.hemmings.com/index.php/2016/08/15/practical-prancing-horse-the-one-of-one-ferrari-365-gtb4-daytona-shooting-brake/
No comments:
Post a Comment