From F1 to the road. The most classic, hackneyed, cliché of supercars, with Ferraris it was much more than a simple slogan: the Reds, especially until the mid-sixties were really cars with which you could go out in the evening and then take them on Sunday on the track (and win). Without inconveniencing His Majesty GTO (which won three World Touring Car Championships between 1962 and 1964, a still unbeaten record in the ratio between victories and number of races done), all Ferraris were like this. Including the 250 SWB that arrived at Le Mans to race the 24 Hours walking on the road…
And it was precisely from a rib of this extraordinary “piece” (as collectors call it today) that one of the most extraordinary Reds ever was born, the 1962 250 GT created by the very young (but already brilliant) Giorgetto Giugiaro when he was almost apprenticed to Bertone. Legend has it that the car was born from a meeting between Enzo Ferrari, when Drake, seeing the Iso Rivolta Grifo parked in the courtyard of the Maranello factory, said to Nuccio: «Bertone, it’s about time you had a car». But it doesn’t matter. What matters is that Bertone managed to get a 250 chassis to build its own car. Only one, literally, because at the time Pininfarina was already a trusted collaborator of Ferrari and a member, among other things, of the board of directors of the Maranello company.
Ferrari then gave him a chassis: the car that emerged was a true masterpiece, a GT with a shark-mouth nose, just like that of Phil Hill and Richie Ginther’s Ferrari 156 Formula One. Large round front headlights, wraparound rear window and a fantastic volume proportion. It immediately became a legend and Bertone found it so beautiful that he couldn’t resist the temptation to officially present it at some car show. It was a triumph.
That car, that beautiful GT, was as we were saying the fruit of Giugiaro’s genius who effectively separated the nose of the car in two and then standardized the shape of the front with a rounded, elongated tail, created with the use of an incredibly curved. A very different car from the famous “250 GT berlinetta short wheelbase” (this is its official name), better known by the nickname SWB (which then means the same thing in English, Short Wheel Base) which instead had a short and sloping tail, large, almost flat rear window and the fineness of the vent for the air outlet on the rear fenders.
Giugiaro, however, had seen the long view. And it is no coincidence that the Ferrari F1, the 156, was so famous and loved by the public (especially after the victory in the world championship) that after the presentation of the 250 GT Bertone many customers – including Arthur Conan Doyle, son of the inventor of Sherlock Holmes – had their 250 SWB transformed with the same nose as Bertone’s car.
A trend was born, which Ferrari, however, did not catch, leaving Giorgetto Giugiaro’s idea only on the unique example of 1962. And this makes the “1962 Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Speciale Coachwork by Bertone”, chassis 3269 GT, this is its official name, a highly sought-after piece, sold at the Pebble Beach auction in 2015 for 16 and a half million dollars.
On the other hand, whether for its extraordinary beauty or for its sensational and spectacular references to F1, this Ferrari was a true queen of the car shows. In fact, it was presented at the Geneva Auto Show in 1962, then at the Turin show of the same year. And again at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, at the International Ferrari Concours, Monterey in California, at the National Concours, Watkins Glen in New York, at the Louis Vuitton Concours d’Elegance in Paris and in many other Motor Shows. In short, the 250 GT Bertone spent more time on the catwalks than on the road. As befits a real model. Sorry, diva.
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