Weekly Motor Fix: Pebble Beach’s record-breaking 1964 Ferrari 250 LM

18 August, 2015

 

Ferrari’s 250 LM — powered by a mid-mounted, 3.3-litre V12 — was originally developed for GT racing, but was forced to compete as a sports prototype instead. Ferrari reckoned that the 250 LM was simply a ‘development’ of the existing 250-series cars, but motorsport authorities thought differently. Only 32 examples of this iconic sports racer were ever built — one of which was raced in New Zealand by Andy Buchanan during the ’60s.

Back in 1964, you could pick up a brand new 250 LM for around $32,000. But if you want to purchase one today, you’d need to have won Lotto at least a couple of times. It’s safe to say that 250 LMs don’t come up for sale very often, which made it very interesting when this ’64 example was present at the famous August 15–16 Pebble Beach auction.

With a body by Scaglietti, it went on to be the star of the event. As the actual display car from the 1966 Earls Court Motor Show, this 250 LM has never been damaged, despite being regularly campaigned throughout its life. At auction it managed to fetch an eye-watering US$17.6 million, or NZ$25.4 million, at the final fall of the auctioneer’s hammer.

Cheaper options at the same sale included a McLaren F1, which sold for NZ$20 million, while a Ferrari Enzo, originally built as a gift for Pope John Paul II, was a relative bargain — priced at a mere NZ$9.2 million.

Better get onto opening that KiwiSaver account!

Design accord

You can’t get much more of an art deco car than a Cord — so much so that new owners, Paul McCarthy and his wife, Sarah Selwood, went ahead and took their Beverly 812 to Napier’s Art Deco Festival this year, even though the festival itself had been cancelled.
“We took delivery of the vehicle 12 days before heading off to Napier. We still drove it all around at the festival,” says Paul.
The utterly distinctive chrome grille wrapping around the Cord’s famous coffin-shaped nose, and the pure, clean lines of the front wing wheel arches, thanks to its retractable headlamps, are the essence of deco. This model, the Beverly, has the finishing touch of the bustle boot that is missing from the Westchester saloon.

Motorman: When New Zealand built the Model T Ford

History has a way of surrounding us, hidden in plain sight. I was one of a group who had been working for years in an editorial office in Augustus Terrace in the Auckland city fringe suburb of Parnell who had no idea that motoring history had been made right around the corner. Our premises actually backed onto a century-old brick building in adjacent Fox Street that had seen the wonder of the age, brand-new Model T Fords, rolling out the front door seven decades earlier.
Today, the building is an award-winning two-level office building, comprehensively refurbished in 2012. Happily, 6 Fox Street honours its one time claim to motoring fame. Next door are eight upmarket loft apartments, also on the site where the Fords were completed. Elsewhere, at 89 Courtenay Place, Wellington, and Sophia Street, Timaru, semi-knocked-down Model Ts were also being put together, completing a motor vehicle that would later become known as the Car of the Century.