Page 27 - Demo

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Classic, Goodwood, Tour Auto, and the Mille
Miglia, as well as the more relaxed tours, such
as the Colorado Grand and the California Mille.
ScM Analysis This car, Lot 147, sold for
$1,237,500, including buy-
er’s premium, at RM’s Amelia Island auction in
Florida on March 19, 2013.
I’ve often thought about writing the book
™Ferrari Race Cars for Dummies. My reason-
ing is that in doing the research for the book, I
might finally be able to make some sense of the
dizzying array of early Ferrari race cars. I’m
35 years into the Ferrari hobby, and I still get
confused by Ferrari race cars — particularly
the early ones.
It’s not that there are so many models, it’s
that there’s so much variation in the models.
Just when you’ve got them figured out, you come
across a variation that sends you back to the
drawing board.
it all makes sense — up to a point
Say you know a little about the road cars and
have figured out that early Ferrari model types are identified by their engine size. The
type tells you the displacement of one cylinder. Multiply that number by the number of
cylinders and the product tells you the size of the engine. So, a model 166 would have
roughly a 2-liter engine (166 x 12 = 1992 cc).
When you have the displacement formula handled, it’s logical that the engine size
grew with time. The larger the type number, the newer the car. A 212 is a later car than
a 166, so a 195 must fit in between. All is good — until you discover a 340 America and
realize that it was built in the same time period as a 212.
The 340s featured an Aurelio Lampredi engine that was larger in size and different
in design than the usual Colombo engines. This is the exact point when you begin to
appreciate that Ferrari race cars are a different breed from the street cars.
Race Ferraris have 4-, 6-, 8- and 12-cylinder engines. They can be supercharged or
normally aspirated — and a diverse assortment of body builders put the skins on these
cars, so you will never be able to identify all the Ferrari race cars by sight.
A true ferrari racer
SCM scribe Thor Thorson likes to separate race cars
into weapons-grade and recreational-grade. Ferrari
handles that task for us by assigning even chassis num-
bers to the cars they feel are real competition cars and
putting odd numbers on their street cars. The 225 Sports
were true even-number competition cars designed to be
formidable competitors against the best the world had
to offer. Their claim to fame was that they were the first
Colombo-engine cars to use roller cam followers.
A total of 27 Ferraris were entered into the 1952 Mille
Miglia. Seven of them were the new 225 S cars. In the
end, the winner was an experimental 250 GT. The result
tells the story of the 225s. They were an interim model
that came between the 212s and the 250s.
Few were built, as they were only a marginal advance
from the 212s. It appears that they all carry Vignale or
Touring bodies, with no two exactly the same. They had
a good competition history, but they also tend to be a
footnote — rather than a cornerstone — of the Ferrari
legend.
About that missing engine…
225 Sport 0168ED has an admirable history with
good documentation and an impressive 2nd-place finish
at Sebring. Unfortunately, it does not have its original
engine, which will stop it from being Ferrari Classiche-
certified — and could kill its chances of being accepted
to the Millie Miglia or invited to the top international
shows.
SCM’s Platinum Database noted 10 225 S transac-
tions, and this one looked to be right in line. The reserve
was about $1m, and there were two bidders at that num-
ber. The winning bid came from a Swiss agent on behalf
of a client.
In the crazy world of the recent high-end Ferrari mar-
ket, this was a pretty sane transaction. The seller had
bought the car for $880,000 at Gooding & Company’s
Pebble Beach auction in 2011. Since then he did a good
job of making it better. He certainly didn’t make any
money on the car, but he didn’t lose much either. If the
buyer can negotiate a deal that puts the right engine in
the car, I’d say he hit a home run.
If not, he still has a great Ferrari race car. ♦
(Introductory description courtesy of RM Auctions.)
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