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Diana Varga ©2019 Courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
1954 ferrari 500 Mondial Spyder
by Pinin farina
This is a well-documented car — with some crazy history — but it has little in
the way of competition success
by Steve Ahlgrim
Chassis number: 0448MD
Engine number: 0448MD
SCM Condition for this car: 1-
States, and California was the epicenter. On any given weekend,
the 1950s was the golden era of sports-car racing in the United
hundreds of spectators would come out to watch sports cars go
toe-to-toe on racetracks and airfields.
Dangerous, albeit thrilling at the same time, the grids were made up
of a cast of extraordinary individuals and automobiles.
This car, 500 Mondial 0448MD, was the 12th of 13 Pinin Farina
Spyders built and one of only five built with the unusual “covered-
headlight-style bodywork.
It was sold new to Tony Parravano on November 5, 1954, and soon
thereafter hit the California tracks.
ScM Analysis This car, Lot 148, sold for $4,158,767, including
buyer’s commission, at RM Sotheby’s Villa Erba
auction in Cernobbio, Italy, on May 25, 2019.
Millionaire West Coast contractor flees to Mexico with trailers of
Ferraris and the Internal Revenue Service hot on his heels.
The disappearance of Tony Parravano is one of the most intriguing
stories in the sports-car world. Parravano was an Italian immigrant
who used skills learned as a cement contractor in Chicago to become
a very successful Southern California homebuilder after World War II.
Through a chance meeting with a mechanic named Jack McAfee,
he was introduced to racing. Parravano was soon building a stable of
Ferrari and Maserati race cars.
Parravano was long on cash but short on driving skills, so he
recruited some of the best drivers of the time to pilot his cars. Jack
McAfee along with Ernie McAfee (no relation) and Carroll Shelby are
just a few of the drivers who raced for Parravano.
Famously, Dan Gurney was dismissed after an off-road excursion
during a test damaged one of Parravano’s cars.
The timeline of Parravano’s disappearance is a bit muddy, but some-
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