For Sale: A 1969 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione Specification

This 1969 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 has been converted to Competizione specification and it has an FIA Historic Technical passport – which allows it to enter many of the most significant classic motorsport events in the world.

Very few Competizione Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytonas were built in-period, they proved highly successful on track, with the model famously winning class victories at the 24 Hours of Le Mans three years in a row.

Fast Facts – The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona “Competizione”

• The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 was introduced in 1968, in some respects it was a direct answer to the Lamborghini Miura. The press nicknamed it the “Daytona” – a reference to the Ferrari 1-2-3 victory in the Daytona 24 Hour Race in 1967.
• The 365 GTB/4 was a replacement for the earlier 275 GTB/4, with both cars powered by the venerable Colombo V12 sending power back through a rear-mounted transaxle for better weight distribution.
• Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina was responsible for the design of the Daytona, it was intended to take Ferrari through the end of the 1960s and into the new decade of the 1970s.
• The official Ferrari Competizione Daytonas were built in three batches of five cars each. Unusually these cars were not raced by the official Scuderia Ferrari team, but by privateer racers who enjoyed significant success on track.

The Ferrari “Daytona” 365 GTB/4

It’s been said that Enzo Ferrari never liked the nickname “Daytona,” a nickname that had been coined by the press and seemingly stuck like glue to his new top-of-the-line V12 GT car. Even today Ferrari themselves rarely use the moniker when talking about the car, unless explaining its origins.

The outlining styling of the Competizione Daytona is characterized by flared wheel arches, a chin spoiler, aerodynamic “fences” atop the front fenders, brake cooling scoops ahead of the rear wheels, plexiglass covers over the headlights, and safety latches on the aluminum hood and trunk lid.

Regardless of what you might call it, the 365 GTB/4 would prove to be a runaway success for the Italian automaker. In the Ferrari tradition of the period the model name actually conveys quite a bit of information about the car, for example the “365” tells you the displacement of each of the 12 cylinders in centiliters.

The “GTB” stands for “Grand Touring Berlinetta,” essentially a luxurious but sporting automobile with a fixed roof. Finally the “/4” simply tells you it’s a quad-cam Colombo V12 with double overhead cams per bank, an upgrade over the earlier SOHC version of the engine.

The 365 GTB/4 was an upgrade over the 275 GTB/4 in every way, though both cars shared a similar architecture with their front-mounted quad-cam V12s which sent power back to their rear-mounted transaxles.

This gave the cars nicely balanced handling, a feature Enzo Ferrari insisted on for his V12s lest some less-experienced new owners wreck their cars and give him a bad reputation. Enzo was famously opposed to the idea of building a mid-engined V12 to compete with the Miura, fearing the additional weight in the rear would result in snap oversteer.

This is the 4.4 liter Tipo 251 Colombo V12 that was converted to Series III Competizione specification and later rebuilt in 2016 by Francorchamps of America in Costa Mesa, California.

That said, he did eventually relent on this. The car that succeeded the Daytona would be the 365 GT4 Berlinetta Boxer, powered by a mid-engined flat-12.

The road-going version of the 365 GTB/4 Daytona was capable of 352+ hp at 7,500 rpm, giving it a top speed of 174 mph and a 0-60 mph time of 5.4 seconds. This top speed was 3 mph more than the Lamborghini Miura – the car that Ferrari wanted to prove their superiority over.

The Daytona remained in production from 1968 until 1973. It would later go on to become a pop culture icon in its own right thanks to the use of a black (replica) Daytona in the hit 1980s TV series Miami Vice.

The Competizione Specification Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Shown Here

The 365 GTB/4 Daytona you see pictured here was originally sold new in Europe before being imported into the United States in 1976.

The car now carries an FIA Historic Technical passport and it has previously taken part in the Monterey Motorsports Reunion, the Classic 12 Hours at Sebring, and the Classic 24 Hour at Daytona.

An American owner undertook a conversion to Competizione specification in the 1980s however the project remained unfinished, and it was bought as a project in 1985 by an owner in the Netherlands. This new owner sent the car off to Piet Roelofs of Roelofs Engineering who completed the car to Series III Competizione specification.

In 2009 the car was bought by Historic Sportscar Racing proprietor George Tuma, and the engine was last rebuilt in 2016 by Francorchamps of America in Costa Mesa, California.

It’s now being offered for sale accompanied by its FIA Historic Technical passport, and it would make a very welcome addition to the grid in a vast array of vintage and classic motorsport events. The car has previously taken part in the Monterey Motorsports Reunion, the Classic 12 Hours at Sebring, and the Classic 24 Hour at Daytona.

If you’d like to read more about this unusual Ferrari or register to bid you can visit the listing here on Bring A Trailer. It’s being sold out of Saint Petersburg, Florida.

Images courtesy of Bring A Trailer

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Bob Bondurant’s ERA GT Is For Sale

Legendary American racing driver Bob Bondurant’s name will be forever linked with the Ford GT40, a car he drove at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1965, helping the team win the International Championship for GT Manufacturers.

The car you see here isn’t an original GT40, it’s a replica built by ERA GT for Bondurant in the same specification and livery of the car he drove at Daytona in 1965. Bondurant’s final race in this car was in 2012 at the Auto Club Raceway Pomona, unsurprisingly he’s said to have won despite being 79 years old.

Fast Facts – Bob Bondurant’s ERA GT

• This is an ERA GT that was built for Bob Bondurant, it was driven by the famed American racing driver a number of times and kept in his private collection.
• Though there have been many replicas of the Ford GT40 made over the years, none have been superior to the ERA GT. It’s a car that was developed to be indistinguishable from the original, despite the fact that it has a stronger chassis, a more heavy duty body, and even optional air-conditioning.
• This particular ERA GT is finished to the specification of the car driven by Bondurant in the 1965 Daytona Continental. This was an important race for the GT40 as it was the model’s first international victory, with GT40s finishing 1st and 3rd.
• ERA GTs often sell for six figure sums when they do come up for sale, such is the esteem in which they are held. This one is likely to attract plenty of additional attention thanks to its influential former owner.

Bob Bondurant

Bob Bondurant was one of the most successful American racing drivers of his era, he also coached a slew of celebrities in the finer points of race car driving including James Garner, Paul Newman, Clint Eastwood, Tim Allen, Tom Cruise, and Nicolas Cage.

This is Bob Bondurant at Riverside Raceway with the Shelby GT350 Mustang prototype for testing in 1965. Image courtesy of the Bondurant Archives.

Bondurant began his racing career as many did in the United States, riding an American built motorcycle around an oval track. By the mid-1950s he was racing on four wheels in a British Morgan before switching to a Corvette and winning the West Coast “B” Production Championship, taking victory in 18 out of 20 races.

Within a few years Bondurant had become one of the most promising drivers on the West Coast, between 1961 and 1963, he won 30 out of 32 races driving Corvettes for Santa Barbara Chevrolet dealer Shelly Washburn.

Racing For Carroll Shelby

This as around the time he caught the attention of Carroll Shelby, who was looking to hire the best drivers he could find for his new Ford Cobra team. Shelby’s faith in Bondurant was quickly justified as he won his first race at the Continental Divide Raceway in Colorado.

When Bob wasn’t using the car on track it was stabled in the Bondurant Museum, where it was seen by countless thousands of visitors over the years.

Over the next few years Bondurant would travel around the world, racing in Europe and the United States, competing in Formula 1, the Targa Florio, the 24 Hours of Le Mans, Spa, the Nurburgring, and helping win the 1965 FIA Manufacturers’ World Championship for Shelby.

In 1966 his life would forever change the he was hired to serve as a technical consultant and driver trainer for the John Frankenheimer film Grand Prix. He trained the film’s lead actor, James Garner, to drive Formula cars in the race sequences.

Bondurant enjoyed this experience and it led to him starting the Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving, over the years that followed he would train a slew of other celebrities, some of whom went on to become championship-winning racing drivers in their own right.

This racing school is still going strong today and you can enroll for training here.

The interior is an almost exact replica of the original, with the exception of the Bob Bondurant signature on the glovebox of course.

Bob Bondurant’s ERA GT

This car become one of Bondurant’s most prized possessions after it was bought for him as a Christmas gift by his wife, you can read the story of this below:

“Bob Bondurant’s wife Pat searched for months and found her husband the best GT40 replica money could buy, a right-hand drive ERA GT40, almost identical to the GT40s he raced for Carroll Shelby back in the 1960s.”

“Bob rubbed his eyes in disbelief when the transporter dropped this car off in the Bondurant’s driveway on Christmas morning. He was finally reunited with his elusive GT40, and wow, did he have fun tracking this car for the next eight years!”

“Bob tracked this car at a Shelby reunion on the Fontana Raceway. Still, more significantly, he won his last race in this very car at Pomona Raceway at the age of 79 and frequently tracked the car at his world-famous Bob Bondurant School of High Performance driving track.” – Bob Bondurant School of High Performance Driving

Power is provided by a highly-tuned, period-correct Ford 289 V8 which sends power to the rear wheels via a ZF five-speed manual transaxle.

The ERA GT uses a bespoke chassis closely based on the design of the original except it’s made from thicker gauge stainless steel to protect it against rusting. The original was made from a lighter gauge mild steel.

The body is made from fiberglass, just like the Ford GT40s, however it’s a slightly thicker lay up that was developed to stand the test of time, with no warping or spider webbing/stress cracking.

Power is provided by a period-correct The 289 cubic inch Ford V8 mated to a ZF five-speed manual transaxle, and as you would expect suspension is independent all around with disc brakes front and back.

Bondurant’s ERA GT40 is now being offered for sale on Bring A Trailer, it has just ~7,000 miles on the odometer and it’s being sold out of Chandler, Arizona. If you’d like to read more about it or cast a bid you can visit the listing here.

Images courtesy of Bring A Trailer

 

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The Bianco S: An Unusual Brazilian Sports Car

The Bianco S is the best-known of the numerous low-volume production cars built Ottorino “Toni” Bianco in the 1970s.

For many years it wasn’t possible or economically feasible to import cars into Brazil due to laws designed to bolster the growth of a local automotive industry. This resulted in many small automakers popping up to build unusual sports cars for the local market.

Fast Facts – The Bianco S

• The Bianco S was first shown to the world at the Sao Paulo International Motor Show in 1976. It’s a low-slung sports car based on the VW Beetle chassis, with a fiberglass body, and some additional steel reinforcement at the sides and front for safety.
• The VW Beetle had become ubiquitous in Brazil thanks to the fact that Volkswagen had established a factory in the country in 1953 to build the Beetle for the local South American market.
• Due to strict Brazilian import restrictions the local sports car scene was essentially starved of cars, this led to the formation of a few small local manufacturers who often used VW Beetle running gear to keep costs down.
• The Bianco S was sold from 1976 until 1979 when the company shut down, at one point almost two dozen a week were being built, with 320 ultimately manufactured.

Ottorino “Toni” Bianco

Bianco had left his native Venice to move to Brazil in the years after WWII seeking opportunity in the fast-growing South American country. It would become his home for the rest of his life, and he would have a significant impact on the country’s formative racing and sports car scenes.

Above Video: This Brazilian short film shows Toni Bianco in his workshop, talking about his remarkable and lengthy history building sports and racing cars in Brazil. The film is in Portuguese however you can turn on closed captions (CC) and auto translate to follow along with what he’s saying.

The first Formula 3 car ever made in Brazil was said to have been designed and built by Toni Bianco, he had earlier designed a number of other open and closed-wheel racing cars in the country.

When he had first immigrated to Brazil as a young man he worked in banks and as a laborer building wooden houses, until he was fatefully employed by a mechanical workshop in the traditional Italian neighborhood of Bela Vista in São Paulo.

This involvement with repairing and rebuilding cars would transform Bianco’s life, and though he didn’t know it at the time he would still be building cars 60 years later.

In the 1970s he founded his own namesake sports car marque, Bianco, to produce a small number of cars on the Beetle platform. The three primary models were the Bianco S, the Bianco 2 Series, and the Bianco Tarpan – of these the Bianco S was produced in the highest numbers.

With only 65 bhp, the 1600cc VW Beetle flat-four isn’t a powerhouse of an engine, but it didn’t stop the Brazilians having fun in their sports cars.

Bianco closed down in 1979 but the company’s founder never tired of building unusual cars, as late as 2018 he was still at it, building his own mid-engined sports car in his garage at the age of 86.

The Bianco S

The Bianco S is a two-door, rear-engined sports car based on the 1600cc Beetle chassis. It keeps the suspension, brakes, engine, steering, and transmission from the VW, coupling it with a new fiberglass body with some additional steel reinforcement at the sides and front for safety.

If those unusual quad headlights look familiar to you it may be because they were sourced from the Volkswagen Variant, and they’re the same headlights used by the Volkswagen SP2 – another locally-built Brazilian sports car.

The interior of the Bianco S is well-appointed by the standards of the day, it has carpeting, laminated safety glass, black vinyl upholstery, and a custom dashboard.

The fit and finish of the Bianco S is good, certainly by the standards of a VW-based sports car in the 1970s. It has twin bucket seats, a carpeted interior with vinyl upholstery, a laminated windscreen, a wood-rimmed steering wheel, and a custom dashboard and upholstery.

With its 65 bhp Beetle engine fitted with twin carburetors and it’s 4-speed manual transmission, the Bianco S is said to be capable of 0 – 62 mph in 17.7 seconds and a top speed of 91 mph (146 km/h).

These aren’t particularly impressive performance figures, however local Brazilian tuning garages have significantly improved the performance of these cars over the years.

At the peak of production it’s said that 20+ were being built each week, a significant number for such a small manufacturer. By the end of production 320 had been made, it’s not known exactly how many have survived but they’re now a popular and collectible car in Brazil, elsewhere in the world they remain largely unknown.

It’s not known how many of these have survived, this car is one of just three known to reside in France.

The 1978 Bianco S Shown Here

The car you see here is a Bianco S from 1978, the penultimate year of manufacturing. It originally belonged to a collector in São Paulo who fortuitously met Toni Bianco at a rally, Bianco was kind enough to sign the car and it retains this signature today.

The car is finished in white and it has a black vinyl interior, this car is fitted with the 1600cc flat-four as you would expect, with the matching four-speed transmission.

It’s now believed to be just one of three examples in France, and it’s due to roll across the auction block with Artcurial at the Le Mans Classic sale on the 2nd of July. The price guide is $36,900 – $47,500 USD and you can visit the listing here.

The styling of the Bianco S proved popular in Brazil, it’s been said that at one point at the peak of the company’s popularity they were making 20 or more of these each week.

Images courtesy of Artcurial — ©Daniel Denis

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