MOTOR CARS | 63The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Berlinetta – better known as the ‘Daytona’
- was introduced by the Maranello marque at the Paris Salon de
l’Automobile exhibition in October, 1968. Deliveries did not then
commence in any quantity until the latter half of 1969, and although
it was the first Ferrari to be built in numbers to meet the new US
Federal Regulations, the European version was marketed first and
US-legal cars were not to become available from the factory until the
middle of 1970.
In his book ‘Ferrari – Forty years on the Road’ (Dalton Watson, 1988)
the American Ferrari authority Stan Nowak wrote: “The Daytona was
another world. It looked the part of the most powerful 2-seater sports
car of its time. It was what an enthusiast felt a real Ferrari should
be. Purposeful, aggressive, demanding and somewhat intimidating.
The Daytona was all of these things and it was a machine that
could not be taken for granted. To get the best out of it took great
concentration and demanded 100 per cent of the driver”. He
continued; “The fact that the air conditioning was inadequate was
really not a sales deterrent; it was adequate up to about 85 degrees
Fahrenheit and 70 per cent humidity. Beyond that you turned it off
and opened the windows – and enjoyed the sound of the glorious
V12 engine. Who needs air conditioning?”.
The Daytona first emerged with fixed headlights protected behind
knife-edged plexiglass farings merged into the wedge-shaped nose
form. The 365 GTB/4’s 4-cam V12-cylinder engine had bore and
stroke dimensions of 81mm x 71mm to displace a full 4390cc, and
with twin-overhead camshafts per cylinder bank, single outside-vee
plug ignition, and a compression of 9.3:1, the engine featured dry-
sump lubrication and breathed through an impressive in-vee parade
of six twin-choke Weber 40DCN 20 carburettors.It provided no less than 352bhp at a raucous 7,500rpm and drove to
a five-speed and reverse transaxle-type gearbox. Cast-alloy 15-inch
diameter road wheels shod the all-independent suspension system,
and while the front-engined Berlinetta received some criticism for its
traditional configuration, French racing driver-cum-journalist Pierre
Dieudonne (for example) put the opposing view in ‘Virage’ magazine.
While admitting that the 365 GTB/4 was “...not as avant-garde as
it could have been if built as an answer to the Miura...it is instead
a synthesis of practicality giving an automobile of the most refined
form”. The American journal ‘Road & Track’ put it more succinctly:
“The fastest, and best, GT is not necessarily the most exotic...”.