motor cars

MOTOR CARS | 61

This new Ferrari for the aspiring young businessman with a young family
scored immediate success, both in terms of media reception and public
acclaim and custom. A road test by the French journal ‘Moteurs’ in 1961
saw professional driver/tester Alain Bertaut lap the Montlhéry road circuit
outside Paris in a 250 GTE at an average of 121.786km/h – 75mph – his
best-ever time in a Gran Turismo car. He declared: “The behavior of the
car, under the extreme circumstances imposed while posting a fast lap
of the Montlhéry circuit, was astonishing...”.

This fine example of the 250 GTE – chassis number ‘3429 GT’ – was
the 120th GTE Series II to be built and the 421st of the total of 954
GTEs built overall. It was sold new to its first owner, a Signor Meloin
of Ancona, Italy, in April 1962, and it was first registered on April 27
that year under the Ancona plate ‘AN 45000’. On April 6, 1964, it is
recorded as having been serviced at the Ferrari factory Assistenza
Clienti centre at Viale Trento Trieste, Modena, to factory order No

134. Its factory delivery note that day was No 2665, and its odometer
     reading is recorded as then having been 35,236kms.

In November 1975 it passed to an un-named owner in Rome, and was
locally registered there ‘ROMA B33632’. Official documents surviving
with the car show that it was then sold on November 22, 1967 to
Silvano Sarti of Bologna for Lire 1,400,000. The Carta di Circolazione
per Autovettura also preserved within the associated documentation
file cites Silvano Sarti as the owner as late as August 27, 1975, when
the car was re-registered in Bologna as ‘BO 632649’. The car was
acquired by Fabrizio Violati in the later 1970s, and it has since been
preserved within the exhibition halls he established in San Marino.

As offered here this very well preserved and discreetly handsome

and well-proportioned 250 GTE is largely original – apart most

notably from its re-upholstered black leather seats. Its headlining is

slightly damaged, but the probably genuine odometer reading is only

88,000kms, the car features its original model engine, its chassis

and engine number stampings are matching and the number strikes

are absolutely correct in proper period Ferrari factory fonts. The

engine block Numero Interno is also absolutely correct, as is the car’s

bulkhead data plate, and the three-carburettor Weber assembly.

These four-seat Ferraris were very successful and extremely highly

regarded in period. Today they offer collectors an immensely practical,

useable – and, in classic Ferrari terms, affordable – investment.

We obviously recommend expert technical examination and re-

commissioning before the car is used in earnest, since it has been

on static Museum display for so many years, but this is one of the

finest and most attractive examples of the 250 GTE 2+2 that we

at Bonhams have ever had the pleasure of offering and merits the

closest consideration.

Please note this vehicle is subject to import tax should it remain in

the EU.

£120,000 - 140,000

€150,000 - 180,000