motor cars

MOTOR CARS | 57

Ferrari production passed a most significant milestone in 1954 with
the launch of the 3-litre V12-engined 250 GT series. Between 1949
and 1954 no more than 200 touring Ferraris had been manufactured.
Thirty-five of those had been constructed in 1954 alone. In parallel,
during the same period, about 250 competition and sports Ferraris
had been completed – with around 55 of those leaving the Maranello
factory during 1954. Yet by 1964, at the end of the 250 GTs’ career,
annual production for Ferrari was around the 670 mark, and the 250
GT family of designs had been the driving force behind this twenty-
fold explosion in Maranello’s productive activity.

This particular 250 GT Pinin Farina Coupé dates from 1959. While
the early 250 GT Coupés had been bodied by Boano and Ellena,
it was into the winter of 1957-58 that Ferrari’s favoured production
partner, Pinin Farina of Turin, submitted proposals for a new-style
model. Despite the overall length of the Pinin Farina proposal being
some 6cm – 2.36-inches – shorter than that of the Boano/Ellena-
bodied Coupés, the Torinese styling house’s designers achieved a
longer, more sleek appearance by the simple expedient of lowering
their proposed car body’s waistline and increasing the glass area of
the ‘greenhouse’ cabin superstructure. This roof section was itself
little changed from Ezio Ellena’s preceding model treatment, with a
generous wrap-round rear window.

A second pre-production prototype of this Pinin Farina Coupé design

was then launched at a press conference held in Milan on June 25,

1958, and production of the new ‘PF Coupé’ began even before

the opening of the Paris Salon de l’Automobile exhibition in which

the car was shown during October, 1958. Body manufacture was

launched in the Pinin Farina company’s then brand-new works at

Grugliasco and it was around that same time that the great Torinese

styling house changed its name and brand from ‘Pinin Farina’ to

‘Pininfarina’.

At the Paris Salon the French importer Cattaneo & Cie exhibited three

Ferraris fresh from the new Grugliasco works – the 410 Superamerica,

a 250 GT Cabriolet and the 250 GT Coupé. The example of the latter

was finished in metallic dark-grey with black upperworks. At the

following London Motor Show a right-hand-drive version of the new

Pininfarina Coupé was launched by World Champion Driver-in-waiting

Mike Hawthorn, whose family business – the TT Garage in Farnham,

Surrey - was billed as the British Ferrari agent.

In November it was the turn of Italy’s national Motor Show at Turin, at

which a 250 GT Coupé in metallic grey was displayed by Ferrari, and

a special-order 250 GT Coupé variant by Pininfarina themselves.