The 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa prototype known at Ferrari as “La Bastarda” sits on the auction block at Gooding & Company’s 2011 Pebble Beach auction. Jeff Brinkley
ONLY 34 FERRARI 250 TESTA ROSSA race cars were built, and now they’re among the most valuable cars on the planet.
At one time, though, these old racers were considered almost worthless, especially when you consider the wild, violent story of 0666TR, the prototype for the series.
The 0666TR made its debut at the Nürburgring 1,000 km, coming sixth in qualifying and tenth overall in the race. Later, between September and October 1957, it was stripped of its envelope body and refinished by Scaglietti in the now famous pontoon-fender style.
The 0666TR then raced in the Venezuelan Grand Prix, coming in third overall, before being transported to Argentina for the first race of the 1958 season, the Buenos Aires 1,000 km, where it finished second overall. The Targa Florio was the last race for 0666TR as a Scuderia Ferrari team car, where it was equipped with six Solex twin-choke carburetors. It was in fourth place when it had to leave the race.
In June 1958 the car was sold to Luigi Chinetti and delivered to him at Le Mans to be driven by Dan Gurney and Bruce Kessler. Late into the race, hurdling through the rain, Kessler collided with a privately entered D-type Jaguar. A fire erupted, and the Testa Rossa was out of the race.
Its story was not over, however. The burned car received a fresh pontoon-fender body from Scaglietti. In 1959 Chinetti sold the car to Rod Carveth, a Californian who entered it for the 12 Hours of Sebring, where it did not finish. The car also did not finish the Nürburgring 1,000 km. The car was entered at the 1959 Le Mans race, but it broke down on the Mulsanne straight. At Laguna Seca, Phil Hill drove 0666TR, but it didn’t qualify. In 1962 Carveth sold the car. The car’s new owner was a Buick dealer who used it as his personal street car, and after the original engine finally gave out, it was removed and traded away.
Then the unthinkable occurred. When its owner believed the aging Ferrari was worth more in cash than as a car, he doused the interior in gasoline and set it on fire. The fire—the car’s second—totaled the vehicle beyond repair.
In 1970 Charles Betz and Fred Peters took a flyer on the Testa Rossa. Over the next decade, 0666TR was restored to concours condition and an engine from another Testa Rossa was installed.
The 1957 Ferrari 250 Testa Rossa prototype known at Ferrari as “La Bastarda” sits on the auction block at Gooding & Company’s 2011 Pebble Beach auction. Jeff Brinkley
After the Testa Rossa sold for $16.4 million, it was on display in the Gooding tent at the 2011 Pebble Beach auction. This car was burned, wrecked, and ultimately restored, making it a treasure. Jeff Brinkley
In the late 1980s 0666TR began winning concours. Almost 20 years later in 2002, Betz and Peters sold it to a top collector, who restored it to its original Ferrari Racing Team appearance and specifications, including the reinstallation of the original engine.
The car entered the 2006 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance and won its class. But that wasn’t all—like a phantom racer from the past, the car won more top awards at other venues.
In 2011 the car sold for a stunning, world-record $16.4 million at Gooding & Company’s Pebble Beach auction. This price is still the highest amount ever paid for a motor car at auction.
How did a crashed, twice-burned, and then restored car go from near-junkyard status to the most expensive car ever bought at auction?
The 250 Testa Rossa is Ferrari’s most celebrated sports-racing model, a legend in car collecting circles and one of the most valuable cars in the world.
Introduced in 1957 in anticipation of the upcoming 3-liter limit in the World Sports Car Championship, it stole a march on rivals Jaguar and Maserati, who had been pinning their hopes on “big bangers” such as the D-type and 450S, and achieved success everywhere it raced, from Europe and South America to the all-important SCCA races contested by Ferrari’s wealthy U.S. privateer clients, earning the company healthy profits.
Named Testa Rossa (pronounced “ross-ah,” not “rose-ah,” meaning “redhead”) after its red cam covers, 34 of these cars were built from 1957 until 1962. No two were identical, but works TRs were generally right-hand drive. The early ones were wet-sumped, and the 1958 cars had so-called pontoon-fender bodywork by Scaglietti, which was intended to help cool the front brakes. From 1959 the cars reverted to a full-fender envelope style made by Fantuzzi, as Scaglietti was busy clothing Ferrari GT cars.
From 1959 onward production was devoted to works cars, which featured disc brakes and separate gearboxes with rear differentials. All except the last TR (0808) had 3-liter motors largely derived from the production 250 GT.
Our subject car, 0666TR, is the first of two prototypes, both of which ran as works cars. As with all prototypes, some buyers prefer the recognition of the standard model, and others enjoy owning something different. I exchanged opinions with many experts and fellow TR owners before and after the auction as to the value of this car and its historical significance, and I heard both ends of the spectrum.
“A friend of mine would pay eight to ten million,” said one owner, “as it’s not a standard TR chassis, and I doubt much of the original bodywork survives.” This, of course, was a reference to not one but two fires that the car endured during its early years. The auction catalog mentioned both fires but omitted that in the first incident, the driver of the other car perished. Although the catalog alluded to post-fire photographs, they were not published.
Other TR owners were more upbeat, confiding that they had received approaches north of $20 million for their cars and that the auction estimate seemed reasonable for 0666. It’s a fine example of British understatement to say that on the evening of August 20, 2011—in the middle of a worldwide economic storm—there was widespread interest in the fate that awaited this very high-profile Ferrari under the auctioneer’s gavel.
The 1957 Ferrari Testa Rossa before Gooding & Company’s 2011 Pebble Beach Auction. Gooding & Company
No traces remain of the car’s rough days as a burnt-out, run-down wreck. Gooding & Company
It’s hard to believe that this restored 250 Testa Rossa prototype was once a destitute, unloved car. Gooding & Company
They needn’t have worried. A new collector—just starting out at 73 years old, but his line of business keeps him young—kicked off proceedings with a $10 million bid. Rapid salvos ensued: $11 million, $11.5 million, $11.8 million. At $12.4 million, the auctioneer announced the reserve had been met, and it became a two-horse race between an absentee bidder and a telephone bidder in mostly $100,000 increments. When the mystery phone bidder prevailed, the hammer fell as cheers erupted all around the auction.
I consulted many sources to paint an accurate picture of this car. David Gooding, owner of Gooding & Company, opined that the 250 TR is undervalued compared with its close sister, the 250 GTO—a sentiment echoed by many (most vocally by TR owners who don’t also have a GTO). Given time this will seem a good buy. Gooding believed that 0666’s history was more illustrious than most, and when shown the post-fire photographs, bidders had remarked the damage wasn’t as bad as expected.
I asked the seller, whose collection probably counts as one of the top ten in the world, why he had decided to part with a car in which he had invested so much. “I find my Maserati 300S easier to handle,” he confided. “Plus I’ve just bought a house on Maui!” He also felt that after a restoration costing close to half a million dollars, he was concerned about spoiling the TR in historic racing. Ultimately he’d done pretty much what he wanted to with the car, and it was time to move on.
To get to the bottom of the controversy about the fires, I went to Maranello and met with friends at Ferrari Classiche. “Chassis 0666? Of course we remember it. We called it ‘La Bastarda!’ A very interesting car with two fathers: the front chassis is similar to a 500 TRC, the rear is like a later-works 250 TR, and you can still see all the little modifications that we tried out on it in period, all documented by various memos in our archive.”
Was the chassis replaced after the Le Mans accident? “Definitely not. Only the upper part of the car was damaged. Look, it’s all here on the microfilm, everything.”
Lastly, I consulted a well-known Ferrari historian. How many 250 TRs does he think have their original bodywork? “Perhaps sixty percent, but it’s hard to say, as for years nobody bothered to track such information.” Let’s face it, these bodies were cigarette-paper thin and were intended to last a few race seasons—not decades.
And what, in his opinion, would the very best 250 TR be worth? “That would be one of the Le Mans winners. They almost never come up, so I’d have to say twenty-five million dollars.”
Hard auction results are available, as three Testa Rossas have crossed the block in the past decade. Chassis 0714 TR, a customer car, led a less eventful life but also achieved far less on the track. Chassis 0808 is a Le Mans winner, but it spent years as a coupe before reverting to its original, quirky 1962 body style. Chassis 0738 TR had neither history nor originality on its side. A better comparison would be 0724 TR, a customer pontoon-fender TR with a modest history—it spent 49 ½ years in the same hands until it was sold privately this March for 4,400 times what the seller had paid originally—the price of a new MGA at the time!
This photo shows the classic pontoon styling of this car. Only 34 vehicles of this type were built between 1956 and 1961. Gooding & Company
So let’s bring all those strands together and consider our verdict. Did the new owner of 0666 TR get caught up in the classic Monterey euphoria and overpay, or was this a shrewd investment?
On the one hand, we have a unique factory prototype with a front-line international racing history. The majority of 250 TRs were customer cars destined for weekend outings around airfields serving as SCCA circuits. This one roared around Le Mans, the Targa Florio and the ’Ring, and it was piloted by all-time heroes.
On the other hand, it led a hard life as a race car and later as an old hack. The chassis number 0666 is prophetic, as it’s been to hell and back. Ultimately, though, it’s been cherished for the past 40 years, restored without regard to expense for a highly respected collector whose passion, expertise, and motivation are beyond reproach, and the Ferrari factory has given it their unquestioned blessing.
Auctions are a roll of the dice that not all sellers want to risk, but in this case the gamble paid off. The car was well sold at auction and well bought for posterity.
