FAST AS....


TALACREST’S 5 BIGGEST SALES


Talacrest owner John Collins gives his rundown of the rarest, and most lucrative, Ferraris to have passed through his hands


FERRARI 250 GTO SERIES 1 The GTO was the final evolution of Ferrari’s 250 series, which began in 1963 and ended when the final GTO was built in 1964. Between 1963 and


1964, just 36 examples of this racing Ferrari were built – and extraordinarily every single one exists today. One Ferrari 250 GTO was sold recently for $70 million in a private sale. Nick Mason, drummer with Pink Floyd, is an enthusiast who owns a Series 1 model.


John Collins


where he covered Eighties icons including Joan Collins during her Dynasty years and the casts of Dallas and Miami Vice. “Not blowing my own trumpet but I was one of the best in the world. They paid me stupid money, six figures a year,” he says. A friend gave Collins a duff share tip and he lost everything


in the 1987 stock market crash. Even worse, he had just turned down a job as editor of National Enquirer which would have paid nearly a million pounds a year in today’s money.


LIGHTBULB MOMENT On his uppers, Collins had to sell his beloved Ferrari to a dealer for £41,000, only to find out it was back on sale the very next day for a whopping £70,000. That was his lightbulb moment. “I thought, if you can do it, I can do it,” he says. In January 1988 he raised £350,000 from friends and used the money to put 10 percent deposits on £3 million worth of cars, telling dealers he would settle the outstanding balance in six months’ time when he came into an inheritance. Amazingly, the dealers played ball.


Ferrari 250 SWB


FERRARI 250 GTO SERIES II Three additional GTOs were built in 1964 with an updates Series II. This even-rarer model of the GTO was tweaked with an updated body with wider fenders, a recessed backlight and flying buttress sail panels. The 3.0-litre V12 engine claims a top speed of 174mph. Radio presenter Chris Evans – a Talacrest customer and Ferrari enthusiast – bought this model for a rumoured £15 million.


330LMB


The 330LMB was created to compete in the famous Le Mans 24-hour endurance race and the model made a brief, one-off appearance at the 1963


event. Just four Ferrari 330 Le Mans Berlinetta (LMB) were ever built. Equipped with a 4.0-litre V12 engine that was found in the 1962 Le Mans-winning 330 TRI, it is both rarer and more technologically advanced than the hallowed GTO. This was at a time when racing cars where changing from having engines at the front to the back, and so this last front-engined racing Ferrari adds to its scarcity value.


250 GT SWB CALIFORNIA SPIDER The SWB stands for “Short Wheel Base” and Ferrari made just 56 examples of what Chris Evans has called “the most beautiful car ever created”. This 1961 model was built with a 3.0-litre V12 engine offering 280 horsepower.


250 SWB SEFAC HOT ROD The Ferrari racing team was called SEFAC in 1961. Its Italian engineers upgraded a handful of is 250 SWB competition cars for the 1961 racing


season, outpacing anything rivals Aston Martin or Jaguar could offer. Only between eight and 20 SEFAC Hot Rods were ever produced. On the track, these cars racked up considerable wins including a first in class at the 1961 LeMans as well as outright victories in the 1961 Targa Florio and RAC Tourist Trophy.


SAVILE ROW STYLE MAGAZINE 57


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