Beschreibung:

* 4.4-liter Competition spec. V-12 * Five-speed manual gearbox * One of four Michelotti Daytona Speciales made * Prepared by NART for Le Mans in 1975 * Finished in period race livery * Successfully raced at Le Mans Classic & Tour Auto * Eligible for a wide range of historic events Ferrari history is studded with a number of one-off custom-made cars assembled in defining form by or for wealthy and well-connected clients. In each case they had simply developed an individual taste for what they required to make an already special car – a great Ferrari – entirely unique. It was often the legendary Italian marque's primary American importer, Luigi Chinetti Sr – Mr Ferrari's old friend and sparring partner, and the first driver to win the Le Mans 24-Hour race no fewer than three times - who had the contacts and the know-how to bring these bespoke Ferrari ambitions to fruition. Here we offer this unique, highly individual, and entirely distinctive custom-converted Ferrari 365GTB/4 which was re-bodied from its standard production form – as shared with so many other standard Ferrari 365GTB/4s – by the celebrated Italian coachwork company of Michelotti. Three Michelotti 'one-off' Ferraris were constructed for Mr Chinetti's North American Racing Team concern – NART - in 1974, 1975 and 1980. The first, in 1974, was a soft-top convertible destined for actor Steve McQueen which was displayed at that year's Salone dell'Automobili at Turin – the Turin Show. It featured a Targa-type roll-over bar, subtly cut-down doors, a dark-toned front bumper and pop-up headlamps to maintain its long, low hood line. The third Michelotti NART Ferrari Spider design – to which two cars were produced in 1980 – was a more restrained and sober concept, while the unique Ferrari now offered here is the second of this Michelotti-NART design trio, produced in 1975 to the order of Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team and intended essentially to compete in the Le Mans 24-Hours race, ten years after NART had secured Ferrari's last outright win in the great race, with the Ferrari 275LM co-driven by Masten Gregory and Jochen Rindt in 1965... NART had been commissioned by American Ferrari enthusiast Dan Ward, who was a wealthy client of Chinetti's American importership, and Mr Chinetti had taken it straight to his friend Giovanni Michelotti, in Orbassano, Turin, Italy. The Studio Tecnico Carrozzerie Giovanni Michelotti, had been established there in 1951. Giovanni Michelotti himself had been born in Turin thirty years earlier - in 1921. He had begun work aged only 16 at the coachbuilding company of Stabilimenti Farina. Postwar, in 1949 he began producing styling designs as a freelance working for several of the most prominent Italian carrozzeriere. He worked most especially for Carrozzeria Alfredo Vignale, and consequently the considerable number of now highly-prized early-1950s Vignale-bodied Ferraris actually wear Michelotti-styled bodywork. He also worked as a consultant stylist for Allemano, Ghia and Bertone, while his most prolific work would be for the British company of Standard-Triumph, for whom he styled the Herald, Spitfire, GT6, TR4, 2000, 1300, Dolomite and the ingenious 'Targa bar' Stag 2-plus-2. Giovanni Michelotti was also responsible for the BMW car series which embraced the little 700 followed by the Munich company's outstanding 'New Car' line culminating in their highly successful, and startlingly stylish, BMW 2002 sedan. Giovanni Michelotti went on to become one of the first of the great Italian stylists to provide designs to the emergent Japanese motor industry. From 1960 his company diversified into design work for a diverse range of alternative products, its talents being exercised upon everything from motor scooters to motor yachts, and even upon what the Italians engagingly describe as "elettrodomestici" – electric domestic machines. But this startlingly aggressive and potent road-racing Ferrari 365GTB/4 variant with unique bespoke Michelotti