Sotheby’s Blind Bid For Three Special Daytonas
It’s 1979, and I’m sitting around a table with a group of Ferrari owners. Notice I did not say with a fellow group of Ferrari owners, as I had recently joined the FCA, and had arrived to the event in a Datsun B210. But there I sat at the Ferrari National at Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin.
I was 6 years away from buying my first Ferrari, but thought I had no better way to accomplish this than joining the Ferrari Club of America.
A kindly gentleman, “Bob from Ohio”, as I recall, asked me if I would like to go for a ride in his car the next morning. His car, a 365 GTB/4. As amazing luck would have it, my first introduction to Road America’s 4.1 miles happened in a Ferrari Daytona. Officially known as the 365 GTB/4, the Daytona nickname was given to this Ferrari by the motoring press in honor of all the wins the car had racked up racing, all at the hands of privateers—the only ones to ever to race the car, because Ferrari didn’t bother.
From 1972 to 1974, the Competizione dominated the GT class at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. In its first year, a group of 365 GTB/4s secured the top five spots in the class. And in 1979, six years after production ended, a 1973 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Competizione finished second overall at the 24 Hours of Daytona. This incredible feat solidified the Competizione’s reputation as one of the greatest cars ever built by Maranello.
Now under sealed bid HERE through the preeminent auction house Sotheby’s, the ultra-exclusive auctioneer brings their global connections together to present three very desirable Daytonas. A Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Berlinetta, a 365 GTB/4 Daytona Spider, and a 365 GTB/4 Daytona Competizione are offered for sale.
BLOCK BELOW
“The Daytona was probably the most pivotal model of the 1970s era” for Ferrari, says Jarrett Rothmeier, Senior Vice President Private Sales, Head of Research and Collections Development for RM Sotheby’s. “It was more or less the final evolution of the great front-engined GT Ferraris that they built.”
