250P #0816 won both 1963 and 1964 Le Mans.

My friends at RM were also surprised by the uncovered new information. While they tend to believe it, they admit it has turned the Ferrari sports racer world upside down. They also agree it is puzzling that Bardinon never had access to these records, as he was as close as you could get to the factory in the 1960s and 70s.

 

Factory has since organized its documents, they do not help much if they are stored in a card board box in the cellar...

 

The confusion about this car reminds me of the Ford GT40 targa (red with no. 1 in roundel) I saw in Monterey at the races in August. The mechanic I questioned told me it was cut in parts as Customs required but was not buried as per legend whereas a mechanic (now deceased) from Shelby's team told me he was there when they buried it. When the last mechanic who worked on the car and remembers the nick he put in the chassis when welding, etc. has died there will be nobody who can tell if it is a replica, until of course the real one is dug up. That is the devil we face, when all the people who worked on the car originally are gone, then we have no eyewitnesses....

 

Continuous provenance would be one step, metallurgical testing another, to be accepted as legit while the old bell curve would tell us to believe anything logical and disbelieve anything unlikely. In this case the most likely option is it was scrapped and the car you saw was a bitsa, possibly built with original parts but who knows. Just look at Jims #0846 for the general story of how the world stands on cars that have a huge gaping hole in their history and/or a lack of verifiable components. In this case the Ferrari works knew the car well and simply hadn't bothered to check records until someone paid them to do so.

 

So very annoying when people refer to Glickenhaus's fake as #0846.

 

Ferrari knew the car well but Bardinon hadn't check and pay? Wonderful stories but let's see first those very records before naïvly support the pending sale and influence history.

 

Because Bardinon had no need to check anything. He knew he owned a Le Mans winner and his contacts with the Ferrari factory were in the 1960s and 1970s. Ferrari established Classiche in the mid 2000s and suddenly realised their history was worth $$$$ so a different culture was in place to deal with these old cars and make money off of them. DWR46 nailed it in his post #51 in this thread, I suggest a further reading of that. As for the records, the new owner might decide to commission a book or get some press about his/her acquisition but otherwise there is not a hope in hell that we will know just what evidence they uncovered.

 

It's not surprising to me at all that he never bothered to check, as Bardinon was the rare kind of collector who has an appreciation for the car as it is, and not for what it represented monetarily. he wanted a 250P and he got a 250P, the best he could get, which incidentally was the best there ever was. Let's remember the car would not even be for sale were he not dead.

 

I fully agree. Bardinon was a wonderful collector caring about cars and not values. Collectors which really love the objects usually get them and 0816 is an exceptional piece of history. But to understand the sensation I would certainly prefer to see the 'new records' than reading comments based on the seller's text.

 

Pierre was, at one time, dedicated in trying to get obtain ALL Ferrari Le Mans winners...He did get the vast majority, but stopped when became apparent that it just couldn't be done. His car-0816-was shopped around (quietly) prior to his buying in the mid to late 1970s...I still have a picture of it partially assembled in an old box of pics somewhere...His interest in 0816-as was told me-and to the contrary above post, was ALL about the history of this car...

As for all of this hulla ballooo, be careful about passing judgement-on ANY of these 3 P-Cars- until ALL the facts are in: I'm betting most posters have no idea where they found these "lost, recently discovered" records....its all going to come out, of this I AM certain....

 

I stand corrected, then.

 

Bingo and amen!

 

I can guess that a 275P, (or 330, and 365) would be absolutely fantastic to drive on the road. Being the "aperta" open roof version, it won't have the cockpit heat retention problems of the 250LM which are often said to make it very challenging. It's also quite a bit lighter than a 250LM so will be faster and have more more dynamic handling.

Many "wives/partners" would love being driven in a Le Mans winning P car, or any P car. Having been for a long drive in a famous Works Le Mans Podium finishing D Type Jaguar very recently, which was absolutely fantastic I can tell you, there is such a terrific and unequalled "sense of occasion" about a drive in such an important singular purpose open racing car. You get 100% of the sensations of speed, wind and engine music which is comparatively numbed in a closed car. Many women would love it and enjoy the dressing up and wearing the goggles and helmet etc. Just think how many women enjoy riding pillion on motor bikes. Much more than men.

 

All fair enough but.....
Other than Jim G, who famously drives all his cars on the road, I am not aware of any Sports racing cars other than the 250LM which are ever driven on the road. As for the 250LM, I can do no better than to quote Bira who owned two and his comments (along with Marcels) were that the 250GTO & 250 Testa Rossa was the last truly roadable Ferrari's that could be driven to the track, raced and driven home (in relative comfort), Bira especially criticised the 250LM/P series because the footwell was only big enough for one set of feet so two up was difficult and I recall a funny quote that having an Asian wife with very short legs was essential. Having spent a lot of time studying the 1960s sportscar racing series I believe there are plenty of factors that made the post 1962 cars much faster but less usable, among these were (1) these cars were only used on roads once per year at the Targa Florio and otherwise only used on tracks, (2) those tracks were then being sealed with proper modern seal which allowed better tyre technology, (3) this tyre technology was coming along in leaps and bounds, (4) the shift to rear engined cars and better tyre technology also heralded trick suspension and set up that was specialised for track use, (5) the rear engined sportscars became effectively single seaters to allow for a much slimmer nose with much wider wheel wells to allow wider front tyres.

Returning to my central point, Bonhams sold the best W196 Silver Arrows for $29 million (Fangio won three GP in it and it was the only one in private hands) back in 2012 when the equivalent 300SLR/W196S sportscars would have been worth going on double that amount. Similar point here, ordinary 250TR pontoon fenders are $35 - 50 million and the 1958 Le Mans winning 250 Testa Rossa #0728TR would have to be $60 - 70 million, maybe more. That extra is because a 250 Testa Rossa is the sweet spot of usable versus pace.

Just my 2 cents.

 

While I have nothing to add about the history I can add a not-so-great picture of what I saw yesterday at the Simeon Museum. The description plaque states 0814. Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Did the plaque state it as the 1963 Le Mans winner?

 

Yes. It said it won LeMan in 1963.

 

Thanks. I wonder if then there is a dispute between Chinetti and Ferrari over their attribution of the '63 win to 0816?

 

Steve, #0812 & #0814 have already been the subject of a lengthy court case where Ferrari tried to stop their restoration (in Italy) due to Ferrari deciding they were replica's, they certainly were rebuilt with little of the original car remaining, so would the Chinetti family really want to "poke the bear" once more? One would consider that even if #0814 was the '63 Le Mans winner, its post Le Mans history makes it somewhere between real and fake, perhaps a recreation might be best so like Bentley Old Number One or Jaguar D-Type #XKD505, all are said to be Le Mans winners but contain very little that actually raced there. At least the majority of #0816 can trace its history back to Le Mans '64.

 

Notice the same wrong nose as on #0812.

 

0816's value and asking price seems to have doubled since the '63 LM win revelation. If 0814 is currently in the Simeone Museum with a plaque still claiming it to be the '63 LM winner then that may indicate that Luigi Chinetti Jnr disputes the claim which attaches a story to 0816's claim to be the only Ferrari to have won Le Mans twice, even if it did so. Should Chinetti legally challenge the claim against Ferrari, and win, as he did with the 2 previous cases, then the value of 0816 reverts to its previous level. In that case would RM Sotheby's/Bardinon family refund the difference in value? Good luck with that.

 

The Simeone collection is run by Fred and he is one of the leaders of the originality movement and as perhaps appropriate for a neuro surgeon one of the campaigners for absolute transparency in historical knowledge, he even wrote a book on the subject. https://www.amazon.com/Stewardship-Historically-Important-Automobiles/dp/0988273306
That said his cars are all covered on the Simeone Foundations website in great details https://www.simeonemuseum.org/the-collection
This only covers the Simeone Foundations cars, not those on semi permanent display such as those from the Chinetti collection or 250GTO #3387GT will general have minimal detail about their history on any sort of place card.
As for the value, I still wonder if there is more to the winning Le Mans twice story, I certainly don't think its settled that #0816 won Le Mans in 1963 and 1964 but even if it only won in 1964 its worth what Marcel originally said back in February maybe $35 - 40 million.
I personally wouldn't pay over those odds for it as a double Le Mans winner unless RM could supply me with sufficient evidence from Ferrari Classiche that really does prove the accepted history was incorrect.
Just my 2 cents

 

It's sort of ridiculous that they don't just come out with it and show the conclusive evidence from Ferrari for all to see. It would put this whole thing to rest, and there's no real reason why it shouldn't be public record.

I know they will probably not do it, I just think it's stupid....

 

Bentley Old No 1 was found to have a continuous history, and that makes a huge difference to its claim and that of every other classic car endeavouring to ever establish a provenance. Old No 1 evolved and changed but was never lost from view. XKD 505, after being used as the factory test car in the late 50s, was used to partly build up the very real XKD 601. Nothing deemed to be XKD 505 was ever given a bill of sale by the factory and it was effectively broken up. Somehow, some twenty years later in the 80s, the ‘original’ 505 frame was removed from another proper ex works Long Nose, XKD 504, and a completely new car was built around it, albeit with many authentic and original parts, but with no claim to those parts being 505. The car was described in the Coys auction as a ‘superb evocation’ of an incredibly important Jaguar, words that apparently took two teams of lawyers to work out, but it is in fairness not claimed to be the Le Mans winner by its owner, though this mistake is propagated by press and commentators alike when it does appear. So no, what is currently described as 505 is not the Le Mans winner. Only 2 of those 3 D types now exist, the Louwmans Long Nose Ex- works and Ecurie Ecosse 1957 winner, XKD 606, and the car sold by RM, the short nose Ecurie Ecosse 1956 winning car, XKD 501.

 

Hi Clive, I have the classic Andrew Whyte books on the Jaguars and pictures showed the only part that used in the 1980s restoration was the front sub frame which hardly constitutes an original car. Ds have the front and rear subframes and central monococque plus the bodywork and engine. I will see if I can scan or find the picture of the happy owner holding what remained of XKD505 but pleased to hear that the current owner isn't claiming it to be something its not.