A brief intro, and a big question

My first Ferrari was in 1974, a beat up 275 GTB short nose, in Chicago, so it didn't get much use. I paid $8,500 for it, and sold it for the same price 2 years later. No idea what the VIN was.

When I moved to San Diego in 1976, I looked for another 275 and found a great one, #8603, paying $22,500 for it, and it was in museum condition. I drove the car every day for a few years, and loved it. Sold it for $22,500 after beating that poor car day after day, and driving it at speed up Torrey Pines hill more times than I can count.

That car, #8603 will be auctioned by Sotheby's in a few days, in Monterrey, expecting $2+ million.
https://rmsothebys.com/en/auctions/MO19/Monterey/lots/r0033-1966-Ferrari-275-GTB-by-Scaglietti/777101
Great photos at that link, and the history of the car, mentioning my ownership.

Now the question... In the history of the car, it mentions that the first owner was a "Mr. Cochran of Los Angeles". Could that be the infamous Johnnie Cochran, who defended O.J. Simpson ("If it doesn't fit, you must acquit") ?

Over the years, I've owned a total of 4 different 275 GTBs, including 2 4-cam cars, one short nose, and one long nose (the car being auctioned). Currently my daily driver is a California T, in Pozzi Blue, and I love it.

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Thanks for reading, and hopefully an answer.
Attached is a photo of the car, and me, at Big Sur, in 1977.
I drove that car up and down Highway 1 many times, with a huge smile on my face.

 

Great story thanks for sharing. 8603 was last sold in 2015 for $2.75M all in, so the estimated price range of $2.2M to $2.4M for Monterey shows the market is off a little from 2015. It will be interesting to see what price it realizes next week.

It's also interesting to do the calculation comparing the appreciation of 8603 against the stock market. With dividends reinvested, from 1976 to 2019, if you had placed that $22,500 in the stock market and kept it there you would have $2.12M in your account. About equal to the value of the car today. Of course, you would of had to maintain the car all these years so your net monetary gain owning the car would be significantly lower. However, you'd be so far ahead in the smiles department after ripping thru the gears on Highway 1 for 43 years.

 

You may put it wherever you feel it belongs...

(TWSS)

 

Considering that I was only 35 years old at the time, and would have to wait 42 more years for the car to be worth 2+ million, I almost certainly would have chosen to continue driving the nuts off of it and sell it when it fell apart and I could no longer afford it (which is what I did). It would have cost me a ton of money to restore it and park it, and I was broke at the time. But I sure loved driving that car every day...

 

I bet you loved it, I can't imagine that car as a daily driver. What a treat. It's a bucket list car for me. Right now I have a 71 Daytona that I am enjoying driving on a once a month basis. I could not imagine daily driving it, having to deal with Bay Area traffic and parking the car. The Daytona at low speeds has the handling characteristics of a cement mixer!

 

Welcome, maybe welcome back! I remember your posts from many years ago, I think.

Marcel Massini would be the guy who could answer your question-- hopefully he chimes in here.

 

I always liked the Daytona, bigger - faster for sure, but I heard the stories about how much muscle it takes to get it around, and my upper body strength is good enough for Frisbee but falls way short of man-handling the Daytona. The 275 was just perfect for me, but always wanted to get a Daytona spider.

 

Thanks, donv...
I thought maybe I had visited here, years ago, but couldn't find my ID/profile/etc.

 

FWIW, Cochran just went into private practice when this car was first sold, 1966, so probably not him.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Johnnie_Cochran

....After passing the bar exam in 1963, Cochran took a job in Los Angeles as a deputy city attorney in the criminal division.[11] In 1964, the young Cochran prosecuted one of his first celebrity cases, Lenny Bruce, a comedian who had recently been arrested on obscenity charges.[12] Two years later, Cochran entered private practice. Soon thereafter, he opened his own firm, Cochran, Atkins & Evans, in Los Angeles.[2]......

 

I remembered you because of your stories about your Waco... someday, I'd like to own a Waco myself.

 

Great story and great photo. Welcome back! Looking forward to seeing your Cali T in Blue Pozzi.

 

Busted!
Here it is, on the first day it saw sunlight, just rolled out of the factory in Lansing Michigan.
First time the tires touched grass,
first time the wings felt wind.

This great biplane has a physical presence
a lot like the 275 GTB.
Sometimes it's a coin flip: Sit and just look at it, or go FLY!

This great airplane consumed 7 years of my life
and I wouldn't trade them for anything...

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Notice anything unusual about this car?

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I remember seeing your pic with the 275 Berlinetta a few years ago. I thought it was Peter Fonda or Michael Sarrazin in it.

 

Ah, the stories!
Being Irish, I have a tendency to tell some stories...
Here's a book full of them,
about how I flew that great biplane around Europe during the summer of '97.
The greatest experience of my lifetime!
Available on Amazon at this link: https://amzn.to/31z9HcZ

Talk about falling in love...
I saw the Waco YMF-5 at an air show,
and it hit me like a ton of bricks.
Had to have one.
Ordered one the next day.
I didn't even have a pilot's license!
Learned to fly in that great machine.
Still can't believe I did that...

I guess a lot of people thought I was crazy.
But I was just in love.
Same thing, right?

Get the book: https://amzn.to/31z9HcZ

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I kinda got that Peter Fonda lookalike a couple times.
Never heard that I looked like Michael Sarazen, but I'll take it.
Woulda liked to be Clint Eastwood.

They were good days to be alive: pre-AIDS, birth control, single, nice car.
My only problem was I was flat broke,
selling used cars (Fiat, Saab, Lancia dealer in San Diego)
I'd drive that 275 GTB to work every day, leave it out to bake in the sun.
Seemed to be a plentiful supply of fine looking ladies to come to look at a Fiat 128 (the old models, 1978 era)
and many of them liked the idea of a drive up the coast highway to Big Sur...
if it was presented to them in the right way...

Hard to believe it was 42 years ago.

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Sounds like life was great being flat broke ha!!!

 

I hear Marcel Massini is quite the expert on these cars, so it would be good to know more.
Here's a photo of my first Ferrari, a short nose 275 GTB. The year was 1974, Winnetka, IL.
I paid $8,500 for it, sold it two years later for the same price.
It smoke like it was on fire, and the paint was rough,
but when I saw that front end, I was a gonner. Had to own it.

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After I sold the Rosso Rubino 275, (profile photo)
I entered the dark years of no Ferrari
while I built one company that didn't work out,
then built another that did, finally.

When I sold my software company (TeleMagic, the first CRM software product)
I got this 275 GTB/4
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and put some velocity stacks on it:
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I swear it could make a grown man cry to hear the sounds
that car would make while blasting through the mountains
east of San Diego.

About that time I figured I'd like to go vintage racing
in something a little less expensive, so I picked up
this Scaglietti Corvette:
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It's now in the Petersen Museum in LA.
It was not at all suitable for racing.
Drove like a truck.
But it had some eye-appeal, for sure,
and I had it on the lawn at Pebble Beach in '98, I think.
Sergio Scaglietti himself autographed under the hood,
as did Carroll Shelby...

I was a bit flush with some disposable cash at the time,
and an insatiable need for speed,
so I added this brute 1996 Viper GTS to my stable:
(shown with the biplane at the polo field fly-in Del Mar.
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In 2000 I got this brand new 550 Maranello, my first factory order:
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with this outrageous bordello red interior:
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I was hoping to use the 550 as a daily driver, but it was absolutely no good for that,
so I sold it after a year, back to the dealer in Newport Beach.
And waited until Ferrari would build something that could be driven every day.

It was about 17 years of waiting, now now it's here:
2017 California T, Blue Pozzi with Sterling blue interior.
Got it used with 1700 miles on it, from Ferrari Long Island:
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Got it inspected at the San Diego dealership,
and the next day headed out for a 12 day road trip,
back up the coast highway to San Francisco,
the east to the mountain roads into Tahoe and back down 395 to home.
It ran flawlessly.
It's a keeper.

Except for those yellow splotches.
After living with them for almost 2 years,
I de-badged it:
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In my golden years (now 77),
I'm a lot more low profile than I was.
But I still blast up Torrey Pines hill when I get the itch.
It's only a mile from where I live...

 

Well, ya just gotta make do with what you have...



Keeping a positive attitude was easy when you're driving that great car,
even if the tires are bald, the paint is shot, and there's a ding in the nose.
But, damn, that baby could sing when all 12 cylinders were screaming...

 

Curious, how did you get that biplane to Europe? Did you fly that thing across the North Atlantic?

 

Plucked the wings off it (gently).
Stuck the mess in a 40' container.
Shipped it out the St. Lawrence Seaway to La Havre,
trucked it to Paris,
put it back together...
Voila!!

 

i love threads like this

 

Nice thread/story!

Here's a link to the thread on the Scaglietti Corvette's which you may enjoy, your old car is in some of the pictures.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/1959-scaglietti-corvette.472622/