250 GTO liveries by serial number

There's at least ten more books about 250 GTOs. Suggest to start with Jess G. Pourret's 250 GT Competition book (even if it dates from 1975!).

Marcel Massini

 

The Bluemel/ Pourret book gives you excellent coverage for the money including a full set of contemporary race entries and potted histories as known in 1998 and it is much cheaper than the other titles listed. Doug Nyes GTO/64 found that as usual Ferrari did swap chassis numbers around and Nye is one of the greatest automobile writers and researchers of all time so you can bet it gets very very deep but it is 280 quid so pretty damn expensive although if you want every single detail of #5571gt, 5573gt and 5575gt go for it. I have The Great Cars book on the Alfa Monza and it does go into incredible detail on #2211130 but has maybe less than ten pages on general Monza details and AFAIK all of the series books are created this way so only get if you want the last word on #4153gt. Meanwhile Jess Pourrets 250GT book is decades out of date BUT is still a gold standard publication about these cars and a good read. Overall I can only repeat my recommendation of Bluemel/ Pourret and copies can be found for as little as $35USD...... Hopefully others have read the Page and Prestige books......
Btw, excellent reviews of a wide range of motoring books including Doug Nyes 250GTO/64 book are available here - https://speedreaders.info/24345-gto-64-the-story-of-ferraris-250gto-64/

 

Which of the '64 250 GTOs were chassis number swapped then?

 

According to the Doug Nye sales pitch -

• resolving the minor but niggling long-standing discrepancies between recorded competition results and photographic evidence; also untangle mix-ups between #5573 and 5575

At first you think how can a NART entry (#5571GT), a Scuderia Ferrari entry (#5573GT) and a Ecurie Francorchamps (#5575GT) entry get mixed up but 5573GT and 5575GT ran at the SAME five 1964 races in Europe (Spa 500km, Nurburgring 1000km, Le Mans 24, Reims 12 and Paris 1000km) (#5571GT only ran Le Mans and Reims in Europe) and I wouldn't bet against Ferrari preparing the two/three GTO/64s and sending them to the tracks where the team appears and runs the race weekend. In which case it would be easy for the works to simply give one to another team and vice versa. Perhaps I am wrong but at no other point in their history until 2014 were they even on the same continent for any significant length of time.

 

Jacques Swaters would have painted it yellow for the Belgian racing color.

 

Many thanks Anton for the great work---looking forward to a poster of the 4757 GT liveries!

 

There was no 'swap' of chassis numbers. Doug simply revealed a long standing belief that 5573 ran at Sebring in 1964 (as car #31) was incorrect. Factory records confirmed car #31 was in fact 5575, something not previously known. This miss-identification was likely the result of a honest error by whoever tabulated the race results (just a single digit would do it), and the record was then copied and re-copied in all ensuing race record compilations. So to be clear, there was never a chassis swap on this or any other GTO, just a record keeping error corrected after 50+ years. The same publication also revealed for the first time the correct identity of GTO #11 at Nassau in 1964. Long believed to be 5571, Doug determined it to be 5573 as evidenced by its unique roofline seam (along with several other clear physical traits). The fact that 5571 had been sold to a private owner in California several months earlier went unnoticed by every previous publication.

 

250 GTOs 3527 GT and 3809 GT were chassis number swapped.

 

A GTO raced in Pensacola, Florida in 1963? You're kidding me. I remember seeing a Porsche 904 parked under a tree, but no GTOs.

 

Unbelievable!

https://www.racingsportscars.com/race/Pensacola-1963-05-26g.html

 

if one day you do the other sides of the cars ,the car had a flag on the nose of the car for long I though it was an Italian flag until I saw color pictures it was a Belgian flag .

 

Thanks Anton--great stuff.

 

You may want to double check the date of the Parma-Poggio di Berceto HC (Fornovo-Monte Cassio).
Also the date of the FOC UK HC at Prescott.

Marcel Massini

 

Ferrari history is filled with similar mix-ups and a thorough clensing would be necessary. Inability to live with uncertainty is a human weakness, and therefore a serial number have been invented for many many entries were the "historian" responsible really didn't have a clue. In the end nobody seems to care.

 

Great!