World's ugliest early ferrari?

And here is the best part. If I am correct this body was built for a certain Mike Hawthorn. tongascrew

 

Shocking.

Mind you some of the Zagatos were just as ugly

 

Correct,that car is in Sydney,for sale at Classic Throttle Shop,for a reputed several million dollars.
IanB may know exactly the ask.
It is now a barchetta in red.

 

I don't know about generally, but for this particular car, an emphatic yes. Usually I can find some aspect of an ugly car that I like, but here I got nothing. At first I thought that it might look better if you took away the two-tone paint, but then I realized that would just make it take slightly longer to reach the same conclusion.

 

Car just seems very confused. Lots of American styling cues of the time mixed with a bit of Brit and Italian lines as an after thought.

I'd still drive it though. So different and weird that's it's kinda cool b

 

Would be fascinating to get in the wayback machine and talk to the designer, and the client.
What might they have been thinking?
Need to be more "elegant"?
Not so "sporting"?
As noted re Bentley; trying to be discreet?.......the 2-tone kills that idea....
Interesting weight distribution?
Although, if viewed in the context of other British designs of the period...............naaaahh.


Ironic twist: is this finally the case where we all agree that a "replica" body is OK? That'll go down hard........;-)

 

here it is today

Classic Throttle Shop - 1951 Ferrari 212 Barchetta

 

Am I alone in feeling sad that the original Abbott body has gone ?

It may be ugly but it was unique. Hawthorne already had a 212 and 250 coupe and he clearly was looking for something different !

Hawthorn lived in the small town of Farnham and ran a garage with his father Leslie there. Abbotts were also in Farnham which explains why Hawthorn took the running chassis to a coachbuilder that was best known for converting Ford Zodiacs into estate cars. Edward Abbott trained at Wolesley Motors so it is not a surprise the car ended up looking as it did.

K

 

always thought this was a very ugly beast one would have hoped with it's bloodlines it would be something special, sadly it's just 'specially ugly saw it in person some years ago in Monterey at an auction-thought it smelled a bit like a fake. You know how sometimes a car doesn't look so hot in pictures and when you wee it in person you think "well, that's not so bad" well that isn't the case with this mess, it was bad. Bad enough that it immediately came to mind when I saw the title of this post.

Do I win a prize?
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The reconstructed Abarth is SO wrong in SO many aspects that it makes me want to cry. It would have been SO much wiser to restore the 1954 Scaglietti body!

 

Yes, you are alone

Actually, probably many feel that way, but this may be a rare example where even some of the die-hards don't oppose a rebody. It would be great if the OP could add a poll to see what the opinions are.

When I look at this car, I view the "masterpiece" as the engine and chassis. In art, it isn't uncommon to discover great masterpieces that have been painted over, and in those cases, it is often deemed appropriate to expose the masterpiece (even though the surface paintings probably also tend to be historically significant). Maybe some elements of that school of thought can apply to this car, although there is the not very minor detail that exposing the masterpiece in this case requires fabricating a body.

If I owned it with the original body, I don't think I could convince myself to change it, but I'm happy that someone else did. This car, in it's present rebodied form, is sort of like eating steak for me -- I don't really want to think about how it got there, but I'm quite happy with it nonetheless.

 

in terms of ugly, s/n 7979GT, the Drogo 330, is no picnic either.

 

Take a look at s/n 10659. A 1967 330 GTC rebodied by Zagato. What were they thinking ?

1967 Ferrari 330 GTC Zagato Boldride.com - Pictures, Wallpapers

 

It seems like they were thinking Studebaker Avanti (front end) and Fiat X 1/9 (rear end).

 

IMHO, the worst is s/n 2491.

This was once a gorgeous 250 SWB. Now it looks like a kit car.

Matt
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Not anymore, it is back as a beautiful 250 SWB California!

A new body was made and fitted in Italy over the last 8 months, the complete restoration is almost complete. I was standing under it yesterday as the guys at Joe Macari's had it on a ramp rebuilding the suspension.

i will get some pictures and post.

Also the ugly body has also been restored and mounted on a frame - it is stored with the new owners car collection.

cheers
Mark

 

Heaven be praised. The old body was straight off a TR7

 

ha ha thats exactly what i use to call it!

 

That's excellent news!

Thank you for that, Mark.

Although I think it reveals a double standard. The new body is as much a replica as any GTO or TR recreation on a shortened GTE frame. Although I'm very glad the owner chose to do it, and to preserve the Zagato body for posterity. I remember seeing it in person in the late 1980s.

Please do post pics!

Matt

 

Oh absolutely agree! This was a terrific piece of history and a wonderful story! Now I don't think that this is a car where a Fred Simeone would fall on his sword to protect as 'important,' but as a neat, sidebar story to the 212 Epic tale, I think it's a shame it's been forced to conform to today's consensus of the 'appropriate' look, ie, identical to its contemporaries...

 

God that Abbott body was awful; '52 Chev meets George Barris...

 

Fair comment Peter but there is a flaw in your argument. At the time Ferrari were supplying their "masterpiece" to a number of coach builders to fit a body. Hawthorn chose to give this one to Abbott and I agree that the end result was not worthy of the marque. However, a period body becomes an integral part of the masterpiece and whether or not we like the end result is simply a matter of subjective taste. How can we justify erasing a cars history simply on the basis of taste ?

I am sure the majority would say a SWB is far better looking then the breadvan but I hope this will never be the justification to break out the hacksaw.

OP a great idea

 

There must have been a point in time when the designers shared a few bottles of the region's finest...

Pininfarina's Idea Of The Perfect Car For Youngsters

This Bertone Concept Was Turned Into The Fiat X 1/9

 

It's kind of a flaw in my logic by design -- I know the right thing to do is to keep it. I agree with keeping the original (correct) body in every instance ... except this one. I just can't stand to look at it. Thinking about it some more, I think what was done to the Zagato is the solution here. Rebody it, but preserve the original for display (or loan it to a Ripley's Believe It or Not). Still not the right thing to do of course, but maybe a palatable happy medium and it's reversible (with considerable effort).