In the X edition of Le Mans Classic held from June 30 to July 3, a formidable retrospective of the
24 Hours of Le Mans which brings together eight hundred classic competition cars on the track in the different tests before the eyes of one hundred and ninety-five thousand spectators, a Ferrari 250 GT left the asphalt suffering considerable damage.
It is one of the few 250 GT examples built by
ferrari and yet some purists
they don’t consider him a real Ferrari. And it is that the history of this specimen, nicknamed «Breadvan», is very curious and controversial.
serene
This story begins in the fall of 1961, with a protagonist, Count Giovanni Volpi di Misurata, owner of the famous Serenissima racing team, named after the Republic of Venice. By the way, that the billionaire father of him, politician and financier, was the founder of the Venice Film Festival.
Count Volpi buys the 250 short-chassis, aluminum-bodied saloon with which Belgian driver Olivier Gendebien (four-time Le Mans winner) has just finished second, along with Lucien Bianchi, of the Tour de France Automobile. As in the case of the other two 250 GT of the team, this third one is painted red and the Volpi family shield is embossed on the flanks. And in the 1000 Kilometers of Paris, Maurice Trintignant and Nino Vacarella placed this 250 GT in third position, after two official Ferrari cars.
Precisely the Maranello team lives in that period a difficult moment. In 1961 Laura Dominica Ferrari, Enzo’s wife greatly influences the direction of the company. For some, that is too much. The disputes multiply and a group of engineers decides to complain to the Commendatore… And the sports director Romolo Tavoni and the engineers Carlo Chiti, who was the technical director of the Scuderia, and Giotto Bizzarrini end up on the street.
Giotto Bizzarrini, creator of the transformation of the Ferrari 250 SWB /
Suddenly, the small group of “expelled” is going to use their knowledge for their own project and found ATS, or Automobili Turismo e Sport. To finance it, they turn to Count Volpi, owner of the Scuderia Serenissima, a faithful client of Ferrari.
At the moment, Giovanni Volpi has two 250 GTOs on order. He was counting on these for his 1962 season. But when Enzo Ferrari learned of the aristocrat’s support for his former employees, he canceled the order.
Inevitably, on the Scuderia Serenissima side, the impact is significant. War is declared and Volpi prepares his weapons. Anger is a bad counselor, he calms down and reflects. He now has to find a way to beat the 250 GTO (Gran Turismo Omologata), which Ferrari presents in February 1962 to compete in that season.
Volpi takes the step and commissions Bizzarrini, who has developed the Maranello car before leaving, to create a rival for it.
Giotto Bizzarrini’s hand
Bizzarini takes the 250 GT bought from Gendebien, and faces a profound transformation of it. The key points are a lower engine stance height, which also focuses more on a much changed chassis, and new bodywork. The engine is transformed by two experts from Modena, Neri and Bonacci. The bodywork is also made in Modena, at “l’officine” Sports Cars, by Piero Drogo. With its rear cut following the aerodynamic principles of Kamm, this body (lower than that of the GTO) leaves everyone perplexed and raises many discussions. Italians and French baptize it as “the van”, while the English use the term “Breadvan”, literally “the baker’s van”.
The severed tail, which will earn him the nickname of Breadvan, allowed him to gain top speed /
In the “Experimental” category, he will compete in the 24 Hours of Le Mans that year in 1962, piloted by the Italian Carlo Maria Abate and the British Colin Davis. In the first hour of the race, the Serenissima “pickup” was in ninth place overall, ahead of all GTOs, even though they were driven by more prestigious names (Guichet, Vaccarella, Ireland, and Gregory) than those of the GTO. volpy’s car In the second hour the Serenissima had already moved up two places and was behind the official Ferrari Sport Prototype, driven by Baghetti and Scarfiotti, which indicated its full potential
Handling?
But in the third hour a transmission breaks. And the same goes for another car from the Volpi team, Gurney and Bonnier’s Testarossa 61 Serenissima. This coincidence, of the type of breakdown and at the same time, surprises Volpi and even more so when the mechanics discover that there were missing balls in the bearings of both cars. As the transmissions had been fitted to Ferraris, Bizzarrini was convinced that the failures were the result of unethical practice on the part of his former team.
The ‘Breadvan’ then wins a minor race at Brands Hatch, and takes class victory in a famous Swiss hill race, Ollons Villard, with Abate. And he finished his career in the 1000 Kilometers of Paris in 1962, with Ludovico Scarfiotti and Colin Davis in third place, behind the GTOs of the Rodríguez brothers and Surtess-Parkes.
Gunther Sachs and the gendarmes
The count liked to go to the Monaco Grand Prix, as a spectator, with one or another of his racing Ferraris, even with several that he lent to his friends. He used to reserve the Testarrosa 1961 that he parked at the Hotel de Paris, a meeting place for all those who were “someone” in Formula 1. In 1962, the count lent the “Breadvan” to his friend the German play-boy billionaire Gunther Sachs. One day, Sachs, accompanied by one of his beautiful conquests, had to go quite fast when two gendarmes began their pursuit and ended up catching up with him…, of course, helped by a traffic jam. Gunther Sachs spent the night in jail, and the Serenissima remained in the hands of the police for some time.
After an unsuccessful tour of the United States, the “Breadvan” was used as a daily car by Volpi himself until May 1965. That’s when he put it up for sale on consignment at a Ferrari dealer in Rome. And he is an American, a fan of Ferrari, the one who buys it for less than 3,000 dollars, which he has to borrow from his mother. When he arrived in the US, the 250 GT was repainted red and, above all, with the Ferrari badge, which had been displaced by Scuderia Serenissima until then.
In the United States it passes through the hands of several owners and lands in Los Angeles. Actors James Garner and Steve McQueen even tried it out with a view to buying it, but neither made up their minds. The 1970s and 1980s saw the Ferrari sail through quite a few owners. Participate, from time to time, in historical races in the hands of a collector. In 1987 he went to Europe as an invitation to the 25th anniversary of the GTO, a trip that he took advantage of to take his car to Modena, to the workshop of Aldo Sillingardi and Gianni Dienna, specialists at the time in Ferrari restorations, where it was returned to the configuration of 1962 Le Mans.
Since then, although it has changed hands many times, it can be seen in many historic car events such as the Grand Prix de l’Age d’Or, the Le Mans Classic, Goodwood or the Silverstone Classic.
Nowadays it can be seen in the most important classic competitions /
Today this Serenissima Breadvan is considered one of the most special Ferraris that, without actually belonging to the exclusive GTO family, its history is linked to its legend.
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Eddie is an Australian news reporter with over 9 years in the industry and has published on Forbes and tech crunch.