This dream Ferrari garage is for sale

Forget your inner eight-year-old, this is the kind of dream garage fodder that it’s more than okay to ruminate over well into middle age. There are so many classic Ferraris for sale at the upcoming RM Sotheby’s auction in Monterey that there may not be room on TopGear.com for all of them. We’ve picked out a few that we think are pretty speccy. Let us know how you feel about them. 

If you’d like, you can just ogle the beautiful shapes. Or, if you’re after a little context, we’ve put together a little primer / demystifier for you. It’s just a service we provide.

What does its name mean?

Well, 1961 is a year that happened, 56 years ago. It is also the year that this particular Ferrari was manufactured. Don’t worry, we won’t keep flogging this joke like a dead cavallino; it’s a one-time-only deal. 

Now, 250 refers to the displacement, in cubic centimetres, of each cylinder in the famous Columbo V12, which is half the weight of a contemporary Jaguar straight six and produces a very healthy 270-odd horsepower. GT means Gran Turismo, or a grand tourer, meant for taking on leggy, cross-continental trips in the finest fashion. 

SWB refers to its short wheelbase, at 2.4 metres, as opposed to the long wheelbase at 2.6 metres. Why do you want a shorter wheelbase? Well, the true reasons are complex and involve phrases like ‘polar moment of inertia’, but suffice to say that the shorter a wheelbase is, the sharper the initial turn-in is. 

Berlinetta traditionally means ‘little saloon’, but usually refers to something in the fashion of a two-door coupe. It can refer to either four-seat coupes, like you see here, and two-seaters, like the 488 GTB (Gran Turismo Berlinetta).

And how much?

Much. A lot of much. It’s expected to reach up to $10m, or about £7.67m.

Okay, what does this one’s name mean?

So, as you may have guessed, 275 is the internal dimensions of each cylinder, expressed in cubic centimetres or cc. Multiply that by 12, and you’ve got the 3.3-litre V12 that’s good for about 300bhp. 

GTB refers to the same ‘Gran Turismo Berlinetta’, or grand touring coupe, and the ‘/4’ is a very specific reference to the engine. Instead of a single camshaft per cylinder bank, the GTB/4 had twin cams on both sides of the V, so that exhaust and intake valves were actuated individually. Add in six – yeah, really – carburettors, a dry sump and a few drivetrain improvements, and the GTB/4 is a healthy improvement over the standard 275 GTB.

The ‘by Scaglietti’ isn’t technically part of the 275 GTB/4’s name, but it’s included in the auction listing, so we may as well explain. Back in the sepia-tinted glory days of Italian supercars, a car’s mechanicals tended to be sorted out at the factory, and the body was handled by a local(ish) coachbuilder. Scaglietti, along with Ghia, Allemano, Bertone, Vignale, Zagato, Pininfarina and Touring of Milan, created sumptuous bodywork for Ferrari’s road and race cars. 

And how much for all this history?

Slightly easier on the bank account, this one. It’s expected to go for $3,250,000, or about £2.5m.

Explain away.

By now, you’ve likely heard the story of Alfredo ‘Dino’ Ferrari. The son and heir of Enzo Ferrari had a horrific genetic muscle-wasting disease known as Duchenne muscular dystrophy, which claimed his life at just 24 years old. 

A talented engineer, Dino had planned and proposed a special V6 engine by his early Twenties. His engine, which was finished after his death, found success in various race cars – including, eventually, the Lancia Stratos – as well as the 206 GT you see here.

Designed by Pininfarina and built by Scaglietti, the 206 GT has a 2.0-litre, six-cylinder engine, hence ‘206’. GT again means what it does across the rest of the Ferrari range, but the mid-engined V8 layout, we suggest, would offer a very different touring experience.

So, what’s the difference between the 206 GT and the 246 GT?

Well, there are quite a few, to be fair. The 246, which came along later, has a 2.4-litre V6, as opposed to the 206’s 2.0-litre effort, which meant a power advantage to the 246. But that’s where the advantages end, at least in our book. 

The 206 had an all-aluminium body, as opposed to the 246’s steel – saving about 200kg in the process. The engine block was also aluminium in the 206, as per Alfredo’s original idea, but moved to steel in the 246. 

And how much for this lightweight beauty?

Dinos have gone up massively over the past few years, but they’re still not at the 250 GT stage – yet. So, it’s about $750,000, or £575,000. Bargain!

Ooh, this one I know.

Indeed. F for Ferrari, 40 for 40th anniversary. It’s a pretty simple one, recreated later for the F50 and then sidestepped for the Enzo, which everyone thought would be called the F60. But the F60 is the 2009 F1 car, and we all know what a Ferrari Enzo is. 

So, back to the F40. By now, you’ll know the story, but we’re happy to tell it again. The 288 GTO, itself a rip-snorting, turbocharged evolution of the 308, was created for Group B racing. When it was summarily ended in 1986, the ‘Omologato’ part of the name (or homologation, which means ‘official approval’, in this case pertaining to qualifying for racing) became rather superfluous. 

So, what was Ferrari to do? Well, the F40 is the answer – the final car that Enzo Ferrari personally approved, a raw, purpose-built combination of turbocharged excess and aerodynamic prowess. A car capable of 0-62 in 4.1 seconds and 201mph, thanks to nearly 480bhp and a no-holds-barred approach to weight reduction. In essence, then, a fitting epitaph for a man who created motoring royalty out of a race team.

Aw. That’s kind of nice. Not to be mercantile, but how much does one of these go for these days?

Up to $1,500,000 or about £1.15m. (It's also the F40's 30th anniversary this year - today in fact...)

All right. Hit me with it. 

Righto. This angry character is the road-going version of the track-only version of the 599 GTB. Clear as mud, right? Wait until we remind you that it’s not actually a real GTO. Yup, Ferrari had one cursory glance at the naming rulebook and then decided to do whatever they felt like. 

So, the 599 refers not to the internal capacity of the cylinders, but as a reference to the 5,999cc V12 that delivers 661bhp in GTO spec. As for the ‘GTO’ part, which used to mean, ‘This is a race car based on a road car’, the new world order of GTO means, 'This is a chuffing fast car. Deal with it.’

How chuffing fast? Well, it’s faster than an Enzo around Ferrari’s Fiorano test circuit. So, while not technically earning its GTO appellation, it’s certainly brisk enough to be worthy.

Okay, how much for a not-a-GTO?

About 800,000 very real American dollars, fake GTO or not. That’s about £615,000.

Aha. Time for some proper demystification.

Yes indeedy – and it’s another case where Ferrari rewrote the hymn sheet and kept singing like no one would notice. 

Its predecessor, the 365 GT4 BB, was a 365cc per cylinder, Grand Tourer, four-camshaft, coupe with a boxer engine. Except it didn’t have a boxer engine; it was a flat-12. It’s down to how the piston connecting rods engage with the crankshaft, and it’s technical enough that you’d likely need a Paul Horrell to explain it. But, suffice to say that if the opposing cylinders don’t ‘punch’ outwards at the same time, it’s not a true boxer engine. 

Mmmm.

Yes, quite. So, proper boxer engines are a bit of a rare beast. Feel better about your Impreza yet?

So, the 365 GT4 BB kind of… wasn’t. But the 512 BB just did away with the rule book all together. The ‘5’ represents the engine’s capacity in litres (even though it was actually a 4.9) and the ‘12’ represents how many cylinders. If it followed the old nomenclature, it’d be called the 408 GTB, which sounds fine in our books. Then again, if we ever have Ferrari money, we’ll name things the way we feel like.

Damnit man, what about the ‘i’?

That just means Ferrari fitted a Bosch fuel-injection system. Simples. 

Oh. That’s anticlimactic. How much?

About $450,000, or £345,000, should get you what you’re after.

Super…America, huh? What an odd name.

We’ll get to that in a minute. First things first, the 575 is an evolution of the 550, which had – you guessed it – a 5.5-litre V12. The 575 takes it up a notch to 5.75 litres for a touch over 533bhp.

The Superamerica name dates back to the 1950s, which was a super version of the 340, 342 and 375 America models. Hey, guess what super translates to? It’s… er, super. Yup. Coincidentally, this is about the time the original Superfast was created. Now you know.

For the 575 Superamerica, Ferrari created the wonderfully quirky folding roof you see here. There’s electrochromic glass as well, which means the tint in the glass changes according to an electrical current passed across special cells sandwiched in between the glass plates. Science!

So how much for this weirdly named, V12 science experiment?

Oh, it’s a snip at $450,000, or about £345,000.

Wait a minute. That looks like an F430. 

To be fair, it kind of is. It’s certainly based on the F430. That’s Ferrari, 4.3-litre, in case you’re curious. We’re more curious as to why it’s not called the 438. Not our place to judge, we suppose. 

So, the F430 Scuderia (Italian for ‘team’, denoting a racing situation) was a ‘customer competition car’, which means that it’s a track-ready car, sold directly from Ferrari. And the Scuderia Spider 16M is, as you may have guessed, a convertible version of the 503bhp, race-ready monster. Because the first thing a race car needs is a convertible top.

So, the 16M part refers to the 16 manufacturer’s championships that Ferrari had won by the end of 2008 – quite a few, all things considered. Oh, and ‘M’ tends to refer to ‘Modificata’, or modified, which means what it says on the tin.

So, how much?

Well, the F430 is a bit of a bargain in terms of second-hand Ferraris, but the Scuderia Spider 16M was a very special version, with a limited run of just 499. That’s why it’ll fetch as much as $400,000 (£305,000).

Wanna race? No, really – that’s what the 360 Challenge Stradale is for. Well, technically, that’s what the 360 Challenge is for, but the 360 Challenge Stradale is the road-legal version of the race car – ‘Stradale’ denoting ‘road’. For the curious, ‘Corsa’ is race, but not if it has ‘Vauxhall’ in front of it. 

So, 360 is for the 3.6-litre V8, as per the standard car, but the Challenge Stradale’s has been tuned for a healthy 20bhp bump. The CS is also lighter – up to 110kg lighter, if you ticked the options box the right way. That made it rather potent, as you might agree. The figures certainly agreed: four seconds flat from zero to 62 and a top whack of 176mph. 

All right then – surely 360s are cheap.

Not 360 Challenge Stradales, though – $325,000, or about £250,000. So, cheap by this list’s standards, we suppose.

Can I have that demystifier back, please?

Indeed. And your burning question, we assume, is about ‘Vetroresina’. Well, it’s Italian for fibreglass, which explains quite a bit. 

From there, we fall back into the old-school naming conventions – a 3.0-litre V8, grand touring coupe. See? It’s easy when you know how.

As you might expect, the fibreglass-bodied 308s are quite rare – about 700 to 800, according to our sources. That’s a minute fraction of the total 308 and 328 model run. So, all of a sudden, an otherwise fairly humble 308 gets all sorts of interesting. 

Because the 308 had a tube-frame construction, there’s no loss in rigidity but a solid weight advantage over the steel-bodied models – about 150kg. And, unlike 1980s Italian steel, fibreglass doesn’t rust every time the wind changes. 

So… you know what I’m about to ask.

Yep. It’ll be about $225,000 – or £170,000.

So, you mentioned something about more Ferraris?

Just a couple.

How about Michael Mann’s Testarossa (above)? Yep, the man responsible for Heat (excellent man-movie fodder) and Miami Vice had his own Testarossa. Not just for Crockett and Tubbs, then. 

Then there’s the Ferrari ‘Uovo’ we talked about earlier this year, a Ferrari 250 Europa (basically a Ferrari 250 fitted with a Formula 1 engine), a 330 GTC (coupe version of the regular 2+2 330), a brace of 365s and a LaFerrari.

Got half an hour to rue the size of your bank account? Check out Sotheby’s auction list and weep...