This one-off Ferrari is for sale. The price? $9,000,000

Thomassima I was tragically lost in 1966 when the River Arno flooded Florence. Thomassima III is on display in Maranello. Thomassima II is the car you see above. It’s just come up for sale for, um, nine million dollars.

That’s £5.8m, for a car or story you’ve probably never heard about. The long of it, you can read here, but the short of it is this: it was born in the 1960s, designed by a fascinating chap called Tom Meade.

You see, Meade was born in California, and after returning home following a stint in the Navy, chanced upon a Ferrari 500 TRC in an LA garage. It was settled – he had to go Italy, immediately.

With just $50 in his pocket, he made it, forged important relationships with key carrozziere in and around Modena – even meeting Enzo Ferrari himself – when by the 1960s, he finally had enough money to build his dream cars.

They were named Thomassima – which means ‘the maximum from Thomas’ – and this II offered up for sale was built with the help of Maserati and Ferrari engineers. That gorgeous body was shaped using a marine plywood buck to hone the curves, and took inspiration from Ferrari’s Daytona-winning 330 P3/4.

There was a tubular spaceframe chassis underneath, coupled to a 3.0-litre Ferrari V12 borrowed from none-other than a 250 GT. Though considered lost for years, we’re assured by the seller that it was actually purchased in 1983 and has been in storage since.

Red Car Restorations of Rockwall, Texas, are the ones you should contact should you wish to buy one of the most intriguing – and pretty – chapters of Ferrari’s history. For more on Tom's fascinating story, and an exclusive TG photoshoot with Thomassima III, click here.