A unique Ferrari Daytona found earlier this year in a garage in Japan will be auctioned at the carmaker’s headquarters in Italy next week, alongside a new LaFerrari Aperta.
Why the special event? Because the 1969 365 GTB/4 Daytona (above and below) is believed to be the only street-legal Daytona made with an all-aluminium body.
Auction house R M Sothebys said Ferrari built five other aluminium-bodied Daytonas, but they were designed specifically for racing.
The auction car, red with a black leather interior, was bought in 1969 by the owner of an Italian automotive magazine.
It reportedly changed hands a couple of times in Italy before a Japanese businessman bought it in 1971. It again changed hands in Japan before the last owner shut it away in a garage in 1980.
It surfaced in Japan this year as a ‘barn find’ and will go under the hammer in Maranello on September 9, in the same condition as it is pictured on this page. A specialist has confirmed that the body, chassis and powertrain match Ferrari records.
The Daytona has 36,390km on the clock and comes with a complete toolkit, including a soft-head hammer to loosen the wheel nuts. R M Sothebys expects the rare Ferrari to fetch between NZ$2 and NZ$3 million.
Another 365 GTB/4 Daytona ‘barn find’ was a 1971 model (below), found in a parking garage in Toronto, Canada, in 2014. A Canadian businessman bought it after seeing it on display at the 1971 Geneva motor show.
R M Auctions said he paid US$18,000 for it, drove it around Europe for a month, then shipped it to Canada in the hold of the cruise liner QEII.
He drove it for the next 18 years, clocking up 90,000km, before parking it in the garage of his apartment building in the late 1980s. There it sat until it was sold at auction in the US in 2014 for US$770,000.
What the Baillon collection offered in quality, the Lambrecht collection (below)in had in quantity. It started in 1958 when US Chevrolet dealer Ray Lambrecht was left with new cars from the previous model year.
Rather than sell them at a discount, he put them in storage in the hope that they would appreciate in value. By the time Lambrecht closed his dealership in Pierce, Nebraska, in 1996, he had amassed around 500 cars of varying vintage but in new condition.
They went up for auction in 2013, attracting around 15,000 potential buyers. Each car had between 2km and 20km on the clock. A 1958 Cameo pick-up sold for US$140,000, a 1964 Impala for US$97,500, and a 1978 Corvette for US$80,000.
Another from the General Motors catalogue was a 1969 Dodge Charger Daytona (below) found on a farm in Alabama. It was similar in style to the Plymouth Superbird that followed it.
For homologation purposes Dodge made only 560, of which 385 are said to be still be around. The car sold at auction in Florida this year for US$90,000.
One of the most outstanding bard finds was the so-called ‘Baillon’ collection assembled over decades by Roger Baillon, head of a transport company in France.
It was discovered in sheds on his property in western France a few years ago and included Bugattis, Ferraris, Maseratis, Hispano Suizas, among others.
French auction house Artcurial sold dozens of the cars early last year. Among them was a 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spider that fetched a record US$18.5 million. A 1956 Maserati A6G went for US$2.2m, and a 1949 Talbot-Lago T26 for US$1.9m.