Out of all the uber gorgeous and blistering fast racing Ferraris of the 1950s and 1960s, most of us remember the automaker's Magnum Opus - the 250 GTO, along with the mid-engined 250 Le Mans and 330 P. However, there is one hideously overlook model in the line - the Ferrari 375-Plus Spider Competizione.
This Italian iteration of the Jaguar D-Type is the biggest-engined, most powerful and most important racing Ferrari model built purely for the Scuderia. Wonder what's under the bonnet of this bad boy? Nope, it's not the Colombo V12 mill, but a 4.9-liter engine developed by the prodigious Aurelio Lampredi.
That big twelve-cylinder tower-of-power up front is a stroked version of the 4.5-liter mill that powered the Ferrari 375 Formula 1 car in the 1950 and 1951 seasons. Further more, the 375-Plus also adopts the transaxle from its racecar brother.
Compared to the road-going 375MM, the Plus has an F1-style rear-mounted manual transmission in unit with the final-drive, as well as a de Dion suspension setup instead of a rudimentary live axle. On a bad day for carburation, Ferrari claimed that the 375-Plus would produce 330 horsepower at 6,000 rpm.
Nicknamed 'Le Monstre' by the French racing community and the 'Fearsome Four-Nine' by the Brits, the car we're talking about today is the first of just five cars ever produced. The Italian manufacturer's weapon to win the 1954 Sports Car Championship was coachbuilt in lightweight Pininfarina aluminum alloy.
The low weight and big oomph made the 375-Plus an outright winner at Le Mans, Silverstone and the Carrera PanAmerica road race through Mexico. Umberto Maglioli averaged more than 150 mph (240 km/h) for more than five hours during the final stages of the great road race… in the 1950s for crying out loud!
Chassis #0384AM was sold this last weekend at a high class Bonhams auction event that took place during the Goodwood Festival of Speed. It's needless to say that the Ferrari 375-Plus was the star lot of the sale, but just how much money were on the table when the hammer finally dropped? We don't know how to soften the blow, so here's Johnny: £10,753,500.
It's very hard to put your finger on how come a 60-year old car without a roof can cost $18,302,453 or €13,405,450 at current exchange rates, but just like some of us do stupid things because of pride or for love, some gearheads rather throw obscene amounts of dough for retro Italian muscle than invest the money in stock, real estate or other similar ventures.
After a 1:43 scale model of a Ferrari 250 GTO sparked Mircea's interest for cars when he was a kid, an early internship at Top Gear sealed his career path. He's most interested in muscle cars and American trucks, but he takes a passing interest in quirky kei cars as well. Full profile
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