1967 Ferrari 412 P Berlinetta – The Most Expensive Car Expected To Sell at Monterey

Sensual silhouette. Lines to die for. Looks that turn heads. It is the Ferrari 412 P Berlinetta, designed by Fantuzzi, and it was a racing car like no other. Some even go as far as saying that it is the most beautiful competition car ever made.

That may be widely subjective, but the 412 P Berlinetta comes with a price that matches all the laurels that it has been getting over the years. Because what we do know is that it is indeed a car that bears an exclusive label: it might just be the most expensive automobile that sets wheels in Monterey.

Experts claim that it might go for a sum anywhere between $30 and $40 million, explaining that it is the most important sports-racing Ferrari to come to the market in the last five years. It might also turn out to be the most expensive Ferrari ever sold at auction.

Only four such examples have ever been built in times when Ferrari was battling Ford for supremacy. Each of them was built according to the specs required by the private team that would take them racing. All were converted from 330 P3s, two of them for NART and Scuderia Filipinetti and the other two for Ecurie Francorchamps and Maranello Concessionaries.

The 412 Berlinetta wore light Cambridge Blue and Rosso Corsa

But not all of them have been converted for street use like this one right here, chassis number 0854, which was commissioned by motoring enthusiast Colonel Ronnie Hoare's Maranello Concessionaires. The team stayed in the racing business for a brief period of only seven seasons. But it turned out to be the most effective of all private Ferrari racing organizations.

The team took delivery of chassis number 0854 in the spring of 1967. They immediately had it liveried in Ronnie Hoare’s preferred paint scheme: light Cambridge Blue stripe and tail over the Rosso Corsa body.

It competed in the World Sportswear Championship when Ferrari was dominating the racing scene. It made its debut in the 1,000-kilometer (621-mile) race at Spa in 1967 in the hands of Richard Attwood and Lucien Bianchi. It finished third overall, taking Ferrari one step closer to that year’s championship title.

It also competed in 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1967, where it had to retire due to an oil pump failure. Hoare decided to stop running his team in 1968. Adverse regulation changes made him drop the project altogether and part ways with the 0854. It was purchased by David Piper, who paid 15,000 pounds for it. He also chose to replace the original sophisticated aluminum bodywork with glass fiber molded body panels. He knew that fixing the original bodywork would keep him away from the track for long periods, and he would lose precious time.

Piper would stop at nothing to make his racing dream come true. He even took the Ferrari to South Africa, to compete in the international Springbok Series. He was the one who decided to convert it into an open-cockpit car. The new layout would provide natural cooling under the African blistering sun.

The 1967 Ferrari 412 P got battle scars

It was at that time that the Berlinetta-turned-Spider model took most of its battle scars. They were so bad that the car needed to be rebuilt, and Piper resumed racing with other models. He sold the Ferrari in 1969 to a US resident, Ferrari enthusiast Chris Cord of Philadelphia. He turned it into a roadster and cruised the roads of Pennsylvania for the next couple of years. There was no way he could keep a low profile in the former racing car.

United Kingdom, Japan, and back to the UK the globetrotting car went, then ended up in the United States.

The current custodian, fanatically fascinated with the car, has been in possession of the Berlinetta since 2005. Luckily, the original hand-made aluminum panels were safely stored. A nine-year restoration brought the car back to its original form, as commissioned by Maranello Concessionaires. And that makes it unique among the surviving P Berlinettas. Upon completion, the owner took it to The Quail in 2015 and to Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2019.

But there is no info on the mileage of the Ferrari. Not that it would make much of a difference.

The 1967 Ferrari 412 P Berlinetta is powered by a 4.0-liter naturally aspirated V12. It comes with 414 horsepower (420 PS) and is mated to a five-speed Ferrari manual transmission. The needle of the odometer goes (or at least it did) all the way to 192 mph (309 kph).

The future owner willing to pay $40 million or more must be aware that this epic racing car is also street-legal. So they will be able to take it out for a ride anytime. If they want to get a bit of attention attention. Lots of it, actually.