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How Much Would You Pay for a 308 4Porte? Enzo Ferrari Would Have Said: “Zero!”

Times are about to change (the Ferrari Purosangue is coming), but a sporty crossover would have been considered a sort of blasphemy during Enzo Ferrari’s life. However, the autocratic founder of the brand from Maranello did not hate sedans. He was adamant in believing that Ferrari, as a manufacturer of exclusive sports cars, should never produce automobiles with more than two doors. After all, il Commendatore had his reasons.
Ferrari 308 4Porte 4 photos
Photo: Alex Sincan
Ferrari sedanFerrari sedanFerrari sedan
The growth of the market for fast luxury sedans was a clear trend during the late sixties and early seventies. Maserati had entered the segment, Alfa Romeo and BMW joined it later, and even at Ferrari, there were opinions saying this opportunity should not be ignored. Drawings of a Ferrari 365 GT4 2+2 with four doors confirm this.

Enzo Ferrari used to treat these with a sort of benevolent indifference. Sketching Ferraris with more than two doors is OK, but those should remain at the doodle stage—this was a kind of unwritten law for Ferrari. After being told a few times by his counselors that he should think better about producing a Ferrari sedan, Il Commendatore began to feel somehow asthenic regarding the idea.

In 1974, the sales of the Dino 308 GT4 (the 2+2 coupe designed by Bertone/Marcello Gandini) were not going well despite the advanced technical solutions implemented in the car’s concept. Here, the mid-transverse mounted V8 engine has to be mentioned. Thanks to this idea, the interior could accommodate 2+2 passengers while the wheelbase (2,550 mm) was kept at a decent proportion.

Every time the subject of this car came into the conversation, Enzo used to show a kind of "I told you this was going to happen" attitude. In fact, he didn't really like 2+2 seater coupes, so, from this perspective, it's easy to understand his refractory attitude toward naturally massive and clumsy sedans.

Meanwhile, the project of a qualified sports car equipped with the same mid-transverse mounted V8 engine as the 308 GT4 was on its way. The order for its design had been submitted to the Pininfarina studio, where a young Leonardo Fioravanti was working on it. At an update meeting at the beginning of April, 1974, everything seemed under control with optimistic forecasts.

By the end of the discussions, Enzo Ferrari seemed to be in a good mood. Somebody even dared to ask him about studying the design of a 2+2 seater version for the new 308 sports coupe. He smiled briefly and answered shortly, a bit bored: "Sure, the design of a bigger 308 is something not to be missed. We’ll make a sedan out of it! Well, the 1st of April can be such an inspiring day!"

Ferrari sedan
Photo: Alex Sincan
At the end of June 1974, Enzo Ferrari was in his office, signing some invoices. Suddenly, he stopped and asked his assistant: "Hey! What is this one about?" The assistant came closer and looked over Ferrari’s shoulder. The text of the invoice was easy to read, anyway. It was about the cost of a recently built prototype body: the 308 sedan version. "For God’s sake, I’m not going to pay for this!" The assistant was paralyzed: "But you ordered it during a meeting a couple a months ago, on the first of April, they wrote here…"

An emergency meeting was convened at once. “I don’t want to compromise our collaboration with Pininfarina, but I’m not going to pay for the prototype of this sedan. I don’t even care how it looks. That’s what happens when you’re not attentive to what I’m telling you. You were this close to ruin all of us! Now, just solve this without any expense from Ferrari.”

Officially, the unique Ferrari 308 4Porte prototype was axed right after. Enzo Ferrari himself took care to track the serial numbers of the engines allocated to the pre-series examples of the 1976 Ferrari 308, so none of those reached the wrong car. No one from Pininfarina or Ferrari ever mentioned the invoice or the 308 4Porte prototype again. However, the work had been done and somebody had to pay for it.

Unofficial voices say the equipped body was not destroyed but delivered to a sheik or sultan from the Middle East under a discretion contract, affirming this is just an indoors decorative object, not suitable to receive an engine or to be publicly exposed.

The latest rumors are about such a thing undergoing a restoration process in the workshop of Tiriac Collection, in Bucharest, Romania, of all places. As far as we know, they use to expose rare automobiles publicly. Will they also dare to fit an engine to it?

Now, back to Enzo Ferrari for one more moment. Since 1974, anyone who approached him tried hard to avoid mentioning the word "sedan." Even in 1979, when Pininfarina was about to show the (now famous) Ferrari Pinin sports sedan, the early sketches and models sent to Ferrari were about a classic coupe or, let’s say, a “passo corto” two-door sedan.
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