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A $2 Million Bargain?
April 25, 2002
by Rick Carey
It's hard to think of anything bought for nearly $2 million as a "bargain", but that's what the Ferrari 375MM (0366AM) at RM's Amelia Island auction on March 9, 2002 was.
Bodied by Scaglietti in 1954 after its first owner, Casimiro de Oliveira, so comprehensively beat its original Pinin Farina Spider body into a pulp in a succession of incidents that it was economically unrepairable, 0366AM represents an unusual opportunity that sometimes comes up at the market's high end, a low-priced example of a high-priced car.
There were only sixteen 375MMs built, all but the first, a Vignale spider, with a mixture of spider and berlinetta bodied by Pinin Farina. Examples with their original style bodies are today worth upwards of $3 Million. The PF spiders are such icons of Ferrari history that 0366AM has become a footnote: a great car but "not the original body." In the process, its intrinsic significance has been overlooked. This is a terrific early Scaglietti body. Its form foreshadows the characteristic Scaglietti coachwork that would shortly distinguish all important Ferrari competition cars. There's no reason to think that, like subsequent cars built to Pinin Farina design by Scaglietti, 0366AM's body didn't have strong input from Pinin Farina.
What's not to like about 0366AM? Certainly not its price, at $1,950,000 (including commission) a seven-figure discount from the PF spiders. It's even "cheap" enough to allow its owner to commission Pininfarina to construct a replica PF spider body and still have headroom in his investment. Its current Scaglietti coachwork is, to all intents and purposes, "original" to the car as so many competition cars were whacked big time and then acquired new, or substantially new, bodies to return them to the track. Few would argue with its history had Pinin Farina rebodied the car in 1954; why denigrate it because Scaglietti did the work - and such attractive and important work in the history of Ferraris at that?
For an owner who is a driver 0366AM is even better. It's a 375MM, eligible for everything, welcome everywhere, accorded privileged access beyond the most exclusive velvet ropes. And, since "the market" doesn't value its body very highly, it can be driven with verve, even abandon, with little concern for damage. A fender replacement really isn't going to hurt 0366AM's value.
It's a curious flip-flop on the more usual pattern where one-off bodies are worth more than their series-production counterparts, where "Shah of Iran" Maserati 5000s bring hundred of thousands more than their standard Frua siblings. The fact is, in the Ferrari world, "the market" has a mental image of each model. Variants that don't fit the mental image usually incur a penalty.
That mindset creates a rare opportunity in the high-end market for collectors who are astute enough, and confident enough, to take advantage of it, like 0366AM, a $2 million "bargain".
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