1957 Ferrari 250 GT Boano Coupe

This Boano Coupe was delivered to Milanese publisher Giorgio Mondadori in the spring of 1957. It was exported from Italy to England in the late 1960s and by the following decade, it was exhibited in the Lane Motor Museum in Liverpool for many years. It was most recently acquired by the current owner at the Monaco auction. It has received the Ferrari Classiche certification.

A passion for racing soon led Enzo Ferrari to fund his ventures through the sale exclusive road cars. The early examples were built in very small numbers, and often to special order. The first real attempt at standardizing production commenced in 1954 with the Pinin Farina-designed 250 Europa that debuted at the Paris Auto Show. It would lay the foundation for all the Ferrari 250 models that followed, and was Ferrari's first true production model.

The 250 Europa was superseded by the similarly named 250 Europa GT. By this point in history, Pinin Farina was in the process of building a new, much larger production facility and did not yet have the space to build the larger quantities of cars that Ferrari was requesting. So production was handed over to Carrozzeria Boano, headed by one of Pinin Farina's designers, Mario Felice Boano.

Boano bodied 68 examples of the 250 Europa GT with slight styling alterations from the five cars that Pinin Farina had already built. The most noticeable change was the lower fender line of the Boano cars.

In 1957, Mario Boano accepted a job at Fiat, so his son-in-law, Ezio Ellena, took over production under the banner of Carrozzeria Ellena. Like the Boano-built cars, the Ellena-built 250 GT Coupes had minor cosmetic changes, the most noticeable was the raised roofline. Thus, the Boano-built bodies are commonly referred to as the 'Low Roof', and those by Ellena are known as the 'High Roof'.

Chassis Num: 0639 GT
This 'Low Roof' coupe left Boano's factory wearing a Grigio exterior with a Rosso interior, and was delivered to Giorgio Mondadori in the spring of 1957. It was later exported from Italy to England in the late 1960s, and by the following decade was exhibited in Jim Baxter's Lark Lane Motor Museum in Liverpool, finished in red with a tan interior.

Jean-Roger Bossut of France and Belgium was the Ferrari's caretaker beginning in the early 2000s. He had it sent to L'Officina in Brussels to have its numbers-matching engine rebuilt, along with other mechanical work.

In 2007, this Ferrari 250 GT Boano Coupe took part in the Ferrari 60 Relay anniversary event in Reims-Epernay, France. In 2012, the coupe changed ownership and was registered in the United Kingdom, where it was cosmetically refurbished to its present color scheme of Argento Auteuil Metallizzato—a pale silver-blue metallic—with a gray roof and tan interior.

In 2014, the Ferrari completed its Classiche certification, confirming the engine, gearbox, and bodywork to be original to chassis 0639 GT.

Marque specialist Terry Hoyle rebuilt the engine in December 2017. The following year, it was acquired by an American collector who had it brought to the United States for the first time in its history. In August 2022, it was shown at The Quail, a Motorsport Gathering in Carmel Valley, California.

By Daniel Vaughan | Nov 2024