Beschreibung:

Simply run your eyes over this gleamingly restored 3-liter 4-cylinder sports-racing Ferrari. Gaze into its invitingly deep cockpit, and study the history etched into so many of its interior panels. You will be drawn towards that classically Ferrari driver’s seat, the wrap-round bucket facing that time-worn wood-rimmed steering wheel. Every hand-made classical Ferrari is in detail, of course, unique. This historic example is no exception, with its steering wheel boss occupied not by the standard Ferrari prancing horse emblem, but by a former owner’s favored St Christopher’s medal from the 1950s. The great Barney Oldfield used to advertise his chosen tire brand as ‘My only life insurance’ – here a former owner of ‘0492’ plainly had his own distinctive views on a higher level of cover… Amongst available Ferrari 750 Monza sports-racing cars, this is, of course, a ‘matching numbers’ example – engine and chassis serials being identical. The famous customer-orientated 750 Monza sports-racing design of the mid-1950s is the kind of car which was campaigned energetically against such other supremely valuable contemporary designs as the Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs, D-Type Jaguars and Aston Martin DB3Ss. This particular car’s allure is augmented by the fact that it has not only a long history of high-profile American ownership and use, but it can also boast the very special and rare cachet of having been a competition Ferrari which starred as-new in an International European motor show – the Brussels Salon of 1955. Since the late 1980s it has also been in the ownership of one of the best-known and most high-profile of all great European car collections, so the sum of all these factors presents a very special Ferrari here indeed… In its heyday this matching-numbers, customer-destined Ferrari ‘Monza’ was built originally to the factory’s Tipo 510 chassis design, and powered by the then latest-specification Tipo 119 3-liter 4-cylinder twin-overhead camshaft racing engine. As original, ‘0492M’ offered here was delivered by the Maranello factory – under delivery invoice number ‘2162’, dated January 11, 1955– to the Belgian importer Jacques Swaters in Brussels, who immediately placed it upon display in the Belgian capital’s annual Salon International de l’Automobile exhibition. The car was then returned to the factory, from which it was then sold for export to American east coast concessionaire Luigi Chinetti in New York, destined for his counterpart on the west coast, John von Neumann of Los Angeles, California. On April 30, 1955, John von Neumann drove ‘0492M’ offered here at the Bakersfield circuit, this Ferrari wearing race number ‘111’ and finishing 2nd in the weekend’s preliminary event. Next day the German-born entrepreneur – himself a very effective racing driver when the mood took him (or he had a fine car to sell) – repeated the result in the Bakersfield feature race. On May 30, 1955, Neumann was out again racing ‘0492M’ – this time under race number ‘11’ at Santa Barbara but this time failing to finish. He and the car were pictured there on page 47 of ‘Road & Track’ magazine’s August issue, 1955. One week later John von Neumann scored this Ferrari’s first race win, securing victory at Santa Rosa, the car wearing race number ‘107’ on that momentous occasion. The big Torrey Pines race meeting followed on July 10, where this time von Neumann co-drove with fast-rising Santa Monica star driver Phil Hill. The car was race-numbered ‘211’ and ‘Road & Track’ again published a photograph of ‘0492M’ in combat, as it hammered home into 2nd place overall – the picture this time appearing in the leading American magazine’s October, 1955, issue. Ferrari’s future World Champion Driver – Phil Hill – then drove this very car solo at Santa Barbara on September 3, finishing 2nd yet again under race number ‘7’. On November 13, the scene shifted to Glendale, where John von Neumann resumed his racing activities with the formidable ‘Monza’, wearing race number ‘1