Back when I was at university, the talk of the town (well, among the handful of my car enthusiast friends) was whether or not you’d spotted Eric Clapton driving about in one of his Ferraris. Riveting, I know, but the Cream frontman lived nearby and was very much the town’s big celebrity. A Clapton Ferrari sighting would elude me for the best part of a three-year degree; then, on my early morning walk to work, I heard the sound of a V12 bouncing off the buildings. It was Clapton, pottering through the otherwise empty town in (drumroll) a Ferrari FF. In grey.
For a man who has some of the most exceptional and exceptionally rare Ferraris on the planet, I had hoped to spot something a little more spectacular than an FF. He has (or had) an Enzo, a glorious 550 Maranello that was listed on PH a while back and his very own, one-of-one SP12 EC inspired by the 512 BB. Then there are the classics, including said Berlinetta Boxer, a 250 GT Lusso and, at one point or another, this stunning 365 GTB/4 ‘Daytona’ - which is now in need of a new owner.
Hard to imagine there was a time when the Daytona was considered anything other than achingly desirable, but wind the clock back a few decades and the general opinion of the 365 GTB/4 was that it was a bit of an oddball. The Pininfarina-designed, Scaglietti-built Daytona was a drastic departure from the curvy, elegant Ferrari grand tourers that came before it. And while the supercar world was moving towards mid-engined layouts in going into the 1970s - all thanks to the Miura - Ferrari decided to stick with a more conventional front-engined design for its flagship. Obviously, we now know that it doesn’t get much cooler than a Ferrari with its V12 in front of the driver, but that hasn’t always been a given.
Moreover, the GTB/4 seems to have aged better than many of its contemporaries, with its futuristic design still looking fresh and modern some 55 years on. However, you may have noticed that this car doesn’t come with the Daytona’s signature pop-up headlights. That’s because this is one of the early models, before laws in the US were introduced that effectively banned headlights housed behind plastic covers (for some reason) and so pop-ups were introduced in 1971. This being a late-1970 car, it features the original exposed headlights, making it that bit more special than most other Daytonas.
That’s just scratching the surface, mind, because this example has lived one heck of a life. After arriving in the UK on 9th December 1970, finished in Argento Auteuil silver, the car changed hands a couple of times before a then-21-year-old Lord Hesketh (the eccentric Formula 1 team owner among other things) part exchanged a Silver Dino 246 GT to get his hands on it. The seller claims it then toured around the world with the F1 team - and star driver James Hunt - before winding up in Japan, where it remained until 1988.
There’s more. The next owner had the car fully restored, resprayed in Grigio Scuro, the colour it currently wears, and swiftly sold on to guitar legend Clapton, who kept hold of it for the next decade. Talk about a history file. The dashboard reads 11,791 miles, though the seller says the speedo was changed during the restoration in 1990 and that the lifetime mileage is likely closer to 50,000. Still relatively low for a car that’s travelled around the world, and given its notable previous owners, an asking price of £499,950 is about on par with other Daytonas. So - would you leave it in Clapton spec, or revert back to the original Hesketh look?
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