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330 GT Registry |
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SLEEPING BEAUTY REVIVED This is the unusual story of the Ferrari 330 Americawith the chassis number 4973GT, which was revived after more than 40 years in Germany. Its unique patinated original condition earned it the award "Worlds Most Pristine Masterpiece" at the Classic
Days at Dyck castle
2019. Words & Photos by Markus Siebenmorgen |
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Ferrari 330 America is a rare sight. Only 50 units of this transitional model were produced within a few weeks at the end of 1963. The model combined the unchanged body of the 250 GTE with the new Tipo 209 V12 engine with 300 hp, enlarged to four litres of displacement. The engine was actually intended for the successor of the 250 GTE, the Ferrari 330 GT, which was first presented to the press on I I January 1964 in Maranello.
The 330 America did not carry its name in vain, because the initiative for this interim model went back to the North American Ferrari importer Luigi Chinetti. Consequently, most vehicles were also sold in the United States. So also the third example of the series with the chassis number 4973GT.
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To whom Chinetti delivered the red painted car with black
leather interior at the end of 1963, is unfortunately not known. The first
owner probably lived in California and later sold the 330 America to its second owner in South Carolina. In 1974 Deborah Wilson from Alabama
received the car as a gift from her husband. How intensively Ms Wilson used the Ferrari is not known. Anyway, she soon parked the coupe between boards and ladders in an open carport and left the car there to its fate. It had covered about 17,000 miles by then. When the Ferrari prices shot up for the first time in the late eighties, the former basketball star Julius Erving offered a proud 160,000 dollars for the car - the Ferrari had been offered to "Doctor 1" behind the back of its owner. However, Deborah Wilson rejected the offer because Erving openly announced that he wanted to use the 330 America as the basis for a 250 TR replica. This had already happened to the 15th model of the series with the chassis number 5005GT in 1981; the 330 America with the chassis number 5059GT was also converted to a right-hand drive 330 GTO replica in the eighties. Curiously, another TR replica with exactly the same chassis number as the original coupe in Alabama already existed in Great Britain. The owner of this dubious replica also contacted her at that time presumably to put his replica on an authentic basis.
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IFortunately , Deborah Wilson wanted to spare her Ferrari this fate : "In the past we have had hundreds of people try to buy our old American classics to turn into street rods and such and have always held onto the cars hoping to find someone who wanted to restore them", she later explained why she had refused the lucrative offers. Instead, she left the car in its shelter for thirteen more years of wind and weather. In 2003, she was finally ready to hand over the now heavily dilapidated, but still totally original and complete car to good hands for 35,000 dollars - the American Ferrari restorer Tom Yang reported about it in his blog at the time.
n August 2003 Sam Rivera bought the Ferrari and brought it back to California. In the following years the car went through several hands and was even offered twice unsuccessfully by a dealer on eBay. 95,000 dollars was the last asking price of the coupe still declared as an unrestored barn find in 2010.
After no buyer for the 330 America could be found in the US even after years , the car finally came to Europe. In March 2013, 4973GT reappeared at the Retro Classics trade show in Stuttgart, Germany. Since its rediscovery in 2003, the car was only roughly cleaned and displayed by the Berlin based restorer Beetz & Beetz Klassik.
The new owner subjected the car to a thorough inspection - and finally decided against a restoration . The Ferrari's remarkably good substance, even after more than 40 years out of service, persuaded him to preserve the vehicle with its unique patina. The car was dismantled, cleaned and preserved. The interior was refurbished, wearing parts were reworked or, where necessary, renewed. 95 percent of the original paint was preserved - even the remains of stickers once attached to the car are still to be seen.
Finally, Maud and Mathias Beetz presented this extraordinary Ferrari at the beginning of August 2019 to around 40,000 visitors at the 14th Classic Days at Dyck castle in Juechen, Germany. The car, now registered in Berlin, took part in the "Masterpieces" Concours d'Elegance of the major vintage car event and was awarded the title "World's Most Pristine Masterpiece" by the jury. A great recognition for the unusual decision not to restore this rare Ferrari perfectly, as is usual today, but to preserve, authentically, the traces of a long vehicle history, which did not always treat it well.
