Reviving a Legend: The Restoration of a Ferrari 250 GTO

This has been the best kept secret in the car world for many years. In 2021 we purchased #3589 GT and embarked on what we hoped would be the ‘reference’ restoration for other GTOs to compare to in the future. This is no normal GTO (if there is such a thing?!), this was an incredibly successful car in period, not just winning many races but breaking many lap records along the way. It was also finished from new in a unique specification for Tommy Sopwith’s Equipe Endeavour team, a Dark Blue over Rosso Connolly VM 893 leather and cloth seats. It’s one of the very few examples that can boast its original chassis, body, engine and gearbox, only a handful of owners throughout its life and no accident to speak of. However, the original body was removed from the chassis in a restoration carried out by it’s previous custodian nearly 35 years ago but thankfully remained with the car, on a mannequin in that owner’s garage and where we purchased both from. Upon completion of our purchase, there was no hesitation but to reunite the chassis with its original body and there was only place to do that and that is back at Ferrari! In this video, we share with you the process, the lengths we went to in order to ensure the restoration is perfection and importantly totally period correct. You will see footage of us in Ferrari’s incredible archive room, where we benefitted from the original drawings, original correspondence plus we even matched the paint to the original paint sample that they still have within the chassis file. Reuniting the chassis with its original body was no small task. With a body so old and removed from the chassis for so long, it’s fragile and could easily be damaged if mishandled. Ferrari and ourselves mutually agreed on our friends Brandoli to undertake such a task and bravo to them for completing it with such care and precision. Collaborating with Ferrari has been a lot of fun. We had the privilege of Piero Ferrari inspecting the restoration with Tom and we have no doubt it’s a restoration that would have also impressed Il Commendatore Enzo Ferrari himself. It’s been a real push from all involved to get this car ready for this year’s Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance but we’re pleased to announce it will be there next week and we hope it will wow the judges as much as it has us!