Why this wrecked Ferrari is good value at $3m

Apparently, the burnt-out remains of a 1954 Ferrari race car was a bargain.

Tony DavisMotoring writer

May 9, 2024 – 5.00am

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Last year an auction bidder paid just under $2.88 million for what was described as a “1954 Ferrari 500 Mondial Spider Series I by Pininfarina” rather than, say, “a pile of bent and singed parts”.

Many mocked the unknown buyer of this fire-damaged wreck, but it might have been a wise buy after all.

An unknown buyer paid close to $A3 million for this wreck.

Fabio Menegon from Classiche, Ferrari’s official restoration and preservation department, has revealed that the car went straight from the auction room to his department at Maranello, northern Italy. It is now undergoing a complete restoration-rebuild-recreation.

Menegon says Ferrari’s archives allow it to verify the individual car’s race history (it participated in the Mille Miglia, the Imola Grand Prix and the Targa Florio in the 1950s), while the Ferrari Classiche facilities allow all the renovating to be done from the original blueprints, using the original production methods.

He says the car will emerge looking factory fresh and with a plaque certificating its authenticity.

Benzoni behind the wheel of the same car at the Trofeo Bruno e Fofi Vigorelli in Monza, March 1956.

“The time [for restoration] is around two years,” says Menegon. “The goal is preserving and maintaining the parts from the original Modena, and making parts [from scratch] that are [missing or] too ruined.”

The 500 Mondial was powered by a torquey four-cylinder engine (rather than Ferrari’s usual V12) and had a convertible “spider” body from Italian coachmaker Pininfarina. The auction lot came with the car’s factory-issued chassis plate and matching-numbers gearbox, a Mondial engine from another car, and various other components.

Cars undergoing restoration in the Ferrari Classiche workshop.

The 120 mechanics and craftsmen working at Classique will patch the missing or rusted-through body sections with new hand-beaten metal, completely rebuild the “period-correct” Ferrari engine, and finish the body in the original paint colour. One thing the archives don’t cover is the interior trim, which is usually recreated from photos.

And what will all this cost? Menegon won’t give us an estimate but is pretty confident the buyer will finish up ahead. “I think so. Normally, a Mondial in good shape is around $US5 million.”

That’s about $7.7 million of our dollars, leaving quite a bit of room for the fix-up.