Car Articles

Considered to be one of the greatest designs of Pininfarina, the 400 Superamerica combined Ferrari's performance with stylish elegance. The 400 SAs were superbly designed with the finest of the materials and often to the owner's specification.>

The price tag of the car ensured exclusivity that was limited to princes, potentates, captains of industry and the stars of Hollywood and Rome's Cinecitta. The first series 400 SAs were built on a 2,420 mm short wheelbase (SWB) chassis. Later, a second series was produced with an extended wheelbase of 2,600 mm (LWB).

The extraordinary car (s/n 3309 SA), auctioned at the RM Auctions, is the last one of the SWB 400 SA cabriolets bodied by Pininfarina. It was Ferrari's star car at the Geneva Salon and New York Auto Show of 1962 and included many special features, such as an attractive wide stainless steel panel along the sills, a chrome trim line across the side of the car, and chromed wheel arch and bonnet scoop accents completing the show detailing.

3309 SA features an optional factory hardtop. The handsomely extravagant design ensures that the car is beautiful in coupe form as it is with its top down. 3309 SA was sold off the show stand in New York, by Luigi Chinetti Motors, to an Arizona Ferrari dealer, J.A. Stallings. Stallings used the car hillclimbs before taking it to the Bonneville Speed Trials in 1962, where he was officially recorded reaching speeds over 145 mph.

In 1964, the 3309 SA was bought by a GT racer Bob Grossman, who eventually traded it back to Chinetti in 1967. It was later sold to Ferrariste Norman Silver of High Point, North Carolina. He kept the car 1973, later it was sold to Charles Robert of Nogent-sur-Marne and Paris, France.

Mr. Robert restored the car with help from Carrozzeria Fantuzzi in Modena. The car was repainted a more stately maroon and fitted with a tan interior, altering the original colour scheme of Rosso Metallizzato Speciale (metallic red) with Avorio (ivory) upholstery.

It took 30 years before Mr. Robert could part with the car. During this period, he showed the car occasionally at Ferrari club events and at a special Ferrari exhibit at Retromobile 2000, in Paris.

In 2005, the Ferrari returned to the U.S. and was restored. In its first show outing at the XVIII Cavallino Classic in 2009, 3309 SA was awarded Platinum Status by Ferrari Club of America.

In 1933, C. Matthew Dick of Washington, D.C. contacted Rolls-Royce and their New York coach building firm Brewster & Co. to provide a totally unique town car on the legendary Phantom II chassis as a wedding present for his bride-to-be. And after a lot research, the Brewster-bodied Special Town Car, chassis no. 218 AMS, was delivered to its new owner in 1934.

The best styling elements of the era, such as long hood, low razor edge roof design, dramatic V-windshield, sculpted windows, German silver hardware and complementing canework, are easily visible the car. Interiors were customised with gold-plated hardware, vanity cases, indirect lighting, and lamb wool carpets. The cost of designing this Brewster-bodied masterpiece was an astounding $31,000, making it the most expensive car in the world built that year and over 50-percent more than the "Twenty Grand" Duesenberg created that same year.

This car, owing to its extraordinary design, has had only four owners from new. Mrs. Dick enjoyed it for a long time. The second owner, Gerald Rolph, maintained and preserved the car for 40 years, during which most of time was spent in restoring the car.

Subsequently, a well known Colorado-based owner purchased the car in the 1990s and enjoyed it as one of the prized jewel of his personal collection over the next decade. The vendor acquired the car in 2008 and has maintained it in his private collection since then.

Most historians consider this Special Town Car to be one of the greatest Rolls-Royces ever built. The engine featured in the car is a 40/50 hp, 7,668 cc overhead valve, straight six-cylinder with a four-speed manual transmission, fully floating hypoid bevel axle, semi-elliptic front and rear suspension, four-wheel servo-assisted drum brakes. Wheelbase: 3,810 mm (150")