Vintage Thing No.93 - Ferrari 250GT SWB Breadvan

Also at Goodwood this year, but actually competing was the Ferrari breadvan.

And now, motivated by simple devilry following the last post on a Jaguar XK150 shooting brake, here is the Ferrari "Breadvan" modelled by Drogo on a 250GT.

I'd first seen this car at the Le Mans Classic in 2010 but I'd heard about it years before that. 

Whoosh!

This car divides opinion but I like it. I think they find the straightlines don't match the curves but that roofline is the blurred streak from the top of the windscreen and I particularly like the effect from the rear. It looks so fast!

Its nose is beautifully styled, too. Apparently, it was nicknamed "Anastasia", which around Modena is a derogatory name for an ugly woman but it looks pretty good to me.

This car is low, lower than the kneecaps of a grasshopper. It was not built for its load carrying abilities. Although the rear window is hinged, just try to get anything in it. Or out of it.

After a long career, No,2819 has been beautifully restored and in 2007 had a nose job by Dutch metal guru Alwin Hietbrink to restore the original appearance at the front. There are some great pictures of its reconstruction on Coachbuild.

Piero Drogo was a racing driver who subsequently went into business as a coachbuilder servicing the racing industry around Modena in Italy. This car is the first of a small series that he built on Ferrari running gear and with this design he sought to combat the poor aerodynamics of the more rounded cars we all know and love. The Kamm tail was just being appreciated as a means of combating tail end lift and the Breadvan was an extreme test of Dr Kamm's research.

Chassis No.2819 was the first and most distinctive, the most outrageous and van-like. Based on a 1961 SWB 250 Competition it originally had a Scaglietti alloy body. In 1962, it raced and retired at Le Mans with its new body as part of the Scuderia Republica de Venezia run by Count Volpi. The later Drogo cars exist in different forms, the temptation to make a seminal GTO shape being to hard to resist it seems.

There was more to just sticking a box on the back of the car. Assisted by engineers Giorgio Neri and Luciano Bonachini and advised by none other than Giotto Bizzarini, the engine was mounted further back in the chassis than in previous Ferrari 250s.

The frontal area must be far smaller than a 250GTO even if it doesn't quite match that car for looks.

So did the Breadvan approach work? I can't find out. Each subsequent Drogo-bodied Ferrari was less extreme so posterity suggests it did not.