14 replies to this topic

[Leo]

The Dutch car magazine "Autovisie" publices a story today about the Ferrari Testa Rossa with chassis number 0720 TR. It looks like an interesting case for the historians over here.

The original car was bought from the factory in 1958 by Jim Johnston from Cincinnati, OH. A year later he sold it to Dave Biggs. Biggs went racing and kept the car until it was destroyed in a fire in 1965. Biggs gave the wrecked chassis to a frien, John O'Neil, who saw no use in restoring and aparently ditched the car in a ravine. Later on a road was built and Biggs' son-in-law Dave Feinberg says: "I'm sure that the 0720 TR is burried under the Forest Park Highway".

End of story? Of course not!

In 1981 Dutchman Paul Schouwenberg discovers a TR-chassis in Italy. He buys it and starts restoring. From under the paint the chassis number appears: 0720 TR. Schouwenberg completely restores the car with parts from other TR's and other Ferrari's. (The engine is borrowed from a Tour de France, the front suspension from a 250 GT). Also a new body was sculptured.
Schouwenburg raced the car at a classic meeting at the Nurburgring last year and recently gave the car up for auction. The target price was about 884.000 euro's.
However the car never came 'under the hammer'. Since the late eighties Englishman Rodney Felton claimed to own the 0720 TR. That car had already been sold to German Harald Mergard. Mergard learned of the auction and put a stop to it. He obviously believes he owns the real 0720 TR.

Which leads to the question: how many Testa Rossa's 0720 are there??

Here is the link to the car's history on Barchetta.cc:
http://www.barchetta...720TR.250TR.htm

This is a picture of the Schouwenburg 0720 TR:

The caption says: "The disputable chassisnumber 0720 TR of the Ferrari that was imounded shortly before auctioning. At a closer look the second 'zero' seems to differ from the first one, while the 'two' is slightly damaged. Ageing or fraude?"

[Leo]

Somehow the picture doesn't seem to work; this is the URL:
http://perso.respubl...ther/0720tr.jpg

[Doug Nye]

Oh my - oh my...

First let me declare an interest - as racing consultant to Bonhams - formerly Brooks - who ran the Gstaad auction last December I am plainly NOT impartial.

If anybody's interested I'll go further into details concerning these assorted 'Ferrari TR' replicas later.

But just so that everybody's interests are declared please also be aware that
Mergard who owns and runs that Barchetta website is also himself the owner of the Rodney Felton second replica which he claims qualifies as 'the real' 250TR in question.

In support of this contention Mr Mergard sought an injunction against Schouwenberg's car when it was en route to Gstaad for the Sale, and a Swiss court granted him one.

No notice of this action was given either to Paul Schouwenberg or to Bonhams.

No evidence was taken from Mr Schouwenberg nor Bonhams.

The quoted price estimate of over 800,000 Euros matches the Gstaad Sale catalogue's unequivocal description of the Schouwenberg car as a lookalike - the price of an indisuptably genuine 250TR would be several million Euros...

DCN



Litigation has continued - and evidence has been offered by all interested parties.

DCN

[Michael Müller]

I expected of course Doug to reply ...
I’m no specialist on these cars, my Ferrari knowledge ends 1951, nevertheless of course I followed this case with interest. There are certain points which are worth to mention, although I have to make clear that I have absoutely no personal opinion on this whole story.

Harald Mergard in fact owns the Barchetta website, which generally spoken is a fine and useful archive, although not free of faults. He bought his “0720 TR” only recently, most probably at a price of a real TR (Doug most likely has figures), and therefore of course he has to be convinced that he has the genuine car. The FIA papers mentioned are no real criteria, and the FIVA passport costs me a smile only.

The Schouwenburg car honestly is titled as “lookalike”, and obviously built upon a frame only (“chassis” would mean more than that), however, the telaio-bearing frame still is considered as the “legal heart” of a car. If really purchased in 1981 already, this would mean long before outbreak of “Ferrarimania”, and if reproduction happened in the next years, the cost for this surely was higher than the car’s value at that time.
But ..., what if the frame has been stored for years, and the “lookalike” has been built only later? The story could be different. One also has to think how a frame, which between 1965 and 1981 was not really a valuable item, found its way from remote USA to Italy.

Also worth to mention is the year Wessel found the Felton car - 1988 -, and the year of import to the UK - 1991. As we all know 1988 was the year old Enzo died, and in the following 3 years more old racing Ferraris had been discovered worldwide than in the 20 prevailing years. Okay, okay, due to the now skyhigh prices it really made sense to search even Bogota scrap yards, Kansas barns, and Sicily garages for leftovers bearing the prancing horse.
And also for the Felton car the question must arise, how much of the car is original and how much has reproduced, because after a fire and nearly 25 years rotting not so much has been left over, or?

Interesting of course is the statement that the car now is buried under an US highway, which - in case this information is correct - would put considerable doubt on both cars - carefully said.

A purely hypothetical question: what would have happened if both cars had different chassis numbers? Most probably nothing. But that’s the clue - any other number than 0720 would result in the same problem, as luckily all ever built 250 TRs are still in existance. Isn’t that a fine performance? It can be topped only by the Spyder Corsas, where one more than built has survived...!

So how to solve this problem? Let’s start to dig under this highway and see what’s there. Anybody having a treasure map at hands? First one who digs out the bones of an ancient Ferrari can make a fortune...!

[Doug Nye]

Just in case anybody might be interested in this little local Ferrari spat - when Harald Mergard of the 'Barchetta' website was awarded his injunction against a declared reproduction of '0720 TR' in the Geneva court last December, no evidence nor argument was either requested or heard from either the owner or the Bonhams auction company who were handling the car.

In January detailed submissions were made to the Court by both Bonhams and our client. The essence of these submissions was that the disputed Lot was clearly described in the Gstaad Sale catalogue as being a reproduction and - further - that Mr Mergard's car could not itself lay claim to any significant originality since the original '0720 TR' had in fact ceased to exist due to a disastrous barn fire in the 1960s. This fire and its effect were not only well documented by eyewitness accounts but these accounts were themselves fully recounted in the Gstaad Sale catalogue.

In February, the Geneva Court - having considered these submissions - ordered Mergard to provide a bank guarantee for 500,000 Swiss Francs - c. $300,000 US - to cover potential claims from Bonhams and our client resulting from the reproduction car's withdrawal from the Gstaad Sale.

On March 8 the Court dismissed Mergard's claim, lifted the original injunction - releasing the hitherto impounded car - and awarded costs to Bonhams and its client.

Mergard is now in the process of appeal to the Swiss Federal Court in Lausanne.

Bonhams consider that the decisions of the Geneva Court have fully vindicated the correctness of the positions taken by our company and by our client.

I hope this clarifies the current situation?

DCN

[Michael Müller]

Even if the Mergard car carries some fraction of the original frame - which is doubtful -, I personally consider the car as a replica (or "reproduction" in nicer wording). However, as far I know the Schouwenburg car does not carry even the smallest bolt of a Testa Rossa, but uses a TR telaio number, which in my humble opinion is illegal, even if the whole thing officially is declared as reproduction or lookalike or whatever. The car raced last year at the Nürburgring, so a FIA passport must be issued - or not? If so, the car has been presented to the FIA representative under wrong statements, and if so, I really wonder what FIA papers are worth in practice. Especially considering that the same FIA issued earlier papers for the same telaio.

[David McKinney]

Don't get me started on FIA papers...
The key point to make however is that they are not issued by the FIA, but by the ASNs (national licensing authorities) in the country where application is made. It is therefore possible to submit claims for official documentation for supposedly the same car in different countries - and be granted them. It has happened

[rdrcr]

Fascinating... It is this kind of "sorting" out that the hobby needs, is required and should be demanded by collectors and anyone interested in the truth.

Reproductions or Remanufacturing of rare sports racing cars is great. Just call them that. Thanks for keeping this story updated.

Regards,

[Doug Nye]

Whenever FIA paperwork officialdom is taxed with the nonsenses in their system they are at great pains to point out that the system was instituted mainly to confirm what the car in question's technical spec SHOULD be, so that if a scrutineer at Masaryk or Kyalami or Melbourne is confronted for the first time in his entire life by, say, an Emeryson-Climax, or the Tec-Mec Maserati he can simply check its spec against that FIA paperwork - and if it matches - the car gets to run.

Although a section of the FIA paperwork for each car lists alleged history, the system's defenders (apologists?) maintain that this is largely superfluous and "...is not in any way intended to offer any guarantees of accuracy".

Interesting, isn't it, that in my experience it is not unknown for the technical spec listed to present just as little guarantee of 'as-new' accuracy...

DCN

PS - Michael - you're being a little hard on the older of the two 0720 TR replicas/reproductions as this car includes a very high percentage of perfectly proper components made both by Maranello and by Ferrari's original suppliers and which have been painstakingly hunted out and collected over a period of many years by its owner/assembler. I would absolutely defend the genuine enthusiasm with which he went about creating this car - having built my own complete fake over a period of many years I'm fully aware of what it takes, and of how much fun 'the hunt' for proper in-period bits can be.

[MarkWill]

I don't know if this falls into the same category as this story, but while I was checking into Briggs-Cunningham I came across this story wrt a Maserati Tipo 63 he is supposed to have raced:

"There are currently two other known cars/owners with claims to the #63.002 heritage. One is an owner claiming to have purchased the original frame and body of #63.002 that was raced at LeMans but thrown in a scrap heap at the
Maserati factory in 1961 when the car received its long wheelbase frame and body replacement. This purchase is claimed to have taken place in 1990. The other car is the ex-Cunningham Tipo 64.002, which also has had a #63.002
chassis plate on it. It is not presently known why #64.002 ever had a #63.002 chassis plate on it.

Maserati #63.002 is presently in fully restored and race-ready condition. It is in its proper Cunningham white with blue stripes livery. The car can be seen later this summer running at select vintage racing events, such as the Monterey Historics, featuring Maserati."

Quoted from the "Invest Car International" page. Looks a bit messy to me, but I see that they are careful to use the word "heritage".

[Doug Nye]

Mark - this celebrated case of two cuttings from the same rose bush is actually perfectly straightforward. Cunningham ran one Tipo 63 (briefly) up to the Le Mans 24-Hour race, then returned it to the factory as being by common consent 'too short for driver'. The car was stripped and its chassis dumped in Maserati's mezzanine floor store (together with the streamliner 250F chassis and other such 'junk'!). A new longer-wheelbase frame was buiolt for Cunningham, assembled with the mechanical components removed from the discarded LM veteran, and then shipped back to Alfred Momo and Briggs in the US for the end of the 1961 season. It was shipped on the same Customs identity as chassis '002'. That LWB car went on to have a (minor) race history and historic existence of its own, passing from US ownership to Pierry in Belgium, then back to the US and now to Switzerland I believe - while an Italian Maseratista acquired the discarded frame from the factory some years later, and had it restored into its perfectly justifiable Le Mans form. The problem was that when he - the Italian owner - became aware of the other car's existence, it was being advertised as having run at Le Mans, and that's when the spaghetti hit the fan. Fortunately I was able to help unravel the problem, each owner is now comfortable with what he really has, and the only difficulty is the FIA paperwork system (yet again) which cannot handle the reality of racing in that two separate cars can, and did, and do, share the self-same number. But then there are many Bill Smiths and Joe Browns in the world too... The Tipo 63 duality is well-known and not a problem, whatever the 'investment' nig-nogs might presume. These two Tipo 63s, incidentally, must not be confused with the Tipo 64 which is a different animal.

DCN

[Michael Müller]

Back to 0720TR. Whether one can call the Schouwenburg car really the older one I keep open here. And why am I too hard on this car? I said “it does not carry even the smallest bolt of a Testa Rossa”, and not that it has no “perfectly proper components made both by Maranello and by Ferrari's original suppliers”. I agree, there are various grades of replicas, and one carrying some original Ferrari parts from other period models may - I repeat “may” - be the better one, but - it’s still a replica. By no means such car is allowed to bear an original TR chassis number!
It is reported that the builder of the Schouwenburg replica received from him a frame, on which during the construction progress under some grey paint the “original” # 0720TR was discovered. The first thing I would do when discovering a Ferrari frame would be searching for the telaio!

The fact that this car carries 0720TR as chassis number can be interpreted as unserious, if not more. I’ve also been told - please correct me if necessary, as I don’t have the original auction catalogue - that the car was not only described as “reproduction”, but also as “reconstruction”, and the latter in my opinion suggest that some original 0720TR parts had been the basis for such “reconstruction”. It is my humble opinion that Bonham’s should have rejected this car for auction as long as it bears 0720TR or any other TR telaio.

To make clear, I consider myself as neutral in this affair, meaning that I don’t represent the opinion that the Felton car is the correct 0720TR.

And my opinion about FIA papers I disclosed already in the beginning of this thread, but if so, why is the FIA doc mentioned always prominently rendered in sales advertisements and auction catalogues?

MarkWill’s Birdcage posting is representative for the situation on the market for ultrapriced classic race cars. A scrap heap at the Maserati factory not disposed for 30 years?? Great! Obviously a lot of todays “collector cars” have started their 2nd career like this, most important is not the knowledge where to find such “treasures”, but a very good knowledge about existing - and therefore also missing - chassis numbers. The problem is that sometimes one has to share a good idea with others ..., besides the Schouwenburg and the Mergard 0720TR there are rumours about a 3rd one in Italy! Or the case of the Spyder Corsa # 020I, which appeared at a time where general knowledge was that # 018I was the last - known car - of the series ... But what about today where it is confirmed that # 018I never existed?

I want to make clear that all said by me here and also in similar threads is purely my personal opinion in a private forum, and in no case any official statement.

Don Capps some time ago asked us (Egon Thurner and myself) to make available our research results about the early Ferrari monoposti in TNF resp. Atlas. This was refused by us, because these results include some very good legends for future chassis finds. We still stick to this opinion, and if really a 1948-50 monoposto arises from the ashes, we will monitor this very closely.

[Doug Nye]

Michael - absolutely fair enough - I don't have a problem with 99.9 per cent of what you write, but the 0.1 per cent might be a problem for me to swallow. I'm even with you on the use of the original TR chassis serial - which is unsustainable - but if that's how the owner/builder identifies his car, or whether he knows it as 'Tom', 'Dick', 'Adolf', 'Juliette' or 'Doris', that's how we will describe it...with an adequate description to narrow that definition. As for this car being the older of the two repros, gime a break - it was completed years before the Felton car, it is the OLDER of the two.

DCN

[Michael Müller]

I didn't denied that the Schouwenburg car is the older one, I only kept this question open. However, as far I know - and these cars are not my speciality - Felton raced his car already in the early 90s, whereas the Schouwenburg car is reported for being completed in early 1996. But's not really the topic, even if it is older, that's no reason to claim the telaio.

And about the freedom to "name" cars - in all jurisdictions the chassis number of a car, whether old or modern, is the official legal identity of such car. The same as for my passport, which is my legal identity. If I like to choose another name and arrange a falsified passport, this is clearly illegal, and if I choose even the name of a wellknown and famous person, this makes things not better.

But I highly appreciate the 99.9 % ...

[Doug Nye]

Granted. So you should. DCN