Remi Dargegen ©2020, courtesy of RM Sotheby’s
  • The second of 12 550 GT1 chassis commissioned in 2001 to Prodrive by Care Racing Development for their race program
  • Winner of the 2004 FIA GT Championship, driven by Luca Cappellari and Fabrizio Gollin
  • Second in the 2003 FIA GT and 3rd in the 2005 Italian GT Championships Overall winner of the 2004 Spa 24 Hours, driven by Gollin/ Cappellari/ Bryner /Calderari
  • The last V12-engined Ferrari to win a 24-hour race overall
  • Supplied together with FIA GT1 and Automobile Club de L’Ouest GTS Technical Passports
  • Accompanied by full race log and mileage charts, maintained by CRD/Prodrive
  • Fully rebuilt to historic race-ready condition; Ferrari Classiche Certified as “Veicoli da Competizione”

SCM Analysis

Detailing

Vehicle:2001 Ferrari 550 GT1 Prodrive
Years Produced:2001–04
Number Produced:10
SCM Valuation:$4,290,000 (this car)
Chassis Number Location:Inner fender in engine compartment
Engine Number Location:Center of engine block
Club Info:Ferrari Owners Club
Website:http://www.ferrariownersclub.org
Alternatives:2002 Chrysler Viper GTS-R, 2000–03 Porsche 911 GT2, 2003 Saleen S7-R
Investment Grade:A

This car, Lot 240, sold for $4,290,000, including buyer’s premium, at the RM Sotheby’s Online Only: Shift/Monterey auction on August 14–15, 2020.

Like many of the great racing cars of the past 100 years or so, the existence of the Prodrive Ferrari 550 GTO required the fortunate confluence of a series of largely unrelated circumstances. The first was Ferrari’s decision to reintroduce the front-engine V12 grand touring car, 23 years after the 365 GTB Daytona had been replaced by a series of mid-engine models. The 550 Maranello was a relatively light two-seater that used a 5.5-liter, twin-cam, four-valve engine mated to a 6-speed transaxle. It was the last Ferrari to be offered with a strictly manual transmission and was a great success, with more than 3,000 coupes built between 1996 and 2002.

The second factor involved the FIA and major race promoters. Through the late 1990s, GT and endurance racing had come to be dominated by well-funded manufacturer teams, specifically Mercedes and Porsche. Privateers could run but had no real chance for success, which in turn drove away much of the competition. The rules were thus changed in 1999 to prohibit direct manufacturer involvement. This had the desired effect, and the early 2000s saw excellent competition with a wide variety of well-matched private teams fielding a range of excellent cars in the GT class.

The third factor was the enthusiasm of Frédéric Dor, a wealthy Frenchman living in Switzerland. A successful gentleman rally driver in his mid-50s, he realized that the time had come to realize his dream of driving a Ferrari at Le Mans. The FIA racing rules allowed substantial modification to production GT cars, and the 550 looked like an excellent platform. Yet several Italian and French shops had attempted to make the 550 into a good racer with generally poor results, so Dor had another idea.

In his rallying career, he had done well using the English rally preparation company Prodrive, so he approached it with the idea of building and supporting a pair of 550s for his racing operation, Care Racing Development. Prodrive proved receptive and the “550 GTO” program, as Prodrive called it, began. Actual racing in the GT1 class began in spring 2001.

Not a factory Ferrari

The Ferrari factory had nothing to do with the project. Prodrive started with two used donor cars and tore them apart. As I said, extensive modifications were allowed, and Prodrive did them all. Suspension was all-new and widened the car to the maximum allowed. Using carbon-fiber bodywork, the aerodynamic shape and wing were developed in a wind tunnel by F1 designer Peter Stevens. They managed to knock 1,000 pounds off the car to get it to the legal minimum of 2,425.

The engine retained its original block and heads, but that was about it. It was moved several inches back in the chassis, stretched out to a full 6 liters of displacement, and developed a bit over 600 horsepower. The Ferrari transaxle was replaced with a sequential Xtrac version and the brakes were enlarged. The cars were still Ferraris, but vastly removed from anything that had left the factory.

Prodrive had done its job well, and by mid-summer 2001, the two cars were the ones to beat in the FIA GT Championship. Our subject car was particularly successful, running 49 races between 2001 and 2005 with 15 poles and 14 wins, plus a championship in 2004. The success of the Prodrive 550 GTOs was contagious, and several other teams approached Dor about buying the cars. They were told that those cars weren’t for sale, but Prodrive would happily build and support leased cars for them to race. Thus, eight more cars were built and raced up until 2005.

Watching their success, Ferrari itself decided to get into the game with a factory racer version of the successor 575 model, called the 575 GTC. Raced in 2003 through 2005, it was generally not as quick or as dependable as the Prodrive cars.

Apparently, Dor retained ownership of all 10 cars (the auction catalog says 12 were commissioned, so perhaps there were two more) during and after their careers, selling off one in 2017, and now this one. I am not aware of any other Prodrive 550 GTOs having changed hands. After this project, Prodrive moved on to building Aston Martins, which they still do, so these are the only Prodrive Ferraris.

How do you value it?

This car sold for $4.29 million, a price RM Sotheby’s claims is an online record. Regardless, it’s a lot for a non-factory car, one that will never be a real GTO, or even a 275 GTB/C. It is an incredible racing car, but it wasn’t built by the Ferrari factory, so how do we approach what it should be worth?

There are a number of factors in play. First, it was an extremely successful racing car, no matter if it was built in Oxfordshire or Maranello. Second, it is coming up on 20 years old, so it will qualify for a number of the most prestigious European vintage racing series and have a legitimate chance of winning. Third, it is a serious racing Ferrari V12, with the delicious sounds and exhilarating experience that implies. Fourth, there are only 10 (maybe 12) of these cars and apparently only two in the wild. More may come to light, but not for much less than this one.

The other consideration here is what other options are available. If you want a Ferrari V12 race car, the choices are uniformly expensive. An excellent 275 GTB/C would cost multiples of this car, as would any 250 SWB. Though a non-factory comp Daytona stalled at $2 million in this same auction, a factory comp Daytona would be more than this Prodrive car. If you could find one, a 575 GTC with history or non-Prodrive 550 racer would probably be comfortably under $3 million, but they are nowhere near as good a car, so you won’t win driving one.

When you consider that the changing buyer demographic clearly favors newer cars over older ones, that this Prodrive 550 GTO’s value has increased substantially over the past five years while the older cars have dropped, and then add in the fact that it is an extremely competitive car in today’s racing world… Well, this looks like a highly rational purchase, both fairly bought and sold. ♦

(Introductory description courtesy of RM Sotheby’s.)

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