THE LAST TEMPTATION

This, the final Ferrari 500 Superfast marks the end of a line of GTs conceived for the mega-rich, not just the merely wealthy

- MARTIN BUCKLEY

There will always be people with more money than sense, and it was for this rarified clientele that Enzo Ferrari sanctioned the creation of the 500 Superfast. That is not the same as saying you had to be an idiot to buy one: there were few straightforward fools among the tycoons, industrialists and high-flyers who specialordered these 37 extraordinarily expensive super-luxury Ferraris between 1964 and 1966.

Perhaps a kinder way of putting it was that, as a potential 500 Superfast owner, you were likely a person more sensitive to status and exclusivity than cost. At £11,518 15s, the sheer immensity of the price-tag was possibly part of the attraction for some.

The 500 Superfast was (almost) the final word on a certain kind of very low-volume, large-engined Ferrari developed to appeal to the American market, where pockets were deepest, roads widest and fuel cheapest. The name was first used on a conspicuously tailfinned, Pinin Farina-bodied Superamerica Turin show car in 1956. Beyond that, it is a story that is difficult to recount succinctly. Suffice to say it has its origins in the Lampredi- (as opposed to Colombo-) engined 340/342/375 America cars of the early '50s, and takes more manageable shape with the arrival of the 410. Superamerica series, built in three short batches from 1956-'59 - mostly with Farina bodywork - and featuring the latest coil-sprung front suspension and the Type 126, 4692cc version of the long-block, fixed-cylinder-head Lampredi V12. This unit, with its 108mm bore spacing, is a recurring theme in the story of these 'big-banger' Ferrari grand-touring cars, except that when the 400 Superamerica arrived in 1959 it was abandoned in favour of an enlarged Colombo engine, bored out to 77mm and stroked to 71mm by way of a new crank, for a total swept volume of 3967cc.