Friday's Ferrari

This was one of the competitors in the Coys of Kensington Ferrari GT Race at the Coys International Historic Festival meeting at Silverstone in July 1997.

It's the 1956 Ferrari 250 GT LWB Berlinetta TdF of David Cottingham. Four different versions of the TdF were built between 1955 and 1959 and are identified by the number of louvres in the sail panel behind the side windows. Fourteen examples of the earliest model were produced, and these cars didn't have any louvres. The second version had fourteen louvres and nine of these were built, then seventeen cars were built with three louvres and lastly thirty-seven with one louvre. David Cottingham's car, which is chassis #0585GT, is one of the fourteen louvre models. All the cars have the Giaocchino Colombo designed 2,953cc V12 engine, and have Scaglietti designed bodies except for five of the Series One model where the bodies were designed by Zagato. This car is finished in the colours of Tony Parravano, who was its first owner.

Friday's Ferrari

The Tour de France for automobiles began in 1899 and evolved into a contest featuring rallying on public roads, circuit races and hill climbs. It was won in 1956 by Alfonso de Portago in a Ferrari 250 Berlinetta designed and built by Pinin Farina. As a result the car became unofficially known as the 250 Tour de France, or TdF and 84 examples were built, mostly by Carrozzeria Scaglietti, and Ferrari went on to win the event 9 times in all. As far as I can ascertain seven were won by the TdF and the last two by the 250GTO.

Here are photographs of four Ferrari 250 GT TdF models, in each case taken at Coys International Historic Festival meetings at Silverstone.

A 1959 TdF, serial number 1333GT, at the Coys meeting in July 1994

This is a 1958 car, serial number 0881GT, at the Coys meeting in July 1997.

A 1956 car, serial number 0585GT, again at the 1997 Coys meeting.

This is a 1958 TdF, serial number 0909GT, seen at the 1999 Coys meeting.