1952 | Ferrari 340 Mexico Berlinetta

Highlights

Raced by the double Formula 1 World Champion and true titan of motorsport history Aberto Ascari in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana

One of just three 340 Mexico Berlinettas purpose-built by the Ferrari factory to win the Carrera Panamericana

Retaining its matching-numbers chassis, engine, gearbox and rear axle, as per the accompanying copies of its original Ferrari factory build sheets

Raced by Carroll Shelby in the fiercely popular North American SCCA series in 1953

Fastidiously restored by the award-winning Wisconsin-based Italian classic automotive restoration specialist Motion Products Inc.

Powered by a commandingly powerful 4.1-litre long-block Lampredi V12 producing 276bhp, the most of any car that contested the 1952 Carrera Panamericana

Cloaked in an aggressive yet strikingly elegant competition-focused Gran Turismo body designed by Giovanni Michelotti under the Vignale banner

An intoxicating ‘big-banger’ flagship 1950s Ferrari, eligible for the world’s most prestigious concours competitions and historic motorsport events

The Carrera Panamericana

It’s 1950 and you’re the head of the government body responsible for completing the Mexican stretch of the long-awaited Pan-American Highway – an incredibly proud moment for a country desperate to shake off its ‘old-world’ image. Devised to connect Alaska in the north with Argentina in the south, the ambitious multinational cross-continental road project was quite the feat, both logistically and politically.

With post-War prosperity fueling tourism and making the motor car – and thus travel by road – more accessible than ever, Mexico urgently needs traffic on the 2,200-mile stretch of road it has worked so defiantly to build. The solution? A marathon border-to-border road race to make the Mille Miglia and the 24 Hours of Le Mans in Europe look like proverbial walks in the park.

Aptly christened the Carrera Panamericana, the fearsome weeklong competition was held five times between 1950 and 1954, attracting the era’s very best drivers from every discipline of motorsport (Formula 1 included!) and firmly establishing itself as the most challenging motor race in the world. In fact, from 1953, the Carrera Panamericana became a fully-fledged round of the FIA World Sportscar Championship (to the chagrin of many competitors, who were forced to start wearing crash helmets as a result!).

When worlds collide

Much of the charm of the Carrera Panamericana was the kaleidoscopic variety of machinery taking part. With the emerging North American market’s increasing appetite for automotive exports from Europe, thunderous stock saloons from the ‘Big Three’ in Detroit were pitched against comparatively exotic sports cars from Alfa Romeo, Jaguar, Mercedes-Benz and Ferrari.

With Grands Prix, Mille Miglia, Targa Florio and Le Mans victories already chalked on its competition record, the Prancing Horse might have been a young company at the turn of the 1950s, but its intentions were clear to everybody. In Europe, at least. North America was a lucrative yet largely untapped market for Ferrari at that time, which explains why Maranello sent two brand new 212 Inters and its star drivers Piero Taruffi and Alberto Ascari to Mexico for the Carrera in 1951. That and the generous government-funded prize pot, no doubt.

When the pair crossed the finish line near Ciudad Juárez first and second in front of 200,000 local spectators, clinching the handsome 23,000-dollar purse, Enzo Ferrari was encouraged. He appointed his old friend Luigi Chinetti, the Italo-American Le Mans winner and Taruffi’s invaluable Carrera co-driver, as Ferrari’s North American agent (Chinetti promptly sold both 212 Inters to Mexican drivers straight after the race). And back in Italy, development work began on a new car specifically for the next year’s Carrera Panamericana.

The Ferrari 340 Mexico

The result was the commanding and aptly named Ferrari 340 Mexico, which, unlike its 2.5-litre Colombo V12-powered predecessor, was fitted with ingegnere Aurelio Lampredi’s 4.1-litre all-alloy long-stroke single-overhead-cam V12, the engine whose roots can be traced to the race-winning 375 Formula 1 monoposto.

Designed by a young Giovanni Michelotti for Vignale, the aggressive yet strikingly elegant competition-focused Gran Turismo was beautifully unconventional. Aesthetically in line with the 212 Inter (also a high-waisted pontoon-fender Vignale design), the Mexico melded function-first features such as the bug deflector spanning the entire width of the bonnet and the vertical vents on the doors force-feeding cold air to the rear wheels with generous chrome trim and subtle tail fins no doubt implemented by tickle the Americans’ aesthetic fancy.

Beneath the surface, features such as the 150-litre endurance fuel tank, extended fifth gear, quadruple carburettors increasing power to a heady 280bhp (that’s 180mph flat-out, in 1952!), lightened tubular chassis and strengthened rear axle were all implemented with the Carrera Panamericana firmly in mind. In short, the 340 Mexico was designed for one thing: going hour after hour at full-chat on terrible roads, at altitude, in all weather conditions and in the face of all kind of oblivious exotic wildlife. It was designed for one thing: to win the Carrera Panamericana.

Chassis no. 0226 AT

Ferrari built just four 340 Mexicos for the 1952 Carrera Panamericana: three Berlinettas and one Spyder, all bodied by Vignale. The car we’re honoured to be presenting here is chassis number 0226 AT. Together with chassis no. 0222 AT, this car was sold new by Luigi Chinetti to the Texan oil magnate Allen Guiberson III in October of 1952. As part of the deal Chinetti would arrange for the two 340s to be raced by the Works Ferrari drivers – in the case of this car, by the then-reigning Formula 1 World Champion Alberto Ascari.

A fierce and no-holds-barred racer at odds with his short, stocky appearance, Ascari had finished runner up in Mexico the previous year. And with his Formula 1 title fresh under his belt, the wind was certainly in his sails heading into the Carrera, where he’d be partnered with the Works mechanic Giuseppe Scotuzzi.

As the accompanying copies of its factory build sheets confirm, chassis number 0226 AT was completed in September of 1952. When the car arrived in Mexico in November, it was given a temporary Italian registration plate, assigned the race number 14 and adorned with the same poppy ‘Industrias 1-2-3’ livery. The ‘No Hay Dos’ painted on the leading edge of the bonnet can be – fittingly – translated as ‘nothing better’.

For its third edition, the Carrera Panamericana had truly become the world’s foremost road race, attracting a raft of factory entries and prompting the organisers to introduce a separate class specifically for European sports cars. Mounting the strongest challenge to Ferrari was Daimler-Benz, which was fielding three of its new 300SLs with considerable assistance (including two chartered Douglas DC-3s for support crews!).

Starting 14th of 92 entrants, Ascari passed a staggering nine cars in the race’s opening 50 miles – a surefire indication of the world champion’s intentions. Alas, a combination of a loose road surface and an unfortunately positioned rocky ledge put a premature end to chassis number 0226 AT’s Carrera. At the end of a race in which there were just 39 finishers, Luigi Chinetti in one of the sister 340 Mexicos finished third overall.

Having been returned to Italy right away to be repaired, chassis number 0226 AT was then finally delivered to Guiberson III, who promptly sold it to fellow Texan A.V. Dayton, who, in turn, took the car to Nebraska for the July Sports Car Club (SCCA) of America round. There, the young Texan chicken farmer turned racing driver Carroll Shelby drove a masterful race with this 340 Mexico, finishing second. It was the first time the Le Mans winner and decorated constructor ever piloted a Prancing Horse.

This Ferrari contested three further SCCA events, before it was bought by Luigi Chinetti in the spring of 1954. Chassis number 0226 AT would remain stateside for over four decades, during which time it passed through the hands of several prominent American Ferrari figures including the Ferrari Club of America co-founder Larry Nicklin (who also owned chassis no. 0224 AT) and collector J. William Marriott Jr. in New York.

Marriott Jr. charged Skip Hunt and David Carte with restoring this 340 Mexico from the ground up, an exhaustive project which lasted three years. The restoration preceded an all-out blast on the American Ferrari concours scene – one which garnered some exceptional results. Take the ‘Best of Show’ at the Ferrari Club of America Concours at Elkhart Lake, the ‘Peter Helck Award for Best Race Car’ at the Meadow Brook Concours d’Elegance in Michigan and the ‘Best in Class’ at the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in Monterey.

A brief spell in one of the United Kingdom’s finest collections of historic road and competition cars followed in the late 1990s, before chassis number 0226 AT crossed the Atlantic once again to join the stable of the Colorado-based collector Bruce Lustman. Lustman capitalised on the eligibility of this 1950s Ferrari, contesting both the Rolex Monterey Historic Automobile Races at Laguna Seca and the Colorado Grand, North America’s finest historic road rally.

This Ferrari’s current owner acquired the car in 2011, subsequently commissioning a comprehensive restoration with Motion Products Inc., the award-winning Wisconsin-based Italian classic automotive restoration specialist. The brief from the outset was clear: to return chassis number 0226 AT to the exact specification in which Alberto Ascari raced it in the 1952 Carrera Panamericana. And as the hundreds of photos documenting the painstaking process illustrate, no stone was left unturned. The result is, as one would expect, astonishing.

Upon completion, this 340 Mexico made the first of its mere two public appearances since at the 2020 Cavallino Classic in Palm Beach, where it was a worthy winner of the Ferrari Competition Cup. During the world-famous Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance in 2021, the car accrued further silverware when it was awarded the ‘Best in Class’ gong in the category celebrating the Carrera Panamericana.

Retaining its matching-numbers chassis, engine, gearbox and rear axle, as per the accompanying copies of its original Ferrari factory build sheets, chassis number 0226 AT is a striking, scintillating and ultra-rare ‘big-banger’ 12-cylinder 1950s Ferrari. Furthermore, it was raced by one of the great Formula 1 World Champions Alberto Ascari in what was among the most challenging and dangerous endurance races of all time: the Carrera Panamericana.

Fresh from a zero-compromise restoration and having only been fleetingly seen in public since, this Ferrari is a ticket to the world’s greatest historic motoring events. From prestigious beauty pageants such as the Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este and Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance to dynamic events such as the Mille Miglia Storico and the Colorado Grand.

Needless to say, there is also a popular annual modern tribute to the Carrera Panamericana in Mexico, for which chassis number 0226 AT would, of course, be eligible. Finishing what Alberto Ascari and Giuseppe Scotuzzi started 72 years ago? Now there’s a tantalising thought…

Price Upon Application