(Vignale) Ferrari Beaters

A personal account by Eric Davison
With thanks to Marcel Massini and Richard F. Merritt

The recent story by Wallace Wyss about Ferrari ‘beaters’ (The Joy of Beater Ferraris) brought back a memory about a time when there were even Vignale Ferraris that were beaters, although that pejorative had not yet been used in conjunction with automobiles.

Unlike today when the name Ferrari evokes dollar signs and the older the Ferrari the more dollar signs, in the late 50s and early 60s an old Ferrari sports racing car was just a tired old piece of outdated aluminum that had outlived its competitive life having been surpassed by the latest model.

But, there were people who had an inkling of what was to come. One such man was a gentleman named Herb Armstrong. Herb was employed by Chrysler International and was headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Enter my father. Dad was, in the words of the late David E. Davis ‘a man whose lust for sports cars assumed the proportions of monomania.’ He was a founding member of the Detroit Region of the SCCA and as such he was known to just about everyone (a small group at that time) who cared as he did about sports cars.

That group included Herb Armstrong;

Therefore, Armstrong thought dad would be the ideal partner in a plan to resell the fabulous, past their prime cars that he was finding in his European travels.

However, my dad was just not interested. He did not want to be in the business of selling used cars especially since they were going to be tired old vehicles with no warranty, guarantee or anything that would keep him from taking the blame for a car that was bad. Also, he did not want to be stuck with some old clunker that was in need of extensive repairs before it could be sold.

Herb Armstrong kept after him. He would send letters describing various Ferraris and Maseratis that could be bought for almost nothing and that would certainly be interesting enough to attract buyers and profits. This correspondence went on for over a year and my dad was just adamant. NO!

One day a letter arrived from Herb. It said in effect, I know you always say ‘no’ but this time it is too late. A 2.9 liter Ferrari has been shipped to you. It will arrive in Detroit and will be delivered to a trucking terminal on the north east side of Detroit. All you have to do it to pick it up, sign the import papers and sell the car. Anything you get more than $1600 is yours.

On the appointed day, dad called me and I left work early and we set out for the trucking terminal in his VW Beetle. We tossed in a five-gallon Jerry can of gasoline a couple of quarts of oil and a tow rope just in case. Dad also arranged with his friend Richie Lyeth who raced his own Hi-Torque 4.5 liter Ferrari to have his mechanic meet us and assist in getting the car started.

While dad was not altogether happy about the situation, the prospect of having a Ferrari in the garage even for a while livened him up somewhat.

When we arrived at the terminal the car had already been unloaded. If a Ferrari can be ugly, this one earned the description. While it had a Vignale body, that body was a cracking mass of Bondo. It was a mess; butt ugly.

However, once the jumper cables were attached and a few squirts of ether were applied to the triple Webers, the car fired up. No matter how ugly a Ferrari might be, the distinctive metallic ring of the starter followed by the roar of 12 cylinders coming to life wipes away any vestige of ugliness.

We started out for the Davison home in suburban Birmingham, about 15 miles, Dad in the Ferrari and me behind in the VW. Shortly after making the turn west on to 15 Mile Road there was a roar from the Ferrari and with black smoke pouring from the exhaust and it went screaming westward. Naturally the VW was outclassed and my first thoughts were that he was as he would put it, giving it a bit of a go.

About two miles up the road the Ferrari was parked by the side with dad standing over it. I pulled in behind. He was visibly shaken. ‘Not only is the goddam thing an ugly mess but the sunofabitch tried to kill me.’ He had tried to ease on the throttle after the turn but the throttle took over and went to wide open. Stuck! He didn’t dare dump in the clutch as that would have let the engine rev beyond any safe level and because the car and its controls were absolutely alien to him it took some time to find the ignition and kill the screaming, speeding monster.

So, the Ferrari continued on its way to dad’s garage ignominiously at the end of a rope behind a VW Beetle. There was no way that I could convince him that we had to try it, that a Ferrari in his garage was a once in a lifetime experience. The thought of the thing swallowing a valve was too big a deterrent for him to consider even firing it up.

Dad put the word out that he had a 2.9 liter competition Ferrari for sale and a few people turned up. Fortunately for him one of those people was Dick Merritt. Anyone who knows anything of Ferrari lore knows that Merritt was one, of if not the first persons to understand that Ferraris of any description were to be coveted. He was one of the first collectors and authorities.

Dick and Warren Fitzgerald eventually created a beautiful book dedicated to Ferrari. It is a definitive work. [As we’ll see next week, Ed.] Fortunately for Dad, Dick Merritt made an offer that dad could not refuse. If my memory serves me correctly, $2000 made the deal for the 2.9 liter Ferrari (0332MM) that had been raced extensively by José Arroyo Nogueira Pinto in important races in Spain, Brazil and Portugal. I asked Merritt to see what he remembered. “ I found my accounting record for 0332MM, and I paid your dad $2,000 in
October of 1960 for the car,” wrote Merritt.

When Dad settled up with Herb Armstrong he learned that the cash, out-the-door price for 0332MM was $750. Even the fact that dad pocketed $400 for his efforts could not convince him that he wanted to be a broker for tatty old racers with sticking throttles.

Merritt found that there was almost no underbody support on 0332MM. Apparently in the spirit of light weight, the body was lightly attached to the chassis with no weighty supports. It was a miracle that it had stayed together. Merritt passed the car on to Donald Schmitt of Ohio in 1958. It has since been traded far and wide.

Dad didn’t want to leave his friend Herb Armstrong high and dry so he recruited two Detroit SCCA enthusiast/entrepreneurs to take over.

Harry Constant and Chuck Sherman became the guys. They handled four cars from Herb Armstrong, two Maseratis, a 200S and a 150S. There was an Aston Martin and another Ferrari. One of the Maseratis wound up with a Ford V8 in it and the Aston was sold prior to the first James Bond movie. The price pre Bond fame was $3000. Post bond, $8000.

But, the worst (or best) of it all was the last Ferrari. It was a 1954 Mondial GT coupe, a two-liter 4-cylinder berlinetta with a body by Pinin Farina. There were only two 4-cylinder coupes built. The other one had a Vignale body and has since disappeared. Obviously, this one remaining four-cylinder Mondial 500 GT coupe is worth considerably more that the $1500 that Constant and Sherman paid Herb Armstrong.

Ferrari ‘beaters!’ Indeed.