A Rare 1956 Ferrari 250 GT Boano is Up for Sale

BOLD RIDE

Copyright © 2016 Bold Ride LLC.

 

Posted by Zach Doell 

 

                               

                                         

The legacy of the Ferrari marque is riddled with unique anecdotes, highlighting the brand’s larger-than-life presence and prestige. One such story is that of the “Boano”—a special and quite rare coupe, which arrived at a pivotal moment in Ferrari history. 

 

Just over five dozen or so were built, this being one of them, and the rarified Ferrari is now up for sale at RK Motors in North Carolina, asking a tall $1.99 million for the keys. So what makes these ‘50s Ferraris so special? In part, it’s the grand touring lineage they helped establish—a path that Ferrari hasn’t strayed from since.

In the years following World War II, Enzo Ferrari began to fully realize the value of the grand touring road car, first, as a mechanism to fund his racing endeavors, and second, as a way to grow the Ferrari marque. The Ferrari 166 Inter is widely credited as being the first of Enzo’s GT creations, later followed by the coachbuilt 195 and 212 Inter. But it wouldn’t be until the legendary 250 series that production standardized and output truly hit its stride.

 

The Pininfarina-crafted Ferrari 250 Europa GT arrived to much fanfare in 1954, however when it came time to increase production, Pininfarina simply didn’t have the capacity to follow suit. Instead, Ferrari and Pininfarina looked to former Ghia designer Mario Boano to handle body production, and his Carrozzeria Boano did just that.

Over the course of two years, 60-plus Ferrari 250 GT “Boano” cars were built before Mario Boano left to for Fiat’s design department in 1967, at which point his son-in-law Ezio Ellena oversaw production, giving his resulting 45 “Ellena” coupes a distinctively higher roofline. Needless to say, the 250 road car series had received a momentous start, and the GT groundwork had been laid.

This particular alloy-bodied car, chassis 0609-GT, is said to have been restored to high standards and presents nicely in a two-tone white-and-red paint scheme, accenting Boano’s wonderfully low-slung roofline. Beneath the car’s long hood lives a triumphant 3.0-liter “Colombo” V12, good for a fizzy 240 horsepower, which is routed to the ground through a four-speed manual.

Surely, just shy of two million dollars is a lot to pay for a car. That said…it is a Ferrari 250.