This magnificent sports-prototype Ferrari was the fifth and last of the select batch of 6-cylinder big-engined projectiles that provided the absolute spearhead of the factory Ferrari team’s endurance racing campaign for 1955. These gorgeously aggressive and exquisitely well-proportioned cars were powered by Tipo 118 and Tipo 121 6-cylinder twin-overhead camshaft engines in 3.7 and 4.4-litre form. This particular individual was assembled upon a Ferrari Tipo 509 (510) Allungato chassis, and it proved to be the most prominent of the three Ferrari 121LMs to be built new to this specification at Maranello.

It made its racing debut on April 3 that year, as a fully-fledged Scuderia Ferrari works team entry driven in the punishing Giro di Sicilia (Tour of Sicily) road race on a one-lap course which essentially followed the coastline of the Mediterranean island for no fewer than 1,088kms – some 620 miles. Ferrari 121LM serial ‘0558 LM’ was driven there by the talented new young Italian rising star Umberto Maglioli, from Biella. He had begun his competition career as the protégé of another Biellese road racer, 1952 Mille Miglia winner Giovanni Bracco. Now, recognised by Mr Ferrari as a driving talent in his own right, Maglioli brought ‘0558 LM’ offered here home in a fine second place overall, headed only by the veteran ‘Silver Fox’, Piero Taruffi, in a sister 121LM...

At the end of that same month, on April 30, 1955, the car now offered here then starred in the most important true road racing event of the era – the 1,000-mile round-Italy Mille Miglia.

Mr Ferrari entrusted it to the rather more experienced, better established but also youthful new Italian star - Eugenio Castellotti. This charismatic young man from Milan had shown early promise in private sports-racing Ferraris before being given a works team place by Lancia Corse in 1954-55.
He shone for the Torinese factory team in both Formula 1 and sports cars and was effectively on loan to the Scuderia Ferrari for the Mille Miglia since Lancia had withdrawn from sports car competition for the new year to concentrate its fast-dwindling financial resources upon Grand Prix racing with its new V8-engined D50 designs. Castellotti would drive for Ferrari in the sports car events but against them in his Formula 1 Lancia until, after the Monaco GP, the Lancia company collapsed into receivership and eventual sale. Into the autumn of 1955 Ferrari would have inherited not only all of Lancia Corse’s Formula 1 hardware but also – full-time – the services of its best young driver.

In the Mille Miglia, Eugenio Castellotti – nicknamed ‘Il Bello’ for his darkly handsome good looks and stylish dress sense - drove this fantastically fast Ferrari 121LM “like the wind”. Wearing the Bologna registration plate ‘BO 46416 PROVA’ and carrying the start-time racing number ‘723’, Castellotti was the last to start from the traditional ramp set-up in Brescia’s Viale Rebuffone, and he quickly caught the eventual race winners, Stirling Moss and Denis Jenkinson, in no less a car than their works Mercedes-Benz 300SLR.

For many miles on those variably-surfaced, deceptive public roads, the Mille Miglia became a two-car duel between 3-litres of German straight-eight, desmodromic-valved, three-pointed star engine against 4.4-litres of twin-overhead camshaft in-line six-cylinder from Ferrari. And ‘0558 LM’ here, driven to the absolute limit by its young Italian star, first harried Stirling Moss and then passed him to lead the great race on corrected time.

Consider the stature of this Ferrari 121LM from this first-hand report, written from the navigator’s seat of the Mercedes-Benz 300SLR ‘722’, as Denis Jenkinson recalled: “The car was going really well now, and on the straights to Verona we were getting 7,500 in top gear, a speed of 274kph, or close to 170mph...

“Approaching Padova Moss pointed behind and I looked round to see a Ferrari gaining on us rapidly, and with a grimace of disgust at one another we realised it was Castellotti. The Mercedes-Benz was giving all it had, and Moss was driving hard but taking no risks, letting the car slide just so far on the corners and no more. Entering the main street of Padova at 150mph I suddenly realised that Moss was beginning to work furiously on the steering wheel, for we were arriving at the corner much too fast...Just when it seemed we must go head-on into the straw bales Moss got the speed low enough...and as we went bump! into the straw bales with our left-front corner...Castellotti was right behind us, and as we bounced off the bales he nipped by us, grinning over his shoulder.

“Through Padova we followed the 4.4-litre Ferrari and on acceleration we could not hold it, but the Italian was driving like a maniac, sliding all the corners, using the pavements and the loose edges of the road. Round a particularly dodgy left-hand bend on the outskirts of the town, I warned Moss and then watched Castellotti sorting out his Ferrari, the front wheels on full understeer, with the inside one off the ground, and rubber pouring off the rear tyres, leaving great wide marks on the road. This was indeed motor racing from the best possible position...following the Ferrari at a discreet distance...

“Out of the town we joined an incredibly fast stretch, straight for many miles, and we started alongside the Ferrari in bottom gear, but try as the Mercedes-Benz did the red car just drew away from us, and once more Moss and I exchanged very puzzled looks. By the time we had reached our maximum speed the Ferrari was over 200 yards ahead, but then it remained there, the gap being unaltered along the whole length of the straight.

“At the cut-off point at the end we gained considerably, both from the fact that we knew exactly when the following left-hand corner was approaching and also from slightly superior brakes.

“More full-throttle running saw us keeping the Ferrari in sight, and then as we approached a small town we saw Castellotti nip past another Ferrari, and we realised we were going to have to follow through the streets, until there was room to pass...this let Castellotti get away from us, but he was not completely out of sight...but out on the open roads he was driving so near the limit that on every corner he was using the gravel and rough stuff on the edges of the road. This sent up a huge cloud of dust and we could never be sure whether or not we were going to enter it to find the Ferrari sideways across the road, or bouncing off the banks and trees...

Wisely, Moss eased back a little and the Ferrari got ahead of us sufficiently to let the dust clouds settle. Approaching the Ravenna control, as we braked just before the control were a row of pits, and there was ‘723’, Castellotti’s Ferrari, having some tyre changes...not surprising in view of the way he had been driving. Our time to Ravenna had been well within the old record but Castellotti had got there before us...” In fact some two minutes before Moss and the mighty Mercedes-Benz. But his efforts to compensate for the time lost in tyre changing then over-stressed ‘0558 LM’s hard-pressed 6-cylinder engine, which failed during the next leg, from Ravenna to Pescara.

This Ferrari 121LM was then repaired and made ready for the 24-Hour Grand Prix d’Endurance on June 12 at Le Mans, in which it was to be co-driven by Maglioli and the works team’s new American recruit, Phil Hill.

Ferrari’s future Formula 1 World Champion Driver looked back upon driving ‘0558 LM’ now offered here at Le Mans ’55 like this: “Today the big 4.4-litre 6-cylinder Ferrari 121LM is regarded as something of a rocket ship. But the first time I found myself accelerating out of Tertre Rouge corner onto the Mulsanne Straight in it at Le Mans my first thought was that it was dramatically gutless. I soon discovered that this was only because of the extremely tall gear that we had to have for Le Mans. I think our cars were the fastest there; we ran around 180 mph!

“In fact, once the 121LM was into its stride along the Mulsanne straight it was indeed stupendous. Faster than anything I’d ever driven to that point and braking was real hard to get used to, braking in increments rather than all at once... We had to brake before the rise at the end of the straight which I think was about 300 metres or something like that. We had to brake lightly knowing that the heat was going-in at a higher rate at that speed and then I’d let off the brake after maybe 100 yards and then I’d brake another 50 yards or something like that and brake progressively harder as speed diminished and I ran deeper into the turn. Actually it worked OK.”

Maglioli took the first stint, but just as Phil Hill was about to take over ‘0558 LM’ from him, the ‘Levegh’ Mercedes hit the Lance Macklin Austin-Healey on the pit straight and the Le Mans disaster ensued in which so many spectators were killed and injured. Phil took over the Ferrari after witnessing the catastrophe from his team’s pit counter. He later recalled how he began his first racing stint in this big, superfast 121LM: “I remember taking off and wondering how the chaos of
the crash was going to hinder progress round the track but on that first lap, somewhere uphill as I recall – perhaps at the end of my first lap, running uphill into the Dunlop Curve - Stirling Moss came absolutely blasting past me in the Mercedes that he had just taken
over from Fangio, and he was going like an absolute rocket!

“That instant taught me a little lesson that I carried with me for the rest of my career, and that is when peace turns to chaos get your wits about you and Get On With It, because it’s the ideal opportunity to make time since a lot of people get rattled or screwed-up and don’t do their best. And that was a good lesson from Moss, because he was flying.

“But even on my first lap out of the pits I’d also been startled to see how much other carnage there was around the track...but gradually the organisers established a safe procedure...finally cleared the track properly and everybody began to settle into a proper race pace. I was trying to concentrate, to get the best from the car without punishing it. There were still 21 hours to go. I was sure somebody had died, but I had no idea whether it was one, two or ten – I never dreamed the toll could be 30, 50, 70 or more. Finally my stint was done, and I handed the LM back to Maglioli. For the first time I then began to hear what had happened. But about midnight, while Maglioli was driving, our car started to overheat, and blew out its water. We were fourth at the time but our race was over.”

On July 22, 1955, Umberto Maglioli drove the ex-Le Mans car again, but this time in a very different event – the Italian mountain climb at Aosta-Gran San Bernardo. Running race number ‘124’, Maglioli set FTD to win overall.

On August 7 either ‘0558 LM’ or its 121LM sister ‘0546’ was driven in the Swedish Grand Prix on the Rabelovsbana country-road circuit outside Kristianstad by Eugenio Castellotti. Wearing race number ‘7’ the car finished third overall, beaten only by the twin Mercedes-Benz 300SLRs of Juan Manuel Fangio and Stirling Moss.

In September, 1955, ‘0558 LM’ was sold into American ownership, the deal involving both East Coast distributor Luigi Chinetti and his new West coast counterpart John von Neumann. Factory documentation indicates that on October 4, 1955, ‘0558 LM’s gearbox was overhauled at Maranello under the experienced supervision of ’shop foreman Amos Franchini, while next day he signed-off overhaul of its engine by mechanics Rossi, Nicolini and Turchi, and four days later the car was reassembled and running on the Modena Aerautodromo test track, driven by the works’ collaudatore Sergio Sighinolfi, with engineer Silingardi and Franchini in attendance.
The car was then shipped to Caracas, Venezuela, on October 10, to compete in the sports car Venezuelan Grand Prix there – on November 6. The car was entered by John von Neumann to be driven by Phil Hill. It carried race number ‘6’ but the long trip proved fruitless as the rebuilt engine boiled on the starting grid and Hill soon had to withdraw with chronic overheating.

The car was taken back to United States, where it began a long and honourable career in SCCA racing. In June, 1956, it was driven to major victory at Elkhart Lake, driven by Carroll Shelby and entered by Marty P. Christensen of Racine, Wisconsin. In July, Shelby won again in the car at Beverly, Maryland, while August saw Ron Cherryholmes winning in it at Mansfield, North Carolina.

It was subsequently re-sold by Chinetti to ‘Honest John’ Kilborn, who drove it home second at Coffeyville, Louisiana, that October. Kilborn then took to Nassau for the Bahamas Speed Week events in early December, finishing seventh in class in a preliminary race, but failing to finish in the feature 20-lap Governor’s Trophy. John Kilborn also took seventh place in the special 5-lap Ferrari race there.

Havana, Cuba, saw ‘0558 LM’s next racing appearance, on February 25, 1957. Carroll Shelby drove the car again during practice, but in the race itself Kilborn did not finish.

He then returned the ageing Ferrari to Chinetti Motors, New York, and its subsequent owners then include dedicated Ferrari collector and authority Richard F. Merritt, of Bethesda, Maryland, in the late 1960s, before it passed into the magnificent works Ferrari collection of Pierre Bardinon, at Mas du Clos, near Aubusson, France. In 1986 it was acquired from the Bardinon Collection by its late – and most recent – owner, the discerning Ferrari enthusiast Antoine Midy, of Paris, France.

He drove the car in the 1988 Mille Miglia Retro, and in 1994 had the car restored by French Ferrari importer Charles Pozzi SA, of Paris, France. It was tested on French dealer licence plates ‘866 W 92’, and in December 1999 was exhibited by M. Midy in the ‘Le Leggenderia Sport Delle Corse Di Durata’ display at the Galleria Ferrari in Maranello.

This spectacular and historic sports-racing Ferrari was featured prominently in the October, 2000, issue of the top-quality French magazine ‘Automobiles Classiques’, followed by similar exposure in the June, 2004, edition of the French Ferrari Club magazine.

Antoine Midy drove the car in the May 2005 Sport et Collection meeting at Val de Vienne, France, but tragically he later succumbed to cancer on May 20, 2007 – the car now being offered here from his Estate.

During M. Midy’s ownership ‘0558 LM’ has been maintained for him by the leading Ferrari specialist Preaubert - chief mechanic of the French distributor Pozzi for some 30 years – and Ateliers V12 of Saint-Brice have recently completed an extensive rebuild of the 6-cylinder engine, an invoice for some 47,700 Euros for this work being included in the accompanying documentation file. The Ferrari 121 engine bears the number 0558LM and the ‘numero interno’ number 01. Research is ongoing in relation to these numbers and prospective bidders are advised to contact the Bonhams office prior to sale.

This is one of the most charismatic individual sports-prototype Ferraris from a most charismatic period. As can be appreciated from the first-hand accounts reproduced above it absolutely starred in some of the most historic, most-publicised and most vividly recalled great races of motor sporting history. And it has come down to us today as not merely a tangible survivor of that legendary era – but as one of its prime players. Self-evidently, this is a most important collectors’ car; offered to the market here for the first time in more than twenty years...