Rare NART Spyder Does Well at Amelia Island

This sleek and svelte 275 GTB/S NART Spyder, s/n 09437, was the first of ten especially made 275 GTBs that were transformed into spyder versions at the request of Luigi Chinetti, Sr, for sale in the American market. The story is well known - 275 GTBs were having a hard time being sold (can you believe it!!) so Chinetti persuaded Ferrari to commission a spyder version to make it more salable in the Americas. Ferrari consented and Scaglietti did the work.

It came out so well visually that it had a host of imitations, and there have been many conversions since then, but there were only ten original cars and this is the first. It came into the country through Luigi Chinetti in 1967 and was sent immediately to the Sebring 12 hour race in Florida, where it was driven by (get this) a glamorous woman named Maryanne “Pinky” Rollo and a famous lady driver, Denise McCluggage, an all female team back in the day when there were very few female drivers at all in what was considered a purely men’s sport. However, they finish 17th overall, which was not bad at all, and especially when you consider that they were 2nd in their class.

The reason this car was in the Movie Cars class at Amelia Island was because later in 1967 it also appeared in the original movie of The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen and Faye Dunaway. (It was originally painted “Giallo solare” but became burgundy for the movie. It was later returned to its original yellow.)

After that it went to the well-known Ferrari collector Norman Silver and after that a whole group of Ferrari collectors until it ended up in the collection of Lawrence Auriana in 2005. It’s still in the collection and was brought under the name of the Fratelli Auriana. It showed beautifully at Amelia and took home the award for the Most Historically Significant Post-War Race Car (the Denise McCluggage Trophy appropriately).

Images from Keith Bluemel.