Jay Leno takes this 1952 Ferrari Barchetta for a spin with Leslie Kendall, chief curator at California's Petersen Automotive Museum.
The latest episode of Jay Leno’s Garage features a very special vintage car — a 1952 Ferrari Barchetta — but it’s neither the colour (hey, it isn’t red!) nor the fact that almost every part on this car is original.
What makes this Ferrari special is the connection it has to a certain well-known figure in the automotive world. Henry Ford II, to be exact. As the story goes, the car was a gift from Enzo Ferrari himself to Ford after the two were in talks to merge their two brands, which Leno remembers happening as early as 1952. Could you image how different today’s automotive world would be if the two men actually followed through with that plan?
Like the Jaguar XKSS featured a few episodes ago, this Ferrari is a gem in the polished Petersen museum, which we all know is something of a mecca for all things automotive. This particular Barchetta, which actually means “little boat” in Italian, is powered by a single-overhead cam 2.7-litre V12 engine, similar to the ones Ferrari used in its race cars at the time.
Interestingly enough, Leno brings up how when he was a kid, it was the Barchetta inspired Ford to introduce the Thunderbird later on in the decade. Leslie Kendall, chief curator at the Petersen museum, says there’s some truth to that rumour because in the museum’s archives, they have sketches that suggest Ford’s designers were at least aware of the car. You can even see some of the design cues shared between the Barchetta and the T-bird, including the exhaust tips routed through the rear bumper and the “egg crate” grille that appeared on later T-birds.
Perhaps that’s why, in Leno’s words, Ford and Ferrari “hated each other” as the years went on and talks about the two companies merging fell through. Of course, the fact that the Ford GT-40 beat Ferrari at the 24 Hours of Le Mans in the 1960s didn’t help matters much, either. Oh, and don’t forget to catch the full episode below:
source: http://driving.ca/ferrari/auto-news/cdn-car-of-the-year/breathtaking-vintage-ferrari-stops-by-jay-lenos-garage
by Nick Tragianis
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