Whatever happened to the Teenage Dream? It became vital visiting the Pantheon on a Thursday during Fasnacht-season. The Pantheon is a former machine hall of Swiss Company Züblin that has been rebuilt with a helicline on which the cars are presented. The Ferrari Special Exposition was taking place from October 15th 2011 to April 8th 2012 and had a variable display of approx. 40 cars from Maranello. The display used a semi circle of the helicline’s upper end with further four cars being shown in the entrance area together with a collection of Günther Raupp’s wonderful pictures.
The cars have been sorted by its age. The inner circle was used for competition cars, interrupted by 250 MM Berlinetta #0298MM. Its “only” Racing history is the frequent attendance of the Mille Miglia since the 1980s. Owned by German collector Hartmut Ibing, Duesseldorf by then, famous Ferraristi like Antoine Prunet and Pierre Noblet have been driver or co-driver. #0298MM has a strong Swiss history. Bought out of Italy by Hans Wirz as a replacement for his burnt #0254 it changed hands to Albert Obrist’s collection for a year only in 1980. After its German decade it was purchased by an American to return to Switzerland in 2002 when Arnold Meier purchased it.
166 MM Spider Corsa on S/N 0012M was the oldest car on display. Obviously renumbered from 008I in 1949 it had an impressive racing history throughout the 1950’s before it was rebodied with a TR/TRC-style body in 1957. It has been restored back to the 1949-configuration in the late 1990s by Dino Cognolato. Prominent owners have been Ed Niles and Swiss collector, Jean Pierre Slavic.
500 TRC, #0660MDTR, was delivered new to the US where it stayed until Albert Obrist owned it again for a short while. Repainted from its original Red, the car was NART Blu and White before being restored by Fantuzzi after being purchased by Ernst Schuster from Bavaria.
# 1771GT is one of the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Competizione and was presented in its Grey met. livery of today and 1960’s Geneva Auto Salon. Walter Ringgenberg used it intensively for hillclimb-events before it stayed for seven years with Peter F. Baumberger until 1970. It was repainted Red when Ado Vallaster from Zurich acquired the car.
Birthday child #3809 was shown in Rosso Cina. Swiss Kalman von Czazy purchased it new in 1962 before it changed hands to today’s official dealer, Pierre Sudan. He sold the car in 1965 via AutoBecker to Germany. In 1976 Hartmut Ibing again chained in the ownership of a Ferrari. He used it in several Historic Racing events.
5899 is one of the cars with a famous history. Purchased new by Scuderia Filipinetti it changed hands to Werner Biedermann’s Ecurie Basilisk who crashed the car in 1965 on his way to the Engelberg-race. The car was written off and the remains were purchased by Hans Iller who restored the car by shortening the chassis and fitting a Porsche Carrera 6 body to it! The creation was called the “Illert LM-P” and raced by his Squadra Tartaruga that included Herbert Mueller and Heini Walter.It was also purchased by Pierre Sudan who swapped the original LM-engine with internal # 10LM with David Pipier for a 330P-engine. 1969 the car was sold to Austria where it suffered again heavily in an accident. The remains changed hands a few times before Eric Stewart of 10CC-fame acquired the car in 1977. Meanwhile the original engine was purchased back from Piper and Rosso Racing Ltd. From Great Britain did create a complete new car with probably the engine remaining the only original. Stewart sold the car and it changed hands several time until it was acquired by Frederico della Noce and Andre Lara Resende who got it restored to original condition by Dino Cognolato. A replica of 5899 was created by Brandoli in Italy in the 1990’s and is said to be in Germany.
Even it was not really successful, the 312 P remains one of the most beautiful Ferraris of all time. 0872 was shown at the Pantheon. It is owned by Arnold Meier today but has a very turbulent history. Its first appearance was being renumbered to #0868 and replacing this certain car in 1969’s 24h du Mans. It was owned by Luigi Chinetti (NART) and converted into the Chinetti Special “Flying Shingle” in 1971 and it was not earlier than 1997 that it was restored with the collected original parts in Peter Sachs’ ownership in 1997 before being purchased by Arnold Meier from Meilen in Switzerland. The "Flying Shingle" chassis and body were sold separately and remained in the US with no parts of #0872.
Another beast without bigger success was the 512 BBLM. The exhibition had the Suzy Wong-example # 35523 on display. #2216, one of the 575 GTC was entered by GPC Giesse in 2004 and 2005 in the FIA GT-season. It was shown in pure Rosso Scuderia livery without any war paint.
The 599 XX is one of the Factory’s gentleman-racer cars. The example with race #69 in Nuovo Rosso Scuderia was shown. The end of the row was marked by three F1-cars 312 T2, #025, and 412 T1, #149, were real whilst the 2003 GA was one of the mock ups (N 89 (R 16)) used for displays only. 025 did not win one of the five races it was entered to. Today it belongs to Engelbert Stieger’s collection. #149 was only entered in the Monaco GP of 1994, finishing 3rd with Berger.
The “rest” of the cars have been pure road cars, but as you can see from the list, la crème de la crème. One example of each “Supercar” has been on display as well as a California Spider, a Lusso and a 275 GTB Spider, imitating one of the NART-Spiders.
The most recent counterpart of 0012M as the oldest car was one of the 599 GTO #180641 with a unique barcode-livery on its top. The car was presented in elegant Rosso Fuoco.