The Ferrari Under the Bed, A Memoir and History of 0046M
by Darrell Westfaul
“It was 1965, on a bright spring day at the University of Alabama. I was 20 years old, at the close of my sophomore year, and I was walking down the front steps of the student union building, which was located on the southwest corner of University Boulevard and Colonial Drive. Even now, I see it as clearly as I did back then—a little red car like none I had ever seen before was stopped facing me at the light . . .”
Unless you’ve misplaced your imagination, this sure sounds like an adventure is afoot.
Since that little red car was stationary, and the author’s mind probably in overdrive, he may not have noticed that it didn’t sound like what it looked to be, although he had seen and heard Ferraris before: it sounded like a Chevy. Which brings us to the book title: don’t expect an entire Ferrari car to be under the bed, it’s “just” those parts of the disassembled 2L Colombo-designed V-12 that fit under it. The bed didn’t even belong to the fella who drove the car, himself only 30 years old then and already the ninth owner of this 1950 car. Lots of dots to connect, then.
Lovely period photos, many from private sources who sprung into action after becoming aware that Westfaul had begun researching the ownership and specifically competition history of 0046M.
Author Darrell Westfaul was clearly smitten. That Ferrari was going to become his. It would be his first car because he had been holding out, considering himself “spoiled for ordinary transportation” after a stint as teenage helper in a repair shop and then SCCA corner worker. He was so sure that the Ferrari was meant to be that he bought the engine before the owner of the car ever relented to sell it. Well, he needed the transmission and gearbox too but that just adds another wrinkle to this wide-ranging story. With that sort of build-up it is almost a let-down that Westfaul never put everything together but, after using the still Chevy-powered 0046M as a daily driver for a few years, put it in storage for decades. He sold it in 2007 and when it sold again, in 2016, it was still a non-runner.
Just how badly do you want that first car if it looks as daunting as this?? Westfaul was not a trust fund baby—which is why in short order the car would go from one storage shed to another and eventually be sold.
That said, in the years in which it did run as a proper racing Ferrari, 0046M racked up a respectable competition history, unknown to most of the American owners after Chinetti and before Westfaul and it is really the latter’s detective work that re-establishes the car in the record. In fact, the sleuthing continued even with the car in parts and in storage and without any specific plan for a restoration, meaning the book has plenty to say—cf. about making and maintaining contacts, the club world and collector car fraternity, the difficulty in reconciling personal recollections with the objective historical record—even if it isn’t about the nuts ‘n bolts aspect that normally drives a story such as this.
During Westfaul’s ownership the car was never restored, only repaired; the book explains why. A reader in the throes of their own restoration should not expect to find here minutia such as parts numbers/sources or specifics on restoration procedures and the like. That said, there is a useful degree of technical detail of mainly historical value pertaining to modifications to body, chassis, and engine. The latter is in fact the only assembly to have received professional ministrations, commissioned by the owner after Westfaul, and that complicated multi-year process is described here thanks to Westfaul making contact with the shop and thus gleaning pertinent information.
The book jacket says, “Had it simply remained as originally built, it would have been a rare and important car, but the changes it underwent [1] have marked it as unique and historic.” Andrea Michele Zagato in his Foreword adds to that, “Great stories never end!” and if the current owner (a German collector who, incidentally, bankrolled the publication of this book) ever returns 0046M to roadworthy condition, that story has many more chapters to go.
Custody of an important car is about more than mechanical and technical issues or letting a car be seen by the public. That Westfaul is going to the trouble of writing a book about a car he doesn’t even own anymore says a lot about his motivation as an enthusiast.
Does it count as a barn “find” if the barn (garage) is your own? Here it is 1988 and 0046M is moved from one long-term storage into another.
Any MM Ferrari is rare and historically significant so it is to be assumed that there is/has been public discussion of 0046M matters large and small. You’ll observe in the introductory excerpt above that there is no lack of specificity—which is a roundabout way of saying that not all things that made a flutter in the universe rose to a level that warranted dissection in the book. Author’s prerogative!
The book has an impressive apparatus of Bibliography, multiple Appendices, a chronology of 0046M and an exceptional multi-layered Index, also footnotes right on the pages on which they care called out. Photo credits, check; it is in fact remarkable how many private “snaps” have found their way into this book simply in response to stirrings in the grapevine, and the book talks about that collaborative aspect of advancing the body of knowledge. Oh, another useful facet: all prices, even those from recent years, are also given in 2024 dollars; you’ll still need to work out “buying power” on your own though. (Speaking of prices, collectors will be interested in Westfaul’s comments about selling a high-value item via a Charitable Remainder Trust to mitigate tax consequences.)
Pages and pages of original docs of all sorts are reproduced as 18 appendices.
- See the two cars on the book cover? One is a roadster (the original body by Touring), one a coupe (a 1953 modification, not a rebody!, by Zagato)—they’re the same chassis, something that was not universally known, not even by the various owners or reflected in the literature.
Copyright 2025, Sabu Advani (speedreaders.info).
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