The Ferrari Under the Bed, A Memoir and History of 0046M

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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 obscure sources.

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 story. With that sort of build-up it is almost a let-down that Westfaul never put everything together but, after using 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 like 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.

Since the car never was restored, don’t expect a lot of tech talk here.

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 (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 a collector.

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.

You’ll observe in the introductory excerpt above that there is no lack of specificity. But, not all things a curious reader might want to know are laid bare, but that’s an author’s prerogative, or simply an oversight! 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 process. Oh, another useful facet: all prices, even those from recent years, are also given in 2004 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.

Postscript:

Casual reader, ignore the following because it is peripheral to the core story but a loose end to longtime Ferrari folk: in 2006/07 there was an internet thread about 0046M involving Swiss Ferrari historian Marcel Massini saying on the record that he had made offers (plural!), which were rebuffed, to buy the car at what he calls a “substantially higher” price than what the 2007 sale would realize (which would be relevant to the Charitable Trust arrangement). This is not discussed here but other offers/inquiries during that time are.

See the two cars on the book cover? One is a roadster (the original body by Touring), one a coupe (a 1953 modification by Zagato)—they’re the same chassis.