Lord Bamford is one of the only guy who owns two Ferrari GTOs, and when it comes to his 1963 250 GTO, it’s been raced or driven on the road every year since he bought it in 1969. Its history is intertwined with the Goodwood Circuit’s.
This is how chassis number 4399GT’s story started according to Goodwood Road & Racing’s fastest encyclopedia, Andy Craig:
Delivered new to Colonel Ronnie Hoare in May 1963, it was run under the illustrious Maranello Concessionaires banner almost straight away at the Goodwood Members’ Meeting where it won in the hands of Mike Parkes. Another win was earned by Parkes in the Martini Trophy race at Silverstone before the car went on to chalk up two more wins at Goodwood (overall) and Silverstone (first in class) in its first season, as well as first in class (second overall) at Mallory Park with Jack Sears at the helm.
The second Goodwood victory came at the Touritst Trophy race with Graham Hill at the wheel. Despite a successful season’s racing the car was then sent back to Maranello where Scaglietti fitted the Rosso Corsa and Cambridge Blue 1964 bodywork it still wears to this day.
If you want to know what happened after ‘64, I highly recommend reading the rest of Andy’s piece, but the most important thing is that after Lord Bamford acquired the car in 1969 at the age of 24, instead of locking her up, he took it back to the track straight away.
When you start to wonder what sort of people are crazy enough to race these now basically priceless Ferraris season after season for decades — apart from a little known drummer called Nick Mason (nope, never heard of him or his band, no sir) — here’s your answer:
The Chairman of JCB and the guy who supposedly didn’t buy Jaguar from Ford in 2006 only because he didn’t wish to own Land Rover with it. Cup of tea then?
Photo credit: Antony Fraser
Contact the author at mate@jalopnik.com.