Yahoo Finance It Took a Subaru Rally Team to Turn the Ferrari 550 Into an Icon
For a certain type of car enthusiast, a front-engine, V-12 Ferrari is the pinnacle. All the better if it's a race car. It's the sort of car Ferrari abandoned racing after the 365 GTC4 Daytona Competizione, but a type that made a mighty comeback in the early Aughts. Just after the turn of the millennium French racer Frédéric Dor and U.K. racing firm Prodrive developed the Ferrari 550 GTS Maranello and in the process created a modern legend.
In Keith Bluemel's Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive: The Last V12 Ferrari to Win at Le Mans, the car gets a loving tribute. The book, consisting of two volumes spanning 582 pages, is almost comically exhaustive. Produced by U.K. collector-car dealer Girardo and Co. in collaboration with sales-and-engineering specialist DK Engineering, Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive is for the hardest core of fans.
The Prodrive 550 is no-doubt worthy of this treatment. It notched up 60 pole positions, 151 podiums, and 69 victories in its nine-year career. Most notably, the car won the GTS class at the 2003 24 Hours of Le Mans, the 24 Hours of Spa in 2004, and the 2005 FIA GT title.
Its story is remarkable too. It starts with a failed attempt to turn the 550 Maranello into a race car by Italian firm Italtecnica at the behest of Stephan Ratel for his FIA GT championship. Dor bought one car, and brought it to his friends at Prodrive for an inspection. Prodrive, which at that point was best known for running Subaru's title-winning World Rally Championship team, recommended that Dor start over from scratch. He bought a 550 road car from a dealer and set them to work.
Fifteen weeks later, they had a car. Two were built for development, and the first competition car made its debut at the Hungaroring in July of 2001. That car only qualified fifth and didn't finish, but the next FIA GT round in Austria proved a better preview of what was to come. The car qualified on pole and took victory, its first of many.
Ferrari actually wasn't involved in the car's development, but the company gave the car its blessing. It likely inspired Ferrari to get back into GT racing itself, first with the 575 GTC and then with a line of mid-engine cars that continues to this day with the 296 GT3.
Bluemel leaves no stone unturned. The complete development history of the 550 GTS is covered, with interviews from Dor, Prodrive founder David Richards, and technical director George Howard-Chappell, and tons of others involved in its genesis. There's an entire chapter dedicated to how the engines were modified from the 550's standard unit to race spec, complete with pictures of the many gorgeous components within the V-12.
The entire competition history, which spans 2001-2009 as a works car, is covered too, each race detailed. Alone no mean feat, as Prodrive built 10 550 GTSs, which collectively entered 343 races across the FIA GT Championship, American Le Mans Series, and many other regional championships. The book also covers the 550 GTS's career as a modern historic racer. Bluemel also interviews drivers, members of Dor's Care Racing Team, and many current owners.
Each car is documented individually too, and there are scores of original and contemporary photographs throughout. It's a beautifully presented thing, thoughtfully designed, well printed, and even wrapped with paper with patterned 550 GTS illustrations. Even the tape on the box has 550s on it.
Of course, it's not cheap. It costs €630, which is around $685 at the time of writing, plus shipping from Germany. So, you've really got to be into the subject. Still, you're getting something quite special, and quite rare—just 550 copies will ever be produced.
The only thing it's missing is a video clip of the legendary Prodive rally champion Colin McRae running a stint at Le Mans, but that is what this YouTube onboard is for:
What's funny is that Max Girardo of Girardo and Co. and James Cottingham of DK Engineering co-own a 550 GTS and run it in historic events in the U.K. and on the European continent. They are obviously very savvy car dealers, and a book like this, while providing a unique insight into a fascinating car, helps etch its place into history. Still, with the 550 GTS's many successes and Ferrari V-12 pedigree, it's hard to argue it doesn't deserve it.
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