1955 Ferrari 410 S driven to victory by Carroll Shelby to be auctioned
Before launching Shelby American in the early 1960s, Carroll Shelby raced not only in the U.S. but also around the world in cars made by other manufacturers.
He famously drove an Aston Martin DBR1 with Roy Salvadori to overall victory in the 1959 24 Hours of Le Mans.
He also drove several Ferraris in the 1950s, including two 410 S racing cars developed to compete in the 1955 Carrera Panamericana. Two of the cars driven by Shelby were sold by Ferrari to private hands. The other two cars were kept by Ferrari for its own factory team.
One of the two private cars, chassis No. 0598 CM, was auctioned in 2022 and fetched $22 million. The car was also driven by Juan Manuel Fangio and Phil Hill.
Another example of the 410 S that Shelby currently races, chassis No. 0592 CM, will be auctioned next month at RM Sotheby's, which will be held in conjunction with Monterey Car Week in 2024. Although it does not have the track record of chassis No. 0598 CM, with an estimate of “over $15 million,” it was still driven to victory by a variety of drivers, including Shelby.
The highlight was a victory at the 1956 Palm Springs Road Race with Shelby at the wheel. According to the listing, Shelby had a falling out with the car's owner, Tony Parravano of the Scuderia Parravano team, shortly after the race, and eventually joined a rival team run by John Edgar. Shelby was given chassis No. 0598 CM.
The chassis code CM stands for “Carrera Mesicana” and was developed for the Carrera Panamericana race in Mexico. Featuring coachwork by Scaglietti, chassis No. 0592 CM is the most original of the four. In addition to being powered by a matching-numbers 5.0-liter V-12, it was never damaged during its short racing career.
According to the listing, Parravano fled to Mexico in 1957 for tax reasons, and chassis no. 0592 CM went with him. After his death, the car was sold to Javier Velasquez, one of the organizers of the Mexican Grand Prix. Later, in 1970, Pennsylvania architect Robert Dusek acquired the machine and owned it for the next 37 years.
It was then acquired by the current owner at auction in 2014 and fully restored.
The RM Sotheby's auction will be held August 15-17. Other highlights include a 2006 McLaren F1 racing car and a 1995 Ferrari F50.
