Ferrari 250 Zagato. Beautiful but is it real?

Not quite as clear cut as you would think.

A Zagato bodied Ferrari is a rare beast, just six were ever built on the 250 platform and of those five only three had the trademark Zagato "double bubble" roof.

Is this one of those three cars?   We asked the Ferrari gurus at DK Engineering to help us with clues.

It is indeed built by Zagato but it is not one of the original group.  

In the late 1980's Zagato famously produced four DB4 GT s using leftover chassis with a "sanction" from Aston Martin.  These were, in effect, a "time machine" project: as if you went back to 1964 and instead of stopping the planned production run early, you snuck in a couple more, 25 years later.   Sanction II DB4 GTZ have sold for well under the price one from the original batch might fetch but still at a healthy and hefty two million dollars.   And why not,  for a fifth the price you get an identical car, same running gear, same manufacturing technique.  The only thing you are missing is the "patina" and $6M buys a lot of "patina"!

This was the thinking behind a "Sanction II" Ferrari 250 GT Zagato.   In effect you would do what an owner in the 1960s might do,  buy a 250 Tour de France or LWB and take it to Zagato for a special "fuoriserie" suit.

DK has  handled one such car in the past:  in the 1990s the then owner of a 250 LWB Berlinetta,  in fact one with a chassis number between two others that had originally been rebodied,  had that car built by Zagato.    Except for the calendar, that car with chassis number 0757GT became in every way a 250 GTZ,  same chassis, engine and running gear.

So is our car in the video a Sanction II car?   Not exactly.    Yes, it has same meticulously built Zagato bodywork but the eagle eyes at DK point out its "flaw":    It has an outside plug engine,  clue that the running gear in this car comes from a later and less desirable GTE.

Still gorgeous, still a Ferrari, still a Zagato but, alas, not even the unreal real thing.