A sleeping beauty of Ferraris

After being knocked out of commission in 1969 by an engine fire and then spending the next 44 years hibernating in Pennsylvania, a graceful 1967 Ferrari 330 GTS will come under the glare of spotlights Jan. 18 when it is auctioned in Scottsdale, Ariz.

The 330 GTS, one of only 100 roadsters in the series dominated by the 330 GTC - its mechanical twin but a coupe body - is an example of how mid-'60s Ferraris are receiving new appreciation as prices for the Italian automaker's vintage cars rise, David Brynan, a Gooding & Co. auction specialist, said. Gooding will offer the "Spider," or convertible, among approximately 120 cars at its two-day auction.

The Ferraris that draw multimillion-dollar bids at auction are, for the most part, immaculately restored examples; a significant racing history or association will also raise the sale price. This car has neither but instead is valued as an original car with a clear ownership history.

Found in November with a coating of grime, spots of surface rust and a blackened and cracked windshield, the Celeste Blue GTS is all the more desirable as a nearly untouched example of the model, which helps Ferrari collectors and restorers to establish a baseline for the 330 series, Brynan said. The car, chassis number 9343, was consigned by its present owner, who ferreted out its whereabouts in a two-bay carport in suburban Philadelphia and made the acquisition.

The original owner, Samuel Scher, a New York surgeon and collector, drove about 22,000 miles in his two years of ownership. Besides damaging the windshield, the fire, which probably started at the fuel return line that leads back to the gas tank, scorched the hood and damaged the insulation on its underside, Brynan said. Nevertheless, after its long dormancy the car is largely intact, and the engine appears to turn over freely, he said.

Scher's fire-damaged car was sold Sept. 16, 1969, in a New Jersey insurance auction. The buyer, who owned a trucking company in Pennsylvania, accumulated some of the needed parts, but he did not follow through on the repair work.

As Brynan noted so-called barn finds - long-neglected cars that are unmodified - are almost unheard-of in the Ferrari cosmos.

"Most everything has been accounted for," he said. Yet this GTS had been "a lost car for all intent and purposes."

Participating in its rediscovery, he said, "You feel like you've actually accomplished something."

David Gooding, the auction company's founder and president, said he expected the car to sell "in the neighborhood of $2 million."

On the day before the car was shown to a reporter, the auction catalog had been posted online, stirring great interest in the GTS.

"People are just amazed we have it," Gooding said.

The 330 series used a 4-liter V-12 engine that directed its 300 horsepower through a stout torque tube to a rear-mounted five-speed manual transaxle. Retailing at about $15,000, the GTS cost several times as much as a Chevrolet Corvette of the era.

The horsepower boost over Ferrari's 275 series was largely a response to the muscle available in a Corvette, according to Larry Crane, an editor and Southern California Ferrari enthusiast.

"The 4-liter cars were done basically to be in the same world as the Corvette," Crane said in a telephone interview.

He lumped the 330 GTS with the Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 and 250 GTE, calling them "the Enzo cars," or production models to which Ferrari's leader Enzo Ferrari made significant input.

"Those were always kind of ordinary sports cars," Crane said.

The premium for the Spider's texture and history is in accord with the recent trend that prizes originality. Standards guiding the recognition of authentic period vehicles were codified in "The Stewardship of Historically Important Automobiles" (Simeone Automotive Foundation, 2012), Crane added.

This philosophy was echoed by Rick Cole, the owner of a vintage car auction house in Los Angeles, who said that he had recently acquired an original example of the 1965 Ferrari 275 GTS, predecessor of the 330 GTS.

"I love original cars over restored cars all day long," Cole said. "I'll always take an unrestored car."

His own experience roughly corroborated Gooding's presale estimate for the Spider.

"I was offered a 330 GTS within the last week from one of my little spies around the globe," he said. "It was $1.8 million."

@ 2014 New York Times News Service