The unofficial name Daytona, for the Ferrari 365 GTB/4, is reported to have been applied by the media rather than Ferrari and commemorates Ferrari’s 1/2/3 finish in the February 1967 24 Hours of Daytona with a 330 P3/4, a 330 P4 and a Ferrari 412P. To this day, Ferrari itself only rarely refers to the 365 as the “Daytona”, and refers to its as an “unofficial” name.

Pininfarina designer Leonardo Fioravanti, who had previously worked on the Dino Ferrari’s styling, was responsible for the new Ferrari 365 GTB/4. It reflected a movement from Ferrari’s traditional rounded designs to a more contemporary, sharp-edged look. The early Daytona’s featured fixed headlights behind a plexiglass cover. New safety regulations in the U.S.A. banning headlights behind covers, resulted in retractable pop-up twin headlights starting during 1971. The cars were in production between 1968 and 1973.

The Tenerife Daytona

According to official factory documents we have in file, production of this Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona was finished on September 7, 1970. The car was sold through Antonio Vela Murillo, the Alfa Romeo dealer in Santa Cruz, to its first owner, an architect resident in Lausanne, Switzerland. In 1973 the car was acquired by the second owner. In 1979, when the car was 9 years old, it was officially exported from Spain and imported into Switzerland. It remained in Switzerland until 2006. Somewhere in that period the car received a brand new factory replacement engine and gearbox (that was not fitted to another car before). In 2006 the car was sold through a dealer in the South of France to a Japanese collector. It would remain with this collector for another 6 years before it would return to the South of France. The car was acquired by a well-known collector and it was eventually restored to the standards how it left the factory. When in the hands of the last owner, the car was completely restored with Autofficinia Silvano Toni between 2017 and 2019. A famous company that’s located opposite at the Ferrari Factory in Maranello (Via Abetone Inferiore). The interior was completely done with correct materials at Tappezzeria Luppi in Modena.

The restoration was finished in 2019 and the car was road registered in The Netherlands in 2020. Since its complete restoration it was approximately driven for no more than 1,000 kms and we just detailed the car in our dedicated workshop. It’s believed that only 39 Daytona’s were originally painted in Bianco Polo 20-W152 and just two had the Verde VM 103 interior. With the green stripe on the side of the car, that’s also done by the factory according the official factory documents, we think this car is unique.

The car is complete with its Ferrari Classiche Certificate (the Ferrari Red Book), a Marcel Massini history report, the original leather pouch with original handbook and a Real Art on Wheels history file with many invoices and photographs.

Untlike Lamborghini’s then-new, mid-engined Miura, the Daytona was a traditional front-engined, rear-drive car. The engine, known as the Tipo 251, and developed from the earlier Colombo V12 had 365 cc per cylinder – a total of 4.390 cc. It produced circa 352 horsepower at 7500 RPM and a maximum torque of 431 Nm. It could reach 280 km/h. The five-speed manual transmission (of the transaxle concept) was mounted in the rear for optimal weight distribution.