1953 Ferrari 375 MM Spider by Pinin Farina

Описание: 1953 Ferrari 375 MM Spider by Pinin Farina
SOLD $9,075,000 Including Commission
RM Auction, Monterey, CA 2013
Top Seller For Friday Night
Pebble Beach Week
Chassis no. 0364AM
*Factory-documented original spare engine

340 bhp, 4,494 cc overhead-camshaft V-12 engine with triple Weber carburetors, four-speed manual gearbox, independent front suspension with transverse leaf springs, live axle with parallel trailing arms and semi-elliptic leaf springs, tubular steel frame, and four-wheel drum brakes. Wheelbase: 102.4 in.

•The 1954 SCCA National Champion
•Commissioned, owned, and raced new by legendary gentleman driver Jim Kimberly
•Single-family ownership since 1968
•Exhaustive and extremely well-documented restoration
•One of only twelve 375MM Spiders
•The only 375MM Spider with unique pontoon-fenders, liveried in unique "Kimberly Red"


Today, the tales of the great privateer racing drivers of the 1950s are nothing short of legendary; they are the stuff of adolescent racing dreams and are characterized by independently wealthy and dashing gentleman drivers who drove daringly behind the wheels of the greatest sports racing cars of the day. The likes of Briggs Cunningham, Miles and Sam Collier, Bill Spear, and Jim Kimberly immediately come to mind, as not only pioneers of American road racing, but also as examples of stateside appreciation for the racing machines that came out of Europe. The Automobile Racing Club of America, and subsequently Sports Car Club of America, became the hotbed of high-revving, paint-trading competition, where Ivy League-educated sportsmen drove the latest Ferraris, Astons, and Maseratis at tracks like Watkins Glen and Sebring, with little more than driving goggles, an open-faced helmet, and gloves to protect them.

Gentleman Jim

Few drivers embodied this era as fittingly as James H. Kimberly. "Gentleman Jim," as he was often known, was the grandson of one of four founders of the Kimberly-Clark Corporation, which produced Kleenex and a variety of other paper products. He was certainly to the manor born, but his family instilled in him a strong work ethic, resulting in his summers spent shoveling coal at a paper plant in Canada. During the winter months, the dashing Jim evidently enjoyed racing ice boats on Lake Winnebago, and during World War II, he served his country in the Navy.

His college years at the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology were marked by a friendship with Harley Earl—a friendship that lasted many years and would later influence the color of his cars. He raced airplanes, sport fished, sailed, and, ultimately, developed an interest in sports cars, which began most notably with a Jaguar XK120, the first destined for the United States, courtesy of a personal friendship with Bill Lyons and Lofty England. Driving the car back from Chicago, he stopped by the races at Watkins Glen, where he witnessed Zora Arkus-Duntov at speed in his Allard, before returning to the Midwest, where fellow Chicago natives, including TV personality and Ferrari owner Dave Garroway, persuaded him to enter the races at Palm Beach in 1950.

His foray into Ferraris began later the same year, when he raced in the first-ever six-hour Sebring event in a Ferrari 166, finishing 1st in class, ahead of Luigi Chinetti in Briggs Cunningham's 195. In fact, before the design of the unique 375 MM ever even entered his imagination, Jim Kimberly enjoyed an extraordinary racing career. He won the first ever event at Elkhart Lake and raced in Argentina and across North America, including at Pebble Beach, where he rolled his Ferrari, after fighting for the lead against Phil Hill, walked away unscathed, and then later took Ginger Rogers to the dance!

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