Museum quality usually means impeccable. Whether it’s art, rocks, or cars, something that belongs in a museum ultimately should accurately represent the era it comes from as an object that transcends time. This 1969 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona was found in 2017 with a thick layer of dust. The Ferrari Museum in Modena decided to display it as it was found.
Thus, the car is utterly filthy. After originally being sold to a friend of Enzo Ferrari in 1969, the car was shipped to Japan in 1971. Since then, it changed owners three times and ended up in the care of Makoto Takai, who stored it for almost 40 years. It’s unknown why Takai simply stored it instead of driving it, but several people tried to buy it from him with no success. The car was found and sold through RM Sotheby’s in 2017 for over $1.86 million.
Since then, the car hasn’t been touched, let alone restored. It exists in its original condition from its storage in the early ‘70s and still has that thick layer of dust. It also has real provenance: it’s the only Scaglietti aluminum-bodied Daytona in existence. It also has lightweight Plexiglas headlights and electric windows. The aforementioned close friend of Ferrari was Luciano Conti, who was clearly a very good friend if he was sold one of the most unique Ferraris in existence.
The new owner kindly loaned the car to the Ferrari Museum in Modena and is the person who kept the car in its barn-find state since 2017. I can’t imagine the care it took to keep the car this impeccably filthy, which is completely counterintuitive. It is easier to keep a car clean than to keep a car dirty with its original, priceless, Japanese dust. Whether it will ever be restored is up to the owner. If it were up to me, I’d take it for just one rip around the block.
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