Founded by Enzo Ferrari in 1947, Ferrari has long stood for innovation, engineering perfection, and top performance on and off the track. Since the debut of the 125S, the first Ferrari-badged car, Ferrari has recorded over 5,000 victories in races around the world. While organized with the sole intent to build and campaign race cars, Ferrari funded his racing pursuits by building and selling exotic road-going variants that are now ranked among the most beautifully designed and engineered cars of all time. The firm’s deep-rooted association with the color red dates back more than a century to the time when Rosso Corsa (“racing red”) was chosen to be the official color for all Italian motorsports teams regardless of manufacturer. Enzo Ferrari readily embraced this tradition and the racecars that bear his name today belong to an ever shrinking number of Italian teams that continue the tradition of painting its cars Rosso Corsa, reinforcing an association with the color red that continues to this day.
1949 Ferrari 166 MM Barchetta
- Top Speed: 136 MPH
- Horsepower: 140
- Engine: 2 Liter V-12
- Number Built: 25 (TOTAL SERIES I BARCHETTAS BY TOURING)
The 166 MM features an overhead cam V-12 engine similar to those of its predecessors, but weighed substantially less thanks to its superleggera (“superlight”) body by Carrozzeria Touring of Milan. The compact, streamlined coachwork was described by a journalist as a barchetta (“little boat”), a term now used for any open Italian two-seater. The “MM” in the model designation stands for Mille Miglia, an iconic Italian long-distance race won by this car in 1949.
COLLECTION OF ROBERT M. LEE TRUST
