One to Buy: 5 x race winning 2001 Ferrari 550 Maranello Prodrive
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Having rallied a Prodrive Subaru Impreza since the mid 1990s, Swiss industrialist Frederic Dor commissioned the renowned British engineering company to create a GT1 version of Ferrari’s 550 Maranello.
The resultant Prodrive Ferrari 550 GTO (also known as the 550 GTS) appeared mid way through the 2001 season and quickly established itself as the fastest car on the grid despite no official input from Ferrari themselves.
Over the next few years, the Prodrive 550 racked up an enviable list of honours, perhaps the most notable of which were a hat-trick of FIA GT Championship Team and Driver titles between 2003 and 2005, back-to-back Le Mans Series titles in 2004 and 2005 and a class win at the 2004 Le Mans 24 Hours.
One of the ten cars raced during this enormously successful period will be going under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Monterey auction on August 18th.
Chassis CRD03 started life as Frederic Dor’s personal 550 Maranello road car and was subsequently brought up to GT1 trim by Prodrive for the 2002 season. Its debut event was that year’s Le Mans 24 Hours, a race it would contest on five separate occasions with a best finish of ninth overall and third in class during 2004.
Elsewhere, CDR03 racked up four American Le Mans Series GTS class wins (at Laguna Seca in ‘02 and ‘03, Road America in ‘03 and Miami in ‘03). It also won the 2003 Le Mans 1000km race (a non-championship precursor to the inaugural 2004 Le Mans Series championship).
