One to Buy: Blu Tour de France 1997 Ferrari F355 Spider
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Although the Ferrari 348 was easily the prettiest and most desirable junior supercar on offer during the late 1980s / early 1990s, Honda’s state-of-art NSX with its aluminium monocoque and free-revving V6 moved the goalposts in terms of what was possible from a handling and dynamics perspective.
Having been given a kick up the backside by their new Japanese rival, Ferrari responded in clinical fashion with a model that rightly came to be regarded as the definitive mid-size supercar of its generation: the F355.
Powered by an enlarged 3.5-litre V8 (now with five-valves per cylinder), peak output leapt from 320bhp to 375bhp. There was also a new six instead of five-seed gearbox (with quicker rod-driven actuation). Most noticeably though, the F355 was draped in a gorgeous Pininfarina body that ranked among the prettiest Ferrari designs of all time.
After the fixed-head F355 GTB and targa-topped GTS were launched at Geneva in March 1994, a drop-head Spider was unveiled at the Monaco Grand Prix in May 1995.
Set to go under the hammer at RM Sotheby’s Dubai sale on March 9th is a superbly configured Spider delivered in June 1997. Configured in arguably the most desirable colour scheme for one of these cars, Blu Tour de France with a matching hood and Tan upholstery, chassis ‘109296’ was also ordered with a matching set of Schedoni luggage. Having been retained by its first owner until July 2013, the car’s second custodian initially kept it in Europe before subsequently exporting it to Dubai where it has resided ever since.
Today, chassis ‘109296’ (a six-speed manual that pre-dated the arrival of Ferrari’s F1 transmission by a few months) has covered a little over 61,000km. In November 2023 it won a Platinum Award at the Cavallino Classic Middle East concours in Abu Dhabi.
