1959 Ferrari 250 GT PF Coupe #1607GT

Ferrari’s first true production road car, the 250 GT Pinin Farina Coupé epitomized the ideal grand touring automobile of its day. It was a luxury coupe— with seating and luggage space for two people, powered by a race-bred V12 engine capable of providing high speed, long distance travel in comfort and safety.

In the “PF Coupe”, as it has come to be called, the more rounded fastback profiles of its hand-crafted predecessors in the early ‘50’s was replaced with a new ‘notch back’ style, long and low with little ornamentation. It was built at Pinin Farina’s Grugliasco facility, its proportions lauded by contemporary journalists. 

Of course, at the heart of any Ferrari is the engine and in this case, the PF Coupe is powered by the classic of classics, the Columbo-designed “250” engine of three liters total displacement. This is the engine as installed in its 250-series siblings which include the Tour de France (TdF), the so-called Short Wheelbase Berlinetta (SWB), the GTO, Lusso, te California spyder, four passenger GTE, and ultimately the LM which won Le Mans outright in 1965. The PF Coupe was first shown to the press in June 1958 and later launched at the Paris Motor Show. It was produced for only three years, from 1958 to 1960.

This particular PF Coupe has lived a very interesting life, to say the least. PF Coupe #1607GT spent over 30 years hidden away in the dining room of an apartment in an unassuming West Hollywood building. 

Originally finished in Bianco MM over Plastic & Leather Rosso, 1607GT was the 239th of the 353 PF Coupes build (three prototypes and 350 production examples). It is a 1959 model which left the Ferrari factory in February of 1960. It went first to an owner who lived in Naples, Italy but by 1967 it had been exported to the US, apparently by John von Newman’s Ferrari of California. It’s unclear exactly why it ended up inside an apartment. Speculation is that Hollywood was such a rough area at the time that its owner felt that was the “safest” place for the car to be stored while it was restored. Restoration was never completed, however, and #1607GT remained hidden from the world from the mid-80s until it was sold in 2016. The new owner apparently had intentions to restore the car but quickly passed it on. 

Ferrari Pinin Farina Coupe 1607GT is presently undergoing a full, body-off, nut and bolt restoration with us at Grand Touring on behalf of its current owner. Our expectation is that in 2023, over 60 years after it was built, 1607GT will again embody the legacy of Ferrari and Pinin Farina— the standard for automotive elegance with purpose.