Ferrari 500 Mondial – The Rubirosa Car

The Ferrari 500 Mondial was built to win the 1954 World Sports Car Championship. Ferrari’s engineers believed that a four-cylinder engine could deliver better low-end torque than a twelve, and that its lighter weight would improve acceleration out of corners. The result was an all-alloy 2-litre engine based on Ferrari’s Formula 2 units, producing 160 horsepower at 6,500 rpm through two Weber DCO carburettors. The Series I cars wore Pinin Farina coachwork that scaled down the proportions of the larger 375 MM. Twenty-two were built. The 500 Mondial helped Ferrari win its second consecutive Sports World Championship in 1954.

Chassis 0438MD was the twelfth Series I Ferrari 500 Mondial completed. It was sold new in July 1954 to Porfirio Rubirosa — Dominican diplomat, polo player, amateur racing driver, and by most accounts the most famous international playboy of the twentieth century. Rubirosa was a man who flew converted B-52 bombers for personal travel, married two of the wealthiest women in America (Doris Duke and Barbara Hutton), and moved between the Kennedys in Hyannis Port, the Dubonnets in Cap Ferrat, and Sinatra in Hollywood with the ease of someone who belonged everywhere and nowhere.

Rubirosa shipped the Ferrari 500 Mondial to California and entered the 1954 Santa Barbara Road Races carrying race number 235. He arrived at the circuit with Zsa Zsa Gabor, recently divorced, at his side. The car was red. The crowd was paying attention. Rubirosa was not Phil Hill — he was a capable amateur, fast enough to be competitive and well-connected enough to always have the right car. Shortly after Santa Barbara, James Dean was photographed sitting in the same Ferrari 500 Mondial in May 1955, four months before his fatal crash near Paso Robles.

Rubirosa sold chassis 0438MD to John von Neumann, the Los Angeles Ferrari dealer who was instrumental in building Ferrari’s presence on the American West Coast. Von Neumann campaigned the car in numerous California races. During a race at Torrey Pines, a broken connecting rod destroyed the original engine. With a 3-litre Monza engine installed, von Neumann entered the car — now nicknamed the ‘Monzetta’ — at the 1956 Pebble Beach Road Races, finishing tenth in the Del Monte Trophy. It was the last race ever held on the Pebble Beach road circuit.

The car was later restored with a Ferrari Classiche engine and received Red Book certification. At the 2008 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance, chassis 0438MD was awarded first in its class. Bonhams has described its provenance as unrivalled — a roll call that includes Rubirosa, Zsa Zsa Gabor, James Dean, Phil Hill, John von Neumann, and Richie Ginther. It has been valued in the region of $2.9 million.

This photograph captures chassis 0438MD low and wide against a deep green field. The Blu 305 paintwork and the race number 235 are visible on the bodywork. The Pinin Farina coachwork — the rounded nose, the low windscreen, the tapered tail — is presented exactly as it was when Rubirosa loaded it onto a ship to California seventy years ago. On aluminium, the blue of the bodywork gains a depth and metallic quality that paper cannot reproduce — the same material logic that connects the print to the car.