If you've got an old Ferrari->ke252 that you want to restore, but you want to be absolutely certain that its done in a way that significantly improves the value, then you'll be dealing with Ferrari Classiche in one way or another. The classic car->ke503 division of the Italian automaker will certify third-party restorations as being historically accurate, but you also have the option to simply bring the car directly to the experts themselves. That's what the owner of this 1954 500 Mondial Spyder PF did, and Ferrari Classiche has just announced that the restoration is complete.

The owner's goal is to enter the car in the Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance,->ke2839 where it will compete for status with some of the finest classic cars in the world. The car was first owned by Porfirio Rubirosa, the Dominican diplomat. He was also a racing->ke447 driver, although Ferrari's press release seems more concerned with his sex life (to be fair, it's what most people talk about with him, and he was married five times). It was owned by a couple of other racers before it was retired and even won a few races.

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Why it matters

The 500 Mondial is from a very early time in Ferrari's history, when everyone was still getting used to the idea of making road cars and when the line between road cars and race cars->ke148 could be a slightly blurry one. The engine comes from the Tipo 500, which was definitely a race car, and which Alberto Ascari used to win two Formula 1->ke190 world championships. This is also why the name “Mondial” was used for this road/race version of the Monza. Fittingly, Ascari was the first to drive the Mondial, at the 1953 12 Hours of Casablanca.

This was a period when Ferrari wasn't using the Colombo V-12 for absolutely every application, and the Monza series cars used four-cylinder engines. As was the practice in those days, the 500 in the name represents the engine's unitary displacement, indicating a 2.0-liter displacement in total. The engine was detuned to 170 horsepower for the Mondial, but since the car weighed only 1,590 pounds, it could still really move. A different Mondial won the Grand Touring trophy at Pebble Beach in 2012, so this one will certainly be a contender.