Ferrari Classiche has restored a Ferrari 250 GTO – a Silverstone winner that spent 15 years abandoned on a trailer in a field – to its original glory, earning a special mention for Best Restoration at the Villa d’Este Concorso d’Eleganza.
There are trailers and there are trailers. Some carry their cargo like royalty, transporting cars from one safe, controlled environment to a perfectly manicured lawn – perhaps beside the ocean or a lakeshore. Others stand parked in a field, their contents at the mercy of the elements: rain, sunshine, hail and, on occasion, even snow.
The Ferrari 250 GTO chassis 3589 GT, honoured at the 2026 Concorso d’Eleganza Villa d’Este with “Best Restoration”, experienced both extremes through a succession of events, as exhilarating as they were tragic, that together forged its extraordinary story. And, as with every Ferrari, that story begins in Maranello, the factory where four-wheeled dreams are made. There, the 250 GTO’s engine and chassis took shape, while in the nearby Scaglietti workshop, skilled craftsmen shaped the bodywork from aluminium sheets entirely by hand.
At the end of this painstaking construction process, 3589 GT arrived in England in 1962, at the premises of Maranello Concessionaires. Of the 36 Series I GTOs built, it was one of only six right-hand-drive examples, finished in deep blue with fine white trim running around the distinctive “fish-mouth” front grille. It was specified that way by Tommy Sopwith, a gentleman driver with professional ambitions and the driving force behind the Equipe Endeavour team – named after the yacht with which his legendary British father, Sir Thomas Murdoch Sopwith, had unsuccessfully challenged for the America’s Cup.
The Ferrari Classiche restoration of 250 GTO chassis 3589 GT reunited the car with its original bodywork while preserving its matching engine and gearbox
The team’s leading driver, Mike Parkes, was waiting eagerly to take the wheel, and from April of that year – starting at Goodwood – launched 3589 GT on an intensive racing programme that yielded many class and overall victories, the first of which came at Silverstone in the Scalextric International Trophy. Less than 12 months after arriving in England, 3589 GT was on the move again, this time by air, touching down in Victoria, Texas, at Tom O’Connor’s Rosebud Racing Team. Its new owner immediately placed it in the hands of one of GT racing’s most formidable figures, Innes Ireland, who drove it at circuits including Nassau, Phoenix and Daytona, sharing endurance duties with Richie Ginther.
In less than two years, the GTO started dozens of races with mixed fortunes, until O’Connor decided to donate it to Victoria High School’s mechanical engineering programme. There, students practising assembling and dismantling engines suddenly found themselves working on a Colombo-designed 3-litre V12. Six years later, the school parted with the car.
It was acquired by an Ohio dealer, unsure what to do with it, who left it on the very trailer that had brought it from Texas – parked in a field behind his garage for 15 years. It was spotted and purchased by Frank Gallogly of New Jersey, who sold it in 1988 to renowned Swiss collector Englebert Stieger. The latter undertook an extensive restoration, replacing the bodywork with a hand-crafted replica. After more than 30 years in the same hands, the Ferrari 250 GTO chassis 3589 GT found a new owner to the east – though in practice it was heading back to Maranello, a return to its origins.
One of only six right-hand-drive Series I Ferrari 250 GTOs, chassis 3589 GT embodies the GTO’s duality as a road-legal gran tourer you can drive to the track
The work was entrusted to Ferrari Classiche, which restored every mechanical component to its original specification, replacing or even recreating worn parts. Remarkably, the engine and gearbox were the very same units fitted to the car when new – a virtually unique distinction for a race-built car. The crowning achievement of the restoration was the recovery of the original bodywork, which, though worn and repainted red, Stieger had carefully preserved. Once restored, Ferrari Classiche refitted it to the chassis without significant difficulty – proof that 3589 GT had never been involved in any serious racing accident throughout its life.
So, the 250 GTO – despite an extraordinary and dramatic interlude of neglect – shines once more. Its enduring appeal, recognised in 2024 at the Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance on the California coast, recently found fresh expression on the shores of Lake Como, where the elegant blue Ferrari 250 GTO cast its spell over the Villa d’Este judges, who were captivated by the perfection of every last detail.
Report by Alessandro Giudice
