…The car never misbehaves, no matter what use it is put to – the driver’s abilities are its only limitations, and with sufficient practice a good driver can achieve a rapport with this elegant machine that is unsurpassed in modern GT cars.

—‘Road & Track on this very car, October 1970

THE FASTEST – AND BEST – GT…’

Ferrari cognoscenti will note that chassis 13361 is a very early number in the overall scheme of US-specification 365 GTB/4 production. That is because this car was the US-specification prototype. Completed by the factory on 20 April 1970, finished in Rosso Chiaro over a Nero interior, it was fitted with Plexiglas-covered headlamps and without the requisite emissions or safety equipment fitted to the later US-delivery Daytonas. It was the second Daytona to come to the United States, with the first, chassis number 13205, delivered to Chinetti Motors on the East Coast; this one came west, to Bill Harrah’s distributorship, Modern Classic Motors in Reno, Nevada.

Harrah, the casino magnate and car collector extraordinaire, loved many automobiles, few as ardently as Ferrari, the marque that he adored to the point that he sold them himself. Such was the power wielded by Harrah’s wealth and Modern Classic Motors’s strategic importance to the Western market that he usually received a special example of each new model, frequently the first “in the door,” in Reno.

Such was the case with 13361, which Harrah is believed to have utilized as his personal car for a period of time while it remained, legally at least, in the ownership of Modern Classic Motors. Boldly described as “Our Fastest Road Test Car” and “The Fastest – And Best – GT,” it appeared as the cover feature of the October 1970 issue of Road & Track magazine, wearing Harrah’s instantly recognizable personal Nevada license plate, “-2-,” and described as being in essentially European trim.

After it left Harrah’s ownership, the car was updated to the later specification with flip-up headlamps, as the US-specification prototype. It was owned in 1977 by Dr. Tomas J. Burgess of Pleasanton, California, who sold it in 1979 to early Ferrari dealer Steve Griswold. Griswold resold the car to Jay M. Foreman, Jr., of Los Angeles, who is believed to have retained it for over a decade. In the early 1990s, it came into the ownership of the noted tifoso William H. Tilley of Los Angeles, who used it occasionally on the road until his passing in 2012. It was then sold the following year to another collector, and was shortly restored by Exclusive Motorcars of Los Angeles to the original delivery configuration, complete with the correct “Plexi” nose and in the proper color scheme. It went on to be part of a prominent collection in the Pacific Northwest before its acquisition by the current owner in 2017.

The car has been submitted for and received Ferrari Classiche Certification, with the accompanying Red Book confirming that it retains its original numbers-matching engine and gearbox. Further, it is accompanied by a full restoration file of invoices and photographs, as well as complete sets of books and tools.

Few examples of the 365 GTB/4 Daytona can rival this one for its importance, particularly within the American market upon which so much of Ferrari’s fortune was based in this era. With its singular status as the prototype US-market example, as well as its early use by the renowned Bill Harrah, it is a car rich with the best kind of provenance.