1966 - There's This Ferrari 250 GT - beautiful job, finished in metallic blue gray with blue leather upholstery, V12 engine with three twin-choke Webers, twin distributors and fuel pumps and ignition systems, four speed all-synchro gearbox. Borrani wheels with four new Avon Turbospeed tires, heater, power brakes, one careful owner from new, an absolute steal at $12,600 and it's just over a foot long. That comes out to about a thousand dollars an inch!
This particular Ferrari wasn't made by the Commendatore's men at Modena, but by Mr. Henri Baigent in Bournemouth, England. That doesn't make it any less exotic however.
In fact, it's the most incredible Ferrari I've ever seen anywhere and I've seen a few in my time.
The story really began for me when I met Baigent during the days when I was driving Grand Prix cars for Rob Walker. After experience in aircraft engineering and later in instrument making, Baigent had turned to modelmaking as an art and as a means of carning a living. One of the first models he made used a three cylinder in-line working engine that he later put in a model Aston he built for Walker.
At the time I met Baigent, he was busy making a model of the Cooper I drove for Rob; it was later given to me, and now resides next to my desk, a snug glass case protecting its delicate works from prying hands.
Some years ago, I heard that Baigent was engaged in making a model Ferrari for British sportsman Eddie Portman; it was to be a replica of Portman's own car, and nothing was to be spared in making the as accurate and detailed as possible.
I'd seen Baigent's work at firsthand, so I had some idea of the standard of workmanship to expect, but I didn't have a chance to see the car until it was returned to Baigent a month or so ago for some minor repairs and he offered to show it to me. Well, I finally clapped eyes on it the other day and I was absolutely flabbergasted.
I had never in my life seen anything so perfect, it was as if every part of the real thing had been scaled down by some scientific process, perfectly and without distortion. Photographs alone can't do the model justice. So I'll try to describe the car in detail and let you judge for yourself whether it's worth the price.
The differential end of the transmission setup has been handled with similar care. At one stage, Baigent thought of having the crown wheel specially made and asked for a cost estimate from a famous precision engineering firm.
They quoted a price of $420 for the wheel, including $140 in drafting charges alone, and said the job would take months. So Baigent doing all the cutting and hardening made it himself in two days.
The body is hand-beaten in thin metal, though Baigent admits that the metal is thicker than scale. To be accurate in this respect would have meant a very fragile body, and the effect of clumsy hands picking up the model would have been equivalent to a nasty shunt in the real thing.
The carpeting and headlining inside the car are original perfect. The seats were made from the remaining pieces of the leather used in the real Ferrari and, besides being impeccably shaped, they're correctly sprung.
But I've saved the best for the last. The model is designed to be displayed on a special rotating stand. The wheels are mounted on rollers, and the stand rotates slowly to give an all round view of the model. An electric motor on the stand drives the model's engine through a universally jointed drive shaft; there is a cable that carries power to a two-volt transformer which in turn powers all the model's electrical equipment.
This means that when the power is on, you can drive the engine of the car, working the clutch, gearbox and final drive in the proper manner. You can brake, and you can steer the car with the steering wheel. Not only that, but you can switch on any of 30 lights in the car, from the special three-volt head lamp bulbs to courtesy lights and lights in the instrument dials. Brake lights function when the brakes are used, and the windscreen wipers are driven by their own tiny motor.
And most fantastic of all, the speedometer and tachometer actually work, with the former showing the speed at which the rear wheels are turning on the rollers and the latter indicating the engine revolutions. There's also an electric heating element, fan and thermostat that keep the inside of the model at a steady 75 degrees for the comfort of driver and passenger.
And before you say that $12,600 is a lot of money to pay for any model, even one as incredible as this, let me point out something. Even though you could buy a pretty good used Ferrari for that much money, just bear in mind that the model took 11.000 hours to build over three and a half years of hard, highly skilled effort to produce a creation of real beauty. Ferrari himself doesn't make them that carefully.
Mind you, this model is something out of the ordinary even for Baigent: normally, he doesn't spend that much time on a model, but he was anxious to make this one unique.
He usually doen't make more than one model of a particular car, though he has made other Ferraris such as the beautiful model of driver Innes Ireland's GTO he did for the Rosebud racing people. But he won't make another Ferrari to the 250 GT standard, although he might produce a similar model of another make if someone asks him to.
His next model will be a replica of Tommy Rose's vintage Le Mans Bentley and I for one, can't wait to see it. I think Baigent prefers to make models of the older cars, since you can see the workmanship that goes into them more easily.
Most of the fantastic work that's gone into the ferrari for instance is hidden by the beautiful bodywork and you don't realize what's there until it's all explained to you. In that respect. Baigent told me that a Rolls Royce Ghost is the one he really wants to duplicate. I only wish I could afford to commission it the result would certainly be worth seeing.
Stirling Moss
