The Chop-top 250 GTO

DISCLAIMER: sorry for the late upload, apparently it takes 2 and a half hours to scan 1.5M files on my computer for virusses.

Why such an old picture? Is it destroyed like tomorrow’s post? Actually, no, it still drives, it just doesn’t have a chop-top anymore.

This is (or was) David Piper’s 1963 Ferrari 250 GTO Chassis 4491GT, which (at the end of 1963) he decided to make a bit lower, by chopping off a bit of the roof, to be honest, it is a very good looking Ferrari, and also: this is a car that was spotted on Google Street View a while back:

Yes, believe it or not, that is David Piper’s beloved GTO in that street view screen shot, let me explain; over the course of time, the body weakened under poor conditions and maintenence, so in 1981 it was completely restored to it’s original body by it’s third owner (Giuseppe Lucchini) who lived in the birth place of the Mille Miglia (Brescia, if you wonder). While most Ferrari’s of this age have seen about 10 owners, this has seen a grand total of only 4.

Bought first in June 1963 by David Piper himself and sold in 1965 to a man called Peter Sutcliffe, after which it was bought again by Piper in 1974, after this it was bought by the Brescian in 1980 and again by Johann Peter Rupert in 2013. The reason Ferrari could confirm it was 4491 is because it’s 4th owner had it restored at Ferrari Classiche Certified the year he bought it.