My hope for Monterey Car Week is always that I’ll see cars I’ve never seen before, whether that be in real life or, even better, something I haven’t even seen a photo of in a book or online. This year, the 2024 Pebble Beach Concours d’Elegance delivered: a 1954 Ferrari 375 MM Ghia Coupe, the last of only 36 Ferraris to ever wear Ghia coachwork. It’s jaw-dropping.
I first spotted this Ghia Ferrari on Thursday after it drove in the Tour d’Elegance, an hours-long drive down to Big Sur and back that most of the Concours competitors participate in. Even with cloudy skies over the dirt parking lot where I saw the 375 MM get loaded back into a truck, it’s Salmon and Anthracite Grey bodywork looked stunning. Seeing it under the bright sun on the Pebble Beach golf course made it even better. Just look at all the gorgeous details like the subtle tail fins, the chrome grille surround and license plate holder, the way the two-tone paint is split, and the outrageous color-matched interior.
This 375 was first presented at the Turin Auto Show in 1955 and subsequently exhibited at the New York Auto Show, after which it was sold to Robert C. Wilke, sponsor of fifteen Indy 500 cars and a friend of Enzo Ferrari. Wilke owned a handful of different coachbuilt Ferraris and daily drove them in Milwaukee. The car was part of the Blackhawk Collection for sixteen years before being acquired by the current owner.
Like the Pininfarina-bodied 375 MM race cars, from the factory the Ghia was fitted with a competition-spec Lampredi V12 putting out 340 horsepower. It’s covered just over 13,000 km, all but the last thousand of which were put on by Wilke, and other than a repaint in the factory colors a few years ago the car is in wonderfully original condition. At this year’s Concours, it won the Ferrari Early class.
