Nembo Ferrari

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Nembo Ferrari is a small series of street sports cars that combine older Ferrari chassis with newly designed bodies. The series goes back to the Californian designer Tom Meade and the Italian body manufacturer Neri e Bonacini . The series, created from 1965 to 1967, consists of a coupé ( Nembo GT ) and at least two open-top versions ( Nembo Spyder ). Another Spyder was launched 25 years later in the style of the original Nembos. Many consider the Nembo Spyder to be the most beautiful Ferraris with special bodies ever built. They are not factory recognized as a classic Ferrari. Nevertheless, they are now being traded for seven-digit euros or dollars.

History of origin

In the 1960s, it was common practice among Ferrari drivers to replace aging factory bodies of older vehicles with newly designed bodies. This resulted in a profitable business model for some smaller Italian body manufacturers. The Carrozzeria Sports Cars of the former racing driver Piero Drogo was particularly successful in this segment , but larger plants such as Michelotti , Zagato and Pininfarina also repeatedly clad older chassis.

This was the phase in which the Nembo Spyder and the Nembo GT were created. A central role was thereby born in California and Australia raised "Hippie", "Artist" and "free spirit" Tom Meade (1939-2013 or 2014), which since the early 1960s lived in Italy and in the Carrozzeria Fantuzzi the Had learned the craft of bodyworker. Through its owner Medardo Fantuzzi , Meade came into contact with Luciano Bonacini, one of the founders of Neri e Bonacini, and finally with Piero Drogo, the owner of Carrozzeria Sports Cars. Both companies were involved in the creation of the Nembo models.

Meade, who at times made his living exporting used Ferraris to the USA, began building self-designed cars on old Maserati and Ferrari chassis in the early 1960s . One of his first cars was the Thomassima I . In 1965, Meade received an order from a customer to deliver a Ferrari with a new body. He put him in contact with Neri e Bonacini, where a Spyder body was being constructed for a five-year-old chassis of a sports car. The vehicle was named Nembo . The first Nembo was followed by at least two other vehicles by 1967, which were also designed by Neri e Bonacini. They are stylistically similar, but not all details are the same. Three of the cars made between 1965 and 1967 still exist.

Design and production

The Nembo Ferraris are usually attributed to the Neri e Bonacini bodywork.

It is not entirely clear who was responsible for designing the bodywork. What is certain is that Tom Meade was involved in the development of the Nembo superstructures; However, it is doubtful whether the design was solely due to him.

The Nembo vehicles were not only built at Neri e Bonacini. In fact, all of the original Nembos were created in collaboration with Carrozzeria Sports Cars: the bodies drawn by Neri e Bonacini were made by hand at Sports Cars. Neri e Bonacini then assembled the cars using the technical components.

The name

There are several possible explanations for the name Nembo. On the one hand, it is said to be a composition of the first syllables of the surnames of Giorgio Ne ri and Luciano Bo nacini. According to other authors, the name refers to the American comic series Superman , which was known as the Nembo Kid in Italy in the 1960s . After all, Nembo in Italian means a (thunderstorm) cloud.

It is unclear who was responsible for the use of the name Nembo. After the Nembo Ferraris, some other cars built by Neri e Bonacini bore this designation, including the Nembo II , a racing version of the Iso Grifo also known as the "Iso Daytona" , and the Nembo 7 Litri (another modification of the Grifo) .

The individual Nembo Ferraris

Three or four originals

250 GT Nembo Spyder (1777 GT)

Stylistically based on the Nembo Spyder 1777 GT: Ferrari 275 GTB / 4 NART Spyder

The first Nembo Spyder is based on the chassis of a Ferrari 250 GT Cabriolet , which was manufactured in 1960 (chassis number 1777GT). The client was Tom Meades customer Sergio Braidi.

The new body took up features of the Ferrari 250 GTO and the 275 GTB and interpreted them as a convertible. The Nembo Spyder has recessed headlights, which are covered with a curved Plexiglas pane, and narrow turn signals underneath. The oval radiator opening is located below the headlights. It shares the front bumper. The front fenders have large side vents, the rear fenders are heavily curved, as on the 250 GTO. The car was sold to the USA in 1968, where it changed hands many times before it came to Switzerland in 1988. In 2007 it was sold to a South African collector in London for US $ 1.4 million.

At the beginning of the 1980s, a replica of the first Nembo Spyder was built in Great Britain. The car was built on the chassis of a 250 GTE 2 + 2 (No. 4773 GT).

250 Nembo GT (1623 GT)

A closed two-seater with a comparable design was created in parallel to the first Nembo Spyder. The car, known as the Nembo GT, uses the chassis of a Ferrari 250 GT Coupé that was built in 1960 for a customer from Venezuela (chassis number 1623 GT). Below the belt, the structure is the same as that of the Nembo Spyder, but there are no front bumpers. The solid roof slopes down behind the door to the trunk lid; the B-pillar is triangular. The pronounced curvature of the rear fenders and the rear end again correspond to the Nembo Spyder. The drive technology corresponds to that of the donor vehicle. The red-painted car went to a customer in California and stayed in the US until 1990 before being sold to a European collector. In 2006 the car was auctioned in Nuremberg for around € 1 million; since then it has been with the same South African collector who owned the first Nembo Spyder.

250 GT SWB Berlinetta Nembo Spyder (3771 GT)

The second Nembo Spyder was built in 1966 at the request of a US customer on the chassis of a four-year-old Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta SWB Lusso (No. 3771 GT). It has a wheelbase that is 200 mm shorter than the first Spyder. The car was delivered to its customer in 1966. It has been in the US ever since.

A third Spyder (2707 GT)?

According to Tom Meade, chassis no. 2707 GT, which was built in 1961 and originally belonged to a Ferrari 250 GTE 2 + 2 , was subsequently bodied as a Nembo Spyder. The client is said to have been a customer from Lebanon . The car was incomplete when it was delivered. Tom Meade claims to have bought the car back later. There is no evidence for the existence of this third Nembo Spyder; in particular, no photographs are known. Therefore, the existence of this car is widely contested. Tom Meade's presentation is also not consistent with the documentation for the individual Ferrari chassis numbers.

A straggler

Later Nembo Spyder (5805GT)

Around 1990 a fourth vehicle was built in the style of the original Nembos. The car had the chassis of a right-hand drive 330 GT 2 + 2 (No. 5805 GT), which had been delivered to a British customer in 1964. The initiator of the project was the owner of the 330 GT 2 + 2 at the time. Instead of the originally planned restoration of the car, he decided to build a modified vehicle. He commissioned Giorgio Neri, who was running a workshop in Modena at the time, with the construction of an open body that would correspond to the original structure of the Nembo Spyder. The chassis was shortened, the engine remained unchanged. During the construction process, the client got into financial difficulties, so Neri initially did not complete the car. In 1992 Richard Allen, temporarily chairman of the British Ferrari Owners Club , took over the project. Allen transported the unfinished car to Great Britain and had it ready for road use by specialists at Hayward & Scott. The car first appeared publicly in 1998.

In the classic scene, there is a dispute over whether the vehicle can be viewed as the third Nembo Spyder or just a less valuable sanctioned replica (English: Sanction Car ).

Importance of the Nembo Spyder

The Nembo Spyder and Nembo GT are not factory recognized as classic Ferraris. At the same time, they are of outstanding importance in the classic scene.

The Nembo Spyder, in particular, is considered by many to be the most beautiful Ferrari ever built with a special body. Their shape was the basis for an independent series by Carrozzeria Scaglietti . The initiator was Ferrari's North America importer Luigi Chinetti , who was impressed by the first Nembo Spyder and tried in the course of 1966 to win Neri e Bonacini to run a small series. Nothing came of this because the company ceased operations in 1967 after Luciano Bonacini left. Instead, Chinetti had Ferrari's in-house supplier Scaglietti develop a vehicle similar to the Nembo Spyder, which was sold as the 275 GTB / 4 NART Spyder from 1968 . Ten copies of the NART Spyder were made.

Tom Meade, the creator of the Nembo series, is still considered underrated. For Top Gear magazine , Meade was “perhaps just a footnote in Ferrari history; but it left a unique automotive legacy. "

literature

  • Matthias Braun, Ernst Fischer, Manfred Steinert, Alexander Franc Storz: Ferrari road and racing cars since 1946 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-613-02651-3
  • Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-88-96796-41-2

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-88-96796-41-2 , p. 46.
  2. ↑ Zagato, for example, designed various Spyder bodies for used chassis on behalf of the North American Racing Team (NART) until the 1970s. They became known as the NART Spyder. Cf. Matthias Braun, Ernst Fischer, Manfred Steinert, Alexander Franc Storz: Ferrari road and racing cars since 1946. Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-613-02651-3 , p. 223.
  3. ↑ Short biography of Tom Meades on the website www.radical-mag.com (accessed on February 3, 2019).
  4. ↑ a b c Wallace Wyss: Tom Meade: An Americano In Italia - Doing What All Of Us Wished We Could Do… www.mycarquest.com, May 1, 2016, accessed February 3, 2019 .
  5. ^ A b c Larry Crane: Meade of Modena: Cars as sculptures of personal expression. www.classccars.com, December 16, 2017, accessed February 3, 2019 .
  6. ↑ On the Nembo Ferraris cf. Matthias Braun, Ernst Fischer, Manfred Steinert, Alexander Franc Storz: Ferrari road and racing cars since 1946 . Motorbuch Verlag, Stuttgart 2006, ISBN 978-3-613-02651-3 , p. 207. There incorrectly referred to as “Neri e Bonacin”.
  7. ↑ a b N.N .: Meade'n Voyage. www.theautochannel.com, accessed February 3, 2019 .
  8. ↑ History of Carrozzeria Sports Cars on the website www.coachbuild.com (accessed on January 29, 2019).
  9. ↑ History of the Nembo Spyder number 3771GT on the website www.barchetta.cc (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  10. ↑ Alessandro Bottero: Da Nembo kid a Superman. L'Uomo d'Aciaio , Iacobelli, 2013, ISBN 978-88-6252-208-3 .
  11. ↑ Alessandro Sannia: Enciclopedia dei carrozzieri italiani , Società Editrice Il Cammello, Torino, 2017, ISBN 978-88-96796-41-2 , p. 93.
  12. ↑ a b History of the Nembo Spyder No. 1777GT on the website www.barchetta.cc (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  13. ↑ a b Malcolm Thorne: 1964 Ferrari 330GT Nembo Spyder road test. www.drive-my.com, February 11, 2017, accessed on February 2, 2019 .
  14. ↑ History of the Ferrari 250 GTE 2 + 2 No. 4773GT on the website www.barchetta.cc (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  15. ^ History of the Nembo GT on the website www.barchetta.cc (accessed on February 4, 2019).
  16. ↑ History of the Nembo Spyder No. 3771GT on the website www.barchetta.cc (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  17. ↑ History of the Ferrari 250 GTE 2 + 2 No. 2707GT on the website www.barchetta.com (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  18. ↑ a b History of the Nembo Spyder 5805 on the website www.classicdriver.com (accessed on February 2, 2019).
  19. ↑ NN: Luigi Chinetti Junior tells the story of the Ferrari NART Spyder. www.classcdriver.com, April 22, 2016, accessed September 15, 2018 .