If someone asked you who owned the oldest road-going Ferrari known to exist in the world, you’d probably assume it would be part of a collection somewhere like London, Los Angeles or Dubai, kept in a pristine, temperature-controlled garage, and only driven on very, very special occasions.
In reality, though, you couldn’t be much wider of the mark. Ferrari has tracked down the oldest example of its cars still being used on the road in a sleepy, rural part of New Zealand.
It’s a 1948 166 Inter, the very first road car the company ever made. One of around 38 built and powered by a tiny 2.0-litre V12, it’s thought to be the fourth chassis completed, with the only known older one still in existence residing permanently in Ferrari’s museum in Maranello.
Its owners, a couple named Amanda and Philip, joined Ferrari on a tour of New Zealand the company had organised to promote the Purosangue SUV. Having established that it’s likely the oldest Ferrari still in use, the company has produced a short film in which Amanda explains how they came to own the car.
The couple spotted it in a copy of used car sales magazine Hemmings while they were working in Alaska building log cabins. When they bought it, it turned up in a container in a fairly sorry state, and it’s since been restored to its former glory.
Ferrari 166 Inter
What’s most heartwarming about this is that the 166 still gets regular use. Amanda is clearly one of us, saying: “I think that cars need to be driven. They’re rolling sculptures, and it’s neat to be able to see them going down the road… People need to see them.”
Amanda is now 75 – a year younger than the car – and has started to think about its long-term future: “It needs to be appreciated as the historical artefact that it is, but it also should be used. That’s part of what the cars are for me.” That’s a sentiment we think a lot of people can get behind.
