3327GT 62/mar/15   *** 61st ***

Ferrari 250 GT SWB Berlinetta Competizione, LHD

Grey metallic

A reader mailed the following
One of the funnier moments (this comes to me second-hand) was at the Spa-Francorchamps race in which he didn't qualify because of mechanical difficulties, and he had to start at the back of the pack behind 35 cars. The press, which was covering the race on television, was snickering about the "35 year old car" out there with F40s, F355 Challenges, etc.  No wonder it was at the back of the pack!  Anyway, the race got underway and after 2 laps Cliff was lying in 3rd position!  The commentators were shocked (and probably a bit embarassed).  Cliff ended up winning the race and the media were all over him afterward, wanting to interview the Yank who beat F40s with a SWB Ferrari. J.D.

Email from Mr. Baxter jr.
I recently revived a childhood interest in Ferraris which dates back to 1952 when I began travelling to SCCA races with my father, John Baxter of Fremont, Ohio.  He had raced a 120 Jaguar, 300SL gullwing and several Corvettes in amateur races throughout the midwestern US.  In 1960 he raced and drove on the street his first Ferrari, a 250 PF coupe, a very pretty but not very competitive vehicle.  In 1962, however, he purchased the 250 SWB s/n 3327 which I was most interested to find in your database as being the last aluminum swb berlinetta.

I was only 15 at the time, but I remember the anticipation of the purchase. It took months.  Luigi Chinetti had told my father that it would be a competition 250 gt, but my father expected a GTO.  He and a friend,  a well known and successful road racer named Chuck Dietrich picked the car up in
New York in March, 1962 and trailered it straight to Sebring, Fla. for the 24 hour race.  The car was driven by Chuck Dietrich, Carl Haas (yes, that Carl Haas, and Charles Hayes, another nationally known road racer who owned an earlier 250 swb.

History shows that the car finished 34th overall, but history is harsh.  It was running 2nd and 3rd in GT for many hours (behind the beautiful GTO of Hill and Gendebien who were, I was told, not happy to be in the GT class) until a collision with the curbs in the back part of the course knocked the
car out of alignment.  I saw it happen, and by the time I ran back to the pits (rules were more lax in 1962-a 15 year old could get in) the car had already come in for front tires.  I spent the rest of the race hauling Goodyear Blue Streaks and Borranis back and forth as fast as I could.

In May, 1962 my father raced the car at Dunkirk NY and won the AP class. Later the same month, Chuck Dietrich drove 3327 at Bridgehampton and was hit by Dick Thompson in an AP Corvette.  The repairs were made in Watkins Glen, NY . Probably the best victory for the car was the next month, June 1962. Chuck Dietrich and Doug Theim in identical, silver competition SWBs competed at Elkhart Lake, Wis. in the best production road race imaginable.  Despite the greater power of the many Corvettes, the final lap came down to a shootout between these two Ferraris.  Dietrich passed Theim at Canada corner, in a slide that took the car just off track, and it was a drag race up the hill to the finish.  Dietrich won, Theim was second.

My father drove the car in several other amateur races in 1962 and 1963 and Chuck Dietrich competed in 1962 at Mosport in the FIA race.  My father and I drove the car to numerous SCCA races.  It was truly an acceptable road car. My job was to tape the headlights and make the numbers.  Although all the racing took its toll, the car never overheated in traffic and always got us home.

My father sold the car in late 1963 to Bob Amey in Fremont.  He later moved away and over the years we heard nothing more about this wonderful car.  I bought my first Ferrari a few months ago, and this put me on the track again.

We have numerous photos of 3327 from 1962 and 1963.  If anyone is interested in the early history of this car, they can contact me at tbaxter@columbus.rr.com.