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Bonhams is delighted to offer here this outstanding example of thebiggest-engined, most powerful and most important sports-racingFerrari model built purely for works team use at the outset of the1954 International motor racing season.This is the factory-entered 4.9-litre Ferrari 375-Plus in which Mr Ferrari’sfavoured great road racing driver Umberto Maglioli ran secondin that year’s mighty Mille Miglia, and seemed poised to overwhelmdouble-World Champion Driver Alberto Ascari’s factory Lancia D24before a tuppeny-ha’penny split-pin came adrift within its transaxlegearbox and allowed the final-drive to cease driving, without inflictingany serious further damage…This is the factory-entered 4.9-litre Ferrari 375-Plus in which thelegendary Argentine ace José Froilán González obliterated all oppositionin the International sports car race supporting the Formula1 BRDC International Trophy race at th Silverstone May Meeting inGreat Britain.This great front-engined V12-cylinder sports-racing classic was thensold into private American hands, being campaigned in Sports CarClub of America, Bahamas Speed Week and Cuban events 1955-57by Kleenex millionaire Jim Kimberly and Howard Hively.In a later eccentric ownership, the car subsequently fell into disuseand half-forgotten neglect, its original structure and many disparatecomponents surviving despite rather than because of the mannerin which its truly extraordinary story developed. Ultimately it wasretrieved from such neglect, being painstakingly restored and rebuiltin Italy, its fortunes being revived by Belgian ownership centred uponno less a figure than Jacques Swaters – himself a former Ferrariprivate owner/driver and for decades Ferrari’s Belgian concessionairethrough his illustrious Ecurie Francorchamps organization.This is also the factory-entered 4.9-litre Ferrari 375-Plus in whichthe immensely stylish and sophisticated all-Italian driver pairing ofUmberto Maglioli and Paolo Marzotto led the Le Mans 24-Hour racethat same year.Motor Cars | 117