Ferrari 365GTB/4 Daytona (1968 - 1973)

Last updated 15 January 2014

Introduction

The Daytona is one of the legendary Ferraris, but that's not a title applied to it in retrospect - it was just as amazing new. It was independently tested to 174mph, making it the world’s fastest production car for during the early 1970s - an era when the rest of the supercar community was making wild claims about their cars' maximum speeds. In comparison, the Lamborghini Miura in production form struggled to stay on the ground, approching these speeds, and it wouldn't be until the Countach arrived in 1974 that the Daytona's claim to fame would finally be bested.

Fundamental to the Daytona's towering performance was its quad-cam Colombo-designed 4.4-litre V12, with its bank of six twin-choke Weber carburettors. Maximum power was 352bhp, and torque wasn't far behind at 318lb ft. Super-long legs mad this the era's best long-distance GT car. The styling was by Pininfarina's Leonardo Fiovavanti and was completed in just just one week. And yet, it is almost unrivalled in its beauty, and still considered by many to be the template for a generation of GT cars. Certainly, Ferrari's return to front-engined GTs and supercars in the 1990s harked back to the glory years of the Daytona. Headlamps were initially fixed behind perspex, but this was changed to pop-up units in 1970.

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