Jager's 'Do I Really Need This One?' 2023 Additions

If this next addition looks familiar, that's probably because Andy showed it a little over a week ago. Another great new addition from Spark.

At the end of the 1950’s, Ferrari’s production was still very low and Enzo Ferrari was looking for ways to grow his business. This resulted in the concept of a smaller, more affordable Ferrari being born and while Enzo was said to be not taken with the idea, a four-cylinder 849cc overhead cam engine was put in a modified Fiat chassis to evaluate its effectiveness. However, no-one was interested in commercialising it and the prototype was eventually scrapped.

In 1961, Ferrari personally commissioned Bertone (who no longer worked for the Scuderia) to build a small two-seater coupé styled by the young Giugiaro. This handsome coupé was displayed at the Turin Motor Show in 1961 on the Bertone stand, without carrying the name of a marque. Eventually though, Bertone got frustrated at the slow rate of development and responsibility for the project was eventually picked up by ASA (Autocostruzioni Societa per Azioni).
The ASA 1000 GT series finally appeared in 1965 with a 1,032cc engine producing 91 bhp SAE and capable of a top speed of over 180 km/h.

However, following a request by Luigi Chinetti, the prototype was fitted with a six-cylinder 1,390cc engine producing 124 bhp. This was clothed in elegant fibreglass body resembling a min-Ferrari 250 LM that was styled by Luigi Chinetti Junior. Just three examples were built, one of which was exhibited at the 1966 Geneva Motor Show while the other two were taken to the 1966 24 Hours of Le Mans.

Two cars were entered, one in a NART livery featuring a blue stripe over white paint driven by François Pasquier and Robert Mieusset, and the other car, as shown here in Ferrari red driven by Spartaco Dini and Ignazio Giunti. The two cars qualified only 54th and 53rd respectively in the 55 car field, but when the race got underway they moved up the order relatively quickly.

After two hours of racing, they were running in 43rd and 44th positions, up 10 and 12 place from where they started. Unfortunately the white #54 entry of Pasquier and Mieusset car retired in the 5th hour after colliding with a CD, and by that point the #61 entry of Dini and Giunti was running 3rd last in 44th position with transmission problems. Their race would eventually be over in the 7th hour.



After the Le Mans, the #61 was then shipped to the US, where it took part in the Daytona 24 Hours in 1967 in the hands of all female team Donna Mae-Mims and Suzy Dietrich who drove the car to 24th overall. They repeated this achievement two months later, in the Sebring 12 Hours where they also finished 25th. Sadly, later that same year the ASA company went into liquidation.

After that, the car was kept by the Chinetti family, until 1989 when Luigi Chinetti sold it to an Italian collector, who returned the car to Europe and carried out a thorough restoration.

The car sold at auction in July 2012 for Euro 297,840 which was surely a bargain for a car with Ferrari DNA and appearances at Le Mans, Daytona and Sebring.





Car : 1966 #61 ASA RB 613
Team : ASA
Drivers : Ignazio Giunti (I)/ Spartaco Dini (I)
Qualifying : 53rd
Result : 47th (DNF – Clutch)
Model : Spark (S3000)