Cloud 9

Enzo Ferrari initially didn't see any potential in a competition variant of his flagship twelve-cylinder Berlinetta Boxer. It took his close friend and American concessionaire Luigi Chinetti's North American Racing Team to build their own radically reengineered Ferrari 365 GT4 BB racer and record impressive finishes for Enzo to take note. At the French endurance classic in 1978, Ferrari supplied three five-litre BB Competiziones, developed with input from the Formula 1 team's chief engineer. Among his more intriguing ideas was the aluminium rear wing that began life as the front wing on the 312 T3 Grand Prix car. Ferrari drafted in Pininfarina to hone the mid-engined supercar's bodywork for Le Mans' six-kilometre Mulsanne Straight, resulting in a sleeker wind-cheating and beautiful silhouette.

Three brand new Ferrari 512 BB/LMs arrived stateside ready for the Daytona 24 Hours in January 1979. One car was earmarked for Chinetti's N.A.R.T. outfit, and the other two were designated to the French Ferrari concessionaire Charles Pozzi. The second of those two cars was assigned the number 67 and earmarked for French drivers Claude Ballot-Léna and Michel Leclère. Come qualifying, chassis 26685 was the quickest of the three 512s, lapping the famous banked racetrack in just under 2 minutes. The race was less straightforward, with high tyre wear on the sister Pozzi car prompting an early pit-stop around 90 minutes into the 24-hour marathon. When N.A.R.T.'s entry suffered a high-speed blowout, both Michelin and the Pozzi bosses withdrew both entries after just four hours. Until then, this car was running in an excellent seventh position.

Next up for this Ferrari was the 24 Hours of Le Mans in June, the Pozzi outfit's home race. Ahead of the main event, Pozzi commissioned the French artist Jean Fougerol to refinish its brace of 512s in a fabulous hand-painted Pop Art-inspired livery depicting powder-blue clouds and white birds. The two BB/LMs differed only in their numbers and their title sponsors – this car was assigned the number 63 and adorned with the logos of 3M. The driver line-up remained the same as it did earlier in the year at Daytona: Claude Ballot-Léna and Michel Leclère.The driver line-up remained the same as it did earlier in the year at Daytona: Claude Ballot-Léna and Michel Leclère. It was Leclère who, having clawed his way into the top 10 after an impressive drive through the night, agonisingly retired at eight o'clock in the morning after a sudden downpour and subsequent disagreement with a slower car.

This glorious 1979 Ferrari 512 BB/LM Group 5 featuring the iconic ‘clouds’ livery hand-painted by the French artist Jean Fougerol is currently available from Girardo & Co. Photos © Girardo & Co