[Land-speed] nonLSR: Famous Name in Gran Prix History at local trial regarding Ferrari sale

[FastmetalBDF at aol.com]

    June 12, 2007  New London,  CT                            

Luigi Chinetti Jr. testified in New London Superior Court  today  that he was 
an expert in the cat-and-mouse game of selling rare Ferrari  automobiles for 
millions of dollars but that he took little interest in  his investments.  
Chinetti, formerly of Lyme, took the witness stand on the first  day of a 
trial regarding the $6.5 million sale of  Chinetti's 1956 blue and white Ferrari 
Model 290 MM and some local  owners. 
Chinetti told the jury how his father, Italian race car driver Luis  Chinetti 
Sr., worked with Enzo Ferrari in the 1940s to found the Ferrari  company. The 
company handmade a few cars in the early years, Chinetti  testified, building 
road cars to finance the much lighter, "stripped for  action" race cars. He 
said the first Ferraris sold for about $10,000 to  $12,000 - the price of "a 
pretty nice home" in those days, and that  princes and kings were among the 
company's early clients.  
Chinetti followed his father into the business, racing cars as a  younger man 
and later making a living restoring, maintaining and selling  early Ferrari 
cars.  In the early 1990s, Chinetti said he sold a 275  LM to a Japanese client 
for $3.5 million. After hearing in 1998 that the  car was going on the 
market, he bought the car back for $750,000.  




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