I always thought the 512 BB was a really under rated Ferrari.
In my opinion, in fact it’s one of the prettiest Ferraris ever.
There was something wonderfully understated about those Pininfarina lines. As a kid in the seventies it seemed the cooler, more elegant opposition to Lamborghini’s outrageous Countach.
It probably stemmed from the time I came up close and personal with one.
As a kid (I must have been 9 or Ten years old), me and my mate Keith Curwood would cycle down to the junction of the A12 and sit there and spot cars. Sad but true.
Every now and then, when the main lights turned red, a real gem would turn up. It’s a bit of weird ‘confession of an urban kid of the seventies’ thing to admit, but this was the only sort of geeky sport I was interested in.
I would of course pretend by Raleigh Grifter was a Moto Guzzi Le Mans too, and tug the flappy mud guard end to scrap along across the knobbly tires so it made a noise that approximated the sound of an Italian V-Twin.
This was all included in my mass of pre-teen dreams of exotic power and freedom a nice precursor to that flowering of auto-eroticism that came once we went to big school.
The 512 BB that pulled up was, I remember as if it was yesterday, an incredible powder blue, and it had cream leather interior and an even more incredible blond siren sitting in the passenger seat, wearing a hugely furry white fur coat.
This was bling before bling was bling, a Boogie Nights style spangled up deliciousness of a scenario.
It must have been 1976 or something. And it stayed with me for the rest of my life.
The 523 BB had 12 cyclinders arranged in a boxer engine, and prefigured cars like the 308, 328 and the Testarossa.
So, even if it stood in the Countach’s shadow from the moment it was born in 1974, it will always represent to me much more than the Lambo’s slightly staid cousin.
