Sywell Aerodrome, 4th June, 2022

After the success of the inaugural National Ferrari Owners’ Day at Sywell Aerodrome in 2021, the Ferrari Owners’ Club of Great Britain returned to the same venue for the 2022 gathering on Saturday 04 June. Whereas the 2020 event had enjoyed very pleasant warm sunshine, this year’s one had a mixture of chill wind, rain and then warm late afternoon sunshine, unfortunately many had given up the ghost by the time the sun shone and had made an early departure. Despite the unsettled weather there were some 500 Ferraris in attendance through the course of the day.

Amongst the cars that turned up were a few earlier examples of the marque, including a 212 Export Spider, a 250 Europa GT, a 250 PF Coupé and a pair of 250 GTEs and a few Dino 246s and 308 GT4s.

The remainder were predominantly from the late seventies onwards, which makes even some of those over 40 years old, through to the latest examples, including SF90 Stradales and Spiders, Romas, 812 GTS’ and a 296 GTB, the latter looking very attractive in the classic Maranello Concessionaires Red and Cambridge Blue racing colour scheme.A rarely seen example was the Berlinetta Boxer inspired 458 Italia based one-off SP12EC, commissioned by guitar legend Eric Clapton, which was part of Bob Houghton’s display, which also featured a 512 BB in a complimentary metallic red colour scheme, allowing comparisons to be made.

Apart from all the Ferraris on display there were trade displays, both live music and a DJ throughout the day, the chance to go for a flight in a Tiger Moth and two Warbirds flying displays during the course of the day, plus a Silverstone Auctions Ferrari and Ferrari memorabilia auction. The auction featured a total of 22 Ferraris, of which all but five went to new homes, with the top sale being a silver LHD F12 TdF which achieved £678,500. The top sale in the memorabilia section was a Schedoni F40 luggage set which made £10,000. In addition there was a Meguiar’s Pride of Ownership Concours, which was won by the 512 TR of David Clarke, which explains why he seemed to be constantly cleaning nooks and crannies, of which there are many just on the side strakes alone!

Keith Bluemel
06/2022