What is a 330 GT America?
During the sixties, Ferrari recognized a growing market of customers who loved their fast GT cars, but were disappointed with the fact that Ferraris were mostly two seaters. Enzo Ferrari decided to try and design a car around the successful 250 chassis/motor combination that included 2 extra seats. He did not want to stretch the chassis to accommodate the extra seats, but felt confident space could be found elsewhere. With the help of it's coach builder Pininfarina, Ferrari moved the engine and gearbox forward by 8 inches thus making the extra room behind the front seats. Pininfarina then skinned a body shape over this chassis that created the 250GTE body for introduction in 1960. This body coupled with the fantastic 240 bhp 3.0 liter V-12 Ferrari engine became the best selling Ferrari to date. 950 examples were made in a three year model span, astronomical production numbers for the small Italian company.

Three years later Ferrari decided to design a new car to replace their 250GTE. Enzo wanted a more powerful motor to compete with other European 2+2 automobiles like the Aston Martin, and Jaguar, so a 4.0 liter motor was manufactured that was capable of producing 300 bhp at 7000 rpm! Pininfarina designed a slightly larger car for a new car to be named 330GT 2+2. As Ferrari discontinued manufacturing the 3.0 liter engines for the GTE, Pininfarina still had 50 bodies left before they began tooling up for the new model. In order to make use of the last 50 bodies with no old motors to use, Ferrari decided to squeeze the new 4.0 liter motors into the old bodies. To differentiate between the old models and the new models, Ferrari decided to name these interim cars, "330 America."

There are two rumors I have heard why Ferrari named these cars "America." One story was to follow the "Superamerica" line of cars where large four liter motors were installed in a limited number of custom built cars. The second story I heard was that American East Coast Distributor Luigi Chinetti was instrumental in marrying the later motor with the early body, and offering to sell most of them in the States.

Admittedly, these 2+2 automobiles will never be as popular as the two place Ferraris of the same era, but being that there are only 50 examples of my particular car, I belong to a slightly smaller sub-set!