The mere concept of a Ferrari crossover had many purists up in arms, but it is coming anyway. The thing is, the upcoming Purosangue won’t be the first to wear the Prancing Horse badge.
That would be the 1969 Jerrari, a mashup that came from the mind of famed collector and casino-owner Bill Harrah. The concept was born after his mechanic crashed his 1969 Ferrari 365 GT 2+2 in a snowstorm near Reno.
Harrah’s first thought, of course, was that a four-wheel-drive Ferrari would be preferable for these conditions. So convinced was he of the brilliance of his idea that rumor has it he asked “il Commendatore” himself, Enzo Ferrari, to make one. Not a subscriber to the notion that the “customer is always right,” Enzo said no. So Harrah decided to make it himself.
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His mechanics took the front end of the crashed Ferrari and grafted it onto a 1969 Jeep Wagoneer. They also took the Ferrari’s 320 hp V12 and married it to the Jeep’s three-speed transmission. After a few years, the Jerrari reverted to American power, in the form of a 5.7-liter Chevy V8. The V12, meanwhile, went into another Wagoneer, a 1977 model whose exterior was unmodified to keep it low-key and was called Jerrari 2.
This one, Jerrari 1, still has the Chevy V8 and is finished in the green that came to define the car in the public’s imagination (even though it was originally finished in a creamy white). The vehicle left Harrah’s collection after his death in 1978 and eventually found its way to Germany in 2008, where it’s being sold now. Despite being more than 50 years old, the Jerrari has just 7,000 miles on the odometer.
Normal 365 GT 2+2s go for hundreds of thousands of dollars these days. Unfortunately, the seller on Classic Driver is only offering the price on request but when it last sold, bidding exceeded $21,000. How much value it has accumulated over the last decade will be interesting to see.