King of the road

Ferrari's 365GTB/4 Daytona raised the supercar bar and put the Miura in its place, aided by the sun-seeking GTS and thunderous Competizione

- SIMON HUCKNALL

It must have been a test of Enzo Ferrari's resolve to sanction the car that the 365GTB/4, aka Daytona, became. When Lamborghini presented a mid-engined rolling chassis at the 1965 Turin Salon to preview the following year's Miura, it made Ferrari's incumbent 275GTB look archaic. That was to be expected.

But to resist the temptation to follow suit with such a configuration for the 275's successor took guts - or perhaps just good old-fashioned instinct about what buyers really wanted.

History proved Enzo right, though. When Daytona production finished 50 years ago, 1406 Berlinetta and Spider models had been builtalmost double the trendsetting Lamborghini's total. And, while it was to be Ferrari's final throw of the two-seater, frontV12-engined dice until the 550 Maranello emerged 23 years later, there was no doubting its impact: "This is the most exciting projectile we have ever been fortunate enough to handle,' said Autocar in its September 1971 road test of the new 365GTB/4.

While the Miura wowed with its new-age design and technology, the Daytona was the more complete package, its traditional underpinnings wrapped up in a Pininfarina body that was, in its own way, just as contemporary as that of the Miura yet blessed with a degree of long-distance GT practicality for which the Lamborghini had no answer. That was perfectly demonstrated when Dan Gurney and Brock Yates won the 1971 Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in a Daytona, the pro-racer and renowned scribe blasting across the States in 35 hours and 54 minutes, covering 2876 miles at an average speed of 80.1mph. "We never once exceeded 175 miles per hour," joked Gurney.