June 12, 2007 New London, CT
Luigi Chinetti Jr. testified in New London Superior Court today that he was
an expert in the cat-and-mouse game of selling rare Ferrari automobiles for
millions of dollars but that he took little interest in his investments.
Chinetti, formerly of Lyme, took the witness stand on the first day of a
trial regarding the $6.5 million sale of Chinetti's 1956 blue and white
Ferrari
Model 290 MM and some local owners.
Chinetti told the jury how his father, Italian race car driver Luis Chinetti
Sr., worked with Enzo Ferrari in the 1940s to found the Ferrari company. The
company handmade a few cars in the early years, Chinetti testified, building
road cars to finance the much lighter, "stripped for action" race cars. He
said the first Ferraris sold for about $10,000 to $12,000 - the price of "a
pretty nice home" in those days, and that princes and kings were among the
company's early clients.
Chinetti followed his father into the business, racing cars as a younger man
and later making a living restoring, maintaining and selling early Ferrari
cars. In the early 1990s, Chinetti said he sold a 275 LM to a Japanese client
for $3.5 million. After hearing in 1998 that the car was going on the
market, he bought the car back for $750,000.
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