Often dubbed as the ‘final Nembo Spider’, the 330 GT Nembo Spider was based on a Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 chassis, a customer commissioned Giorgio Neri project.
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Neri and Bonacini
Neri and Bonacini were a small coachbuilder and mechanic shop in Modena, Italy which became active in the late 1950’s. It was founded and ran by Giorgio Neri and Luciano Bonacini, and soon became known as ‘Nembo’.
The shop often worked on models from Ferrari, Lamborghini and Maserati throughout the 1960s in an official capacity for these manufacturers as well as private customers. The shop was best known for its construction of the Ferrari 250 GT Nembo Spiders, which were created in collaboration with American designer Thomas Meade. A total of three Nembo Spiders and one Nembo Coupé were created.
Neri and Bonacini also designed a car under their own name, the Studio GT Due Liri, which saw two prototypes constructed between 1966 and 1968. However, the shop itself closed down in 1967 after Bonacini moved on to work for De Tomaso, while Neri started his own shop, Motors World Machines.
Ferrari 330 GT Nembo Spider
With Neri and Bonacini being known for producing their Nembo Spider models using Ferrari 250 GT chassis throughout the sixties, a fourth and final Nembo Spider was commissioned by a British collector in the 1980’s, with the final model now being based off a Ferrari 330 GT.
Taken on by Giorgio Neri, who was still an active figure in the Italian supercar industry, took on the idea with the intention of creating a fourth Nembo Spider. Using chassis number 5805 GT, Neri set about working on the project back in Modena in much the same way as the 250 GT Nembo Spiders of the 1960s.
Retaining the original 4.0-L V12 Columbo engine and being converted to RHD for the UK, the project was sadly never completed under Neri's supervision, when the British collector ran into financial problems. The project was eventually halted in 1992.
Richard Allen
The project looked as if it would be forever unfinished, until Richard Allen, director of the Ferrari Owners Club of Great Britain at the time, got word of the project. He travelled to Neri’s workshop in Modena and found not only the 330 GT Nembo Spider project, but a 250 LM and a scrapped Drogo chassis too.
Allen took the 330 GT Nembo chassis back to the UK, where he commissioned both Hayward and Scott in Essex and Ferrari specialist Neil Corns to finish the project. The car was eventually completed and made its debut at the Ferrari Owners Club Concours outing in 1998. Allen never drove the car on the road, but he had it road registered as ‘BPR 455B’, while the ‘NMB 64’ plates the car is usually photographed with were purely for show purposes.
Allen fondly kept the car in his collection until his death in 2016, where he had previously arranged to have the car auctioned and the funds donated to Prince William’s East Anglican Air Ambulance Service, through the auction company H&H Classics. He has previously acquired funds of £8 million selling two previous Ferraris, which he then donated to the Royal National Lifeboat Institution (RNLI) in the UK.
Written by Cóilín Higgins.
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