The Beatles and Ferrari

John did own 330 2+2. Check out s/n 6781 in the 330 Registry.

http://www.parrotbyte.com/330GTRegistry/

George was big into cars and owned a 275 GTB. Don't know if that car was his only Ferrari, or if it's still in his family. He was the first owner of an Aston DB6 that recently sold at RM London auction.

Paul: no idea. I've never seen info that he was a car enthusiast.

Ringo: don't know much there either, other than that flashy cars were part of his style. I do recall that he was driving an Italian exotic when he had the bad wreck in the early 80's; he and Barbara Bach were in the car and barely escaped alive. Think it was a Lambo or Maserati.

I've heard that he had the wreck crushed into a sculpture and it's displayed on his property; can't verify that right off.

 

I remember seeing a documentary (don't ask the title, I really don't know...) years ago, there was a darkred 250 GT Lusso in it, which I assume was owned by Lennon.

 

George Harrison had a blue 330 GTC as well, seen it several times up for auction. Don't know the chassis number.

 

George Harrison uses a Ferrari in one of his pop videos?
EDIT: Here it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jMm4bhs6GYY

 

I don't know about the fab four themselves, but Eric Clapton (who played lead guitar on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps") has owned several Ferraris. The list of his cars over the years includes several vintage 250 cars, a 250 GTL Lusso, 365 Daytona, 360 Spider, 550 Maranello, and a yellow 2003 Enzo.

There is some speculation he may have been the buyer of the Steve McQueen Lusso earlier this year, but haven't heard anything about that since the auction. Anyone know who was the buyer for sure?

 

My wife and I saw George Harrison at the Melbourne GP quite a few years ago now ... he is apparently a big fan and was walking the track after the race was over. Never heard of him racing ...

Pete

 

I read an interview/article about George in Rolling Stone about '88...the author described George picking him up at the train station in his black GTB and taking him on a hairy country-roads ride to Friar Park for the interview.

George shows up at Paul's estate in a McLaren at the beginning of the video Beatles Anthology, when he, Ringo, and Paul met and sat around drinking tea and reminiscing.

 

Matt

It was a 365 GTC, chassis number 12245.

Mark Shannon

 

Paul owned a Lambo 400GT 2+2 finished in A rather nice Plumb colour
its still on the curcuit in the LocUK..
The number plate starts with SLF...
which i find amusing as from my era SLF was Still Little Fingers..

 

Paul owned an Aston DB 5 with a radio that also was a recorder. He sang/wrote the first sketch of "Hey Jude" on it while driving.

Hey Jude was a song to cheer up Johns son Julian after John broke up with Julian's mother.

 

IIRC, I think Clapton taught the lead guitar part to Harrison........is he credited on the master recording????

 

I recall a video of George Harrison driving a Mc Laren F1

 

George was a big F1 fan in the '70s and I believe he did some vintage racing in a Lotus. However, in this video, he lets some long haired Scotsman do the driving.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jMm4bhs6GYY

Cheers,
Kurt O.

 

John had a Benz 600 pullman and there was a Rolls Royce Phantom 5/6.

 

I happen to be reading Clapton's Autobiography right now and he says that he did play the lead on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". They did it in one take and George and EC really liked it, but John and Paul were "non-commital" about it. EC says that they added some "effects" to it and that was the song that was used on the White Album.

Clapton also talks about how he got interested in Ferraris after seeing and riding in Harrison's dark blue 365GTC (the book prints it as a "356GTC"). He liked it so much he ordered a new one for himself, paying "4 grand" (pounds sterling). Clapton only knew how to drive an automatic, so he learned how to use a clutch on the Ferrari!

Shortly after that, he bought a 275GTB, a Daytona and a 250 GT Lusso. He only had garage space for two cars so he was constantly buying and selling cars.

The picture of the crashed Ferrari on the album "Slowhand" was crashed by EC after he returned from a tour in Australia and had been drinking on the whole flight back to England. He hopped in the car at high speed and crashed straight into a laundry van.

John

 

This thread rocks!

 

Harrison also owned a $1 million McLaren F1 road car. The 3-seater McLaren can be seen carrying Harrison, McCartney, and Starr in segment of The Beatles Anthology, prior to the video for the single "Free As A Bird" and also in that of "Any Road".
-wikipedia

I own all 8 of the beatles anthology videos and I do remeber this scene on one of them. I havent watched them in forever but I will have to dust them off for this.

 

http://car.blogdig.net/archives/articles/November2007/04/George_Harrison_car_sells_for__464_736_at_UK_s_largest_classic_car_auction.html

George Harrison's DB5

http://uk.geocities.com/[email protected]/georgeharrison/georgeharrisoncar.htm

and Im not sure what to make of this one.

 

Clapton also talks about how he got interested in Ferraris after seeing and riding in Harrison's dark blue 365GTC (the book prints it as a "356GTC"). He liked it so much he ordered a new one for himself, paying "4 grand" (pounds sterling). Clapton only knew how to drive an automatic, so he learned how to use a clutch on the Ferrari!

I received an interesting call from a friend reading that book the other day who questioned the "4 grand" statement. I thought those cars listed new at about 16k US$. Even at today's crazy exchange rate, that would be half price $8K US.

 

Well the statement is definitely in the book. As a reference the U.S. dollar in 1968 was worth something between 0.35 and 0.40 pounds sterling, meaning that 1 pound sterling was worth around $2.50 to $2.75 at the time that EC bought his 365GTC. Therefore "4 grand" would translate to at least US$10,000 or maybe a bit more.

Given his heavy drinking, drug use and the fogginess of nearly 40 years passage, I wouldn't be surprised if EC's memory of the price that he paid wasn't off by 1 or 2 thousand pounds!

John

 

Below is the liner for Harrison's album "Living in the Material World". Hard to see but its a 246 parked in his driveway. In his biography, 'Dark Horse', the author mentions George driving a Testarossa. If memory serves it was blue.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

A search on this site revealed a price of a 1969 365 gtc/4 at 23K US$. Lets assume he dictiphoned his autobiography and the writer did not understand him when he said FOURTY grand Sterling. That would be about right? Maybe not. Who has EC's cell phone number? give him a call!