Dino Martin's fly yellow P3/4 | FerrariChat
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Dino Martin's fly yellow P3/4

Discussion in 'Collectables, Literature, & Models' started by bitzman, Oct 10, 2009.

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  1. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #1 bitzman, Oct 10, 2009
    Once I was in a building high above Sunset strip around '70-'72 when I saw a yellow P3/4
    going down Sunset. I sent a photographer down to capture the driver and it turned out to be Dino Martin Jr. , son of Dean Martin. Motor Trend later did an article on the car but I have the nagging thought that a fake P3/4 was built on a Mangusta chassis or other DeTomaso chassis, maybe by Tom Meade, and that, even though this had a Ferrari engine, it might have been the fake. Maybe the Motor Trend photographer wasn't hip enough to recognize the real thing. Also once there was an ad in the LA Times for a Ferrari replica on a DeTomaso chassis that had flipped. Coupling that fact with the list of cars that Dino crashed makes me think the yellow car I saw was a replica (by the way his final crash was in a jet fighter near Riverside). Does anyone remember this car? Was it real?
     
  2. F1tommy

    F1tommy F1 World Champ
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    #2 F1tommy, Oct 10, 2009
    Last edited by a moderator: Sep 7, 2017
    Here is a link to the Meade P4 style car.

    http://ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=16451&page=3

    Dean Martin Jr's car has been talked about in the Ferrari old cars section. Maybe they can move this to that section. It was #0850, a P3/4 412P(basically a P4 with the older P3 style engine).

    Tom Tanner/Scale Designs/Ferrari Expo 2010 model/photo contest-Chicago April 2010
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  3. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #3 bitzman, Oct 10, 2009
    this forum has some very sharp people--not only did you find this P3/4 I described in minutes (but did you say where it is now?) but you had a couple pages on the Serenissima P538 Torpedo which was a car that I thought no one knew about (or everybody forgot about) so now I can't hope to go to Italy and pry it out of Count Volpi's hands.

    I am going to have to dig harder to find a car nobody's heard of...
     
  4. Latsyrc

    Latsyrc F1 Rookie

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    #4 Latsyrc, Oct 10, 2009
    Hehe good luck, this place is amazing...and not only for Ferraris.
     
  5. krasnavian

    krasnavian Formula 3

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    #5 krasnavian, Oct 10, 2009
    Last edited: Oct 10, 2009
    As you probably know by now, Tom Meade had no connection to the Dino Martin car. Neither did he ever make a P4 replica though his Thomassima 2 had similar lines. I, too, enjoyed the sight of this car being driven on the streets of Hollywood back in the day.
     
  6. Napolis

    Napolis Three Time F1 World Champ
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    #6 Napolis, Oct 10, 2009
    0850 was built by Ferrari as a 412P not a P 3/4 on a P3 chassis with a Typo P3 block with carbs. 0850 is now owned by Harry Y.

    The Motor Trend article is fairly accurate.

    The car Tom built that somewhat resembled a P4 was not Ferrari Based.
     
  7. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #7 bitzman, Jul 14, 2013
    The ad I saw in the LA times said "Ferrari styled"
    and when I called the guy he said it was Mangusta based.
    He said it had flipped which was not encouraging. He was in Malibu, if there's barn hunters out there looking for a place to start..
     
  8. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #8 bitzman, Jul 14, 2013
    ..but sometimes I don't get around to thinking about a car until I see a picture of it.
    I looked up barchettacc.com's listing on the car
    and it sure had a racing history. I was wondering if Dino bought it in Europe or was Sicard already restoring it? I wonder what he paid for it if he bought it in Europe and what he sold it for.

    -------------------This would have been in the '70s------------------------

    - Dean Martin jr., USA
    .. - restored by Francois Sicard, USA FML v17 n5 p13
    C4/92 p9
    C12/91 p7
    76 - Paul Pappalardo, Greenwich, CT, USA
    ------------------------------------
    Sorry in my orig. question saying the MT photographer didn't know if it was real. We would have gotten a lot of letters from Ferrari folk if we would've been wrong about that.
     
  9. modena1967

    modena1967 Formula Junior

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    #9 modena1967, Jul 14, 2013
    Dino Martin bought 0850 from Jacques Swaters.
     
  10. miurasv

    miurasv F1 World Champ

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    #10 miurasv, Jul 14, 2013
    [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_1qq-Xr2CQ]Ferrari 412P [One of a Kind] - YouTube[/ame]
     
  11. bitzman

    bitzman F1 Rookie
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    #11 bitzman, Oct 22, 2014
    That seems about right for an obsolete race car in 1968. I imagine young Martin was over in Belgium, walked into the shop and saw it and had to have it. Before that I know he had a Vallelunga which he flipped (and walked away from) When I met him he had a brown Mangusta which he smashed. .I am not sure of his career arc, if he was already a movie star then but at least he was a rock and roll band member or tennis star, two other occupations before his final one, fighter pilot. He was cleared for 6000 ft. but hit an 8000 ft. mountain.
     

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