Yellow 10523 vs. Purple 10523

I recently found out that Napolis now owns the yellow Dino Prototype 10523 (I saw 'Ocatne' magazine today) and wondered if there is any new info about the two matching numbers from any communications with Pininfarina or Ferrari?

Mostly curiosity to me now, but the purple street car 10523 was in our family for many years. I never really grasped the coincidence of the serial numbers when we owned the car. I do recall many years ago my father once trying to convince me that ours was supposed to have a longitudinal engine, and I suspect that confusion arose from info relating to the yellow car Napolis now owns.

Funny that I have know about, and been a fan of the Yellow prototype since the early 70s, (Paolo Martin design, like the Beta Scorpion) but I never realized it had 10523 on its chassis until recently.

Based on documents form the Ferrari factory in Italy we were pretty confident purple 10523 was the first PRODUCTION 206. ie the first one after all the prototypes.

Purple 10523 was purchased for a pittance in the 80s, as it was the victim of an engine fire that melted the aluminum on the back of the car. Original intention was to make a beater or track car. We already painted it red paint before we understood the significance of its weirdo serial number. Subsequently we did a complete restoration along with re-painting it in it's original purple. (I know this was difficult for dad as his reflex action when acquiring a new car was to re-paint it in some non-original color ). (hope you are not reading this dad...) We tried to match some inner body parts that still contained remnants of the original viola.

My father did most of the restoration as I was in college and residency for 21 of the years we owned the car. I never even had a chance to drive the car! (Too bad also, because not I am in line only for the inheritance of a P4 replica now )

I searched Fchat and most of the discussion of these two cars seemed to be BEFORE Napolis acquired the Yellow 10523, thus the new thread.

Here are pictures of the two cars, for those new to this discussion.

That picture of purple 10523 is as it was in our modest shop in 1991, right after completion of restoration. The film was not color balanced for the fluorescent lamps, thus it looks kind of black.
I have never seen yellow 10523 in person, and that photo came off the internet.
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Well, I guess that is what I was looking for.

 

Too bad a car like this can't stay in the family, especially when the grandkids are auto geeks.