Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona: The Last Great Front-Engined Supercar
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In 1968, Ferrari built the fastest road car in the world. It was also one of the most beautiful. Half a century on, the 365 GTB/4 remains the definitive statement of what a front-engined grand tourer can be: muscular, purposeful, and possessed of a visual drama that no mid-engined rival has ever quite matched.
This is the car that defined an era. And it never really had the name everyone knows it by.
The Name That Was Never Official
Ferrari never called it the Daytona. The official designation was 365 GTB/4, a typically cryptic Maranello code: 365cc per cylinder, Gran Turismo Berlinetta, four-camshaft engine. Functional, precise, and completely devoid of romance.
The name Daytona came from the outside, born from a single extraordinary weekend in February 1967. At the Daytona 24 Hours that year, Ferrari's prototype 330 P4s finished first, second, and third. It was a crushing, humiliating demolition of Ford, delivered with the kind of Italian flair that makes history. When the new road car arrived the following year, the press latched onto the Daytona connection immediately. Ferrari never objected. The name stuck, and half a century later, it is the only name anyone uses.
There is a pleasing irony in this. Ferrari built the car as a technological statement, a machine bristling with engineering seriousness. The world responded by giving it a racing nickname. Maranello could not have scripted it better.
Pininfarina's Masterwork
The Daytona was styled by a 27-year-old Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina, and it remains arguably the finest work of his career. The brief was simple: make something better-looking than the Miura. Fioravanti delivered something different entirely.
Where the Miura is curvaceous and sensual, the Daytona is taut and muscular. The long bonnet stretches forward with intent. The fastback roofline flows rearward with absolute confidence. There is not a line on the car that feels uncertain. Even the proportions, which on paper sound absurd, work perfectly in the metal: the cab-rearward stance, the wide haunches, the sharp nose.
The most distinctive early feature was a full-width Plexiglas cover over the four headlamps, giving the front end a clean, almost glassy stare. Regulations in some markets eventually forced a switch to pop-up units, but the Plexiglas cars remain the purists' choice. They look, if anything, more modern now than they did in 1968.
The Colombo V12
Under that enormous bonnet sits one of the finest engines Ferrari ever produced. The 4.4-litre quad-cam V12 traces its lineage to Gioacchino Colombo's original 1947 design, but by 1968 it had evolved into something spectacular. Six twin-choke Weber carburettors, 352bhp, and a screaming 7,500rpm redline. The factory claimed a top speed of 174mph, making it the fastest production car in the world at launch.
Those who have driven a Daytona describe the experience in almost mystical terms. The engine note builds from a burble at idle to a howl at high revs that is unlike anything else on four wheels. The gearbox is a five-speed unit mounted at the rear in a transaxle arrangement, giving near-perfect weight distribution and a mechanical purity of feel through the lever that modern cars cannot replicate. It demands commitment. It rewards precision. It does not forgive laziness.
This is not a car you drive passively. It asks something of you every time.
Daytona vs Miura
The great argument of the late 1960s was between the Daytona and the Lamborghini Miura. On one side: Ferrari, with their front-engined, rear-transaxle orthodoxy, backed by decades of racing success and the Colombo V12. On the other: Lamborghini, with Marcello Gandini's sensational mid-engined Miura and the radical argument that the engine belonged behind the driver.
The Miura camp said the future was mid-engined. They were right, eventually. But the Daytona camp countered that a front-engined car could be made to handle just as well, go just as fast, and carry two people in genuine comfort over long distances. The Miura's interior was cramped and hot. The Daytona felt like a proper grand tourer.
History has vindicated both positions. The Miura was revolutionary. The Daytona was the perfection of a tradition. Neither argument needed to win. Both cars deserved to exist.
Le Mans and Racing
Ferrari built a small number of competition Daytonas, the 365 GTB/4 Competizione, with lighter bodywork, more power, and stripped-out interiors. These cars became formidable endurance racers. At the 1972 Le Mans 24 Hours, privateer Daytonas won the GT class outright, finishing fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, and ninth overall. It was a stunning result for what was nominally a road car.
The NART Spyder variant, produced in tiny numbers for North American Racing Team owner Luigi Chinetti, gave the Daytona an open-top dimension. Only five were originally built by Scaglietti, making them among the most sought-after Ferraris in existence today. One sold at auction in recent years for over $20 million. Even by Ferrari standards, these are serious money.
Miami Vice and Popular Culture
The Daytona reached its widest audience not through road tests or racing victories, but through a television programme. Miami Vice, which ran from 1984 to 1989, featured detectives Crockett and Tubbs driving what appeared to be a black Ferrari Daytona Spyder. It was one of the most glamorous cars ever to appear on screen, perfectly matched to the pastel suits and neon lighting of the show's aesthetic.
There was one problem. Ferrari would not lend the show a real Daytona Spyder, so the producers built replicas on Corvette underpinnings. Real Daytona owners were not pleased. Ferrari eventually insisted the fake cars be replaced, and from series three onwards, Crockett drove a genuine Testarossa. But the damage, if that is the right word, was already done. For a generation of viewers, the Daytona Spyder was Miami Vice, and Miami Vice was cool. Demand for real cars surged. Values have never really looked back.
Shop Ferrari Art
The Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona is one of the great subjects in automotive art: dramatic proportions, vivid colour, and a silhouette that is instantly recognisable. We have captured it in our range of British-designed artwork, available on phone cases, mugs, and more.
- Ferrari Daytona Red 1971 phone case - the classic in Rosso Corsa
- Ferrari Daytona mug - start your morning in style
If the Daytona has whet your appetite for classic Ferrari art, our piece on the Ferrari 250 GT and 250 GTO explores the cars that came before. And browse the full classic car collection for more icons from the golden age of the automobile.
The Daytona was the last great front-engined Ferrari supercar. Nothing that came after quite replaced what was lost when Maranello abandoned the formula. But then, nothing before had achieved it so completely either.