John Lennon’s first car being auctioned

The first car bought by John Lennon after he passed the driving test in 1965, a Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 Coupe is being auctioned by Bonhams. The car will be sold at Bonhams' Paris sale of Motor Cars at the Grand Palais on 5 February 2011. John Lennon’s Ferrari is expected to be sold between €120,000 and €170,000.

Back in 1965 John Lennon bought his light blue Ferrari for £2,000 and as Philip Norman writes in his biography John Lennon – A Life,  the 330 GT 2+2 Coupe was only one of the several luxury cars that dealers came to offer him.

“In February 1965, John passed his driving test, an event that made headline news across the nation. Within hours, every luxury car dealership in the Weybridge area, hoping for business, jammed the road outside Kenwood's security gates with Maseratis, Aston Martins, and Jaguar XK-E.”

Lennon’s garage also became famous for the Rolls-Royce Phantom V Limousine that arrived two months later. Lennon’s garage was completed with by a Mini.

In his book, John Lennon Imagined: Cultural History of a Rock Star, Janne Mäkelä writes that Lennon's garage consisted of a Mini “for pottering about in”, a Rolls-Royce “for relaxing” and a Ferrari “for zoom.”

Still, in that same year of 1965, on November 12, The Autocar Magazine received an ad from Brydon Cars offering for sale a “Ferrari 330 GT fixed head coupe. 2+2 opalescent silver blue, electric windows, 3,000 miles. Ex-property of John Lennon MBE.”

The track on the 1965 Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 Coupe has been unclear until it was acquired in the late 1980s by Modena Engineering, from whom the current vendor bought the car. The car has suffered a significant restoration to original specification in the mid 1990s.