How to build your own Ferrari 250 TR

“I wanted to experience what they experienced, and I didn’t know any other way to do it except by trying to build a car like they had,” says Peter Giacobbi, builder and owner of this incredible 1959 Ferrari 250 TR recreation.

That’s right: recreation. A master fabricator, engineer, and builder, Giacobbi made this car in order to understand what his boyhood heroes like Juan Manuel Fangio and Graham Hill experienced when driving cars like the Ferrari 250 TR.

His favorite design on any car ever, the project swung into high gear after finding a handmade aluminum body for a ’59 TR that had been sitting for decades. From there, Giacobbi began to figure out what he needed in order to complete the car.

“I made everything look as close as possible…I copied the chassis, found the correct tail lights, had the instruments made…” “There are some things that are different from the original. It was impossible to find a good 3 litre motor, so I used a 4.4 and modified the aesthetics to look like the 250…” he says.

He says that the car is very exciting, especially considering that it weighs 2,300 lbs and has 400 horsepower. “These cars are very hard to drive…It’s pure seat of the pants,” Giacobbi says.

“I drive it as much as I can, I drive it down to the local coffee shop usually once or twice a week,” he says. But on any road—headed to any destination—his respect for racing greats is apparent, saying, “They’re not only heroes, they’re supermen to have driven at the high speeds for the distances they did is an absolute miracle.”