REPS AND LAPS

Homage? Not really. Toolroom copy? Nope. Facsimile? Hmm. Evocation, recreation, refashioning? None quite right. Reimagination, restomod? Lord no. Continuation? That doesn’t cut it either. I reel off the now-myriad names for replicas, so many added since Jenks kept it so nice and simple, but none quite hits the spot for Tom King of Bell Sport & Classic. Well go on then, you tell me, Tom. ‘We have agonised over it, believe me, but we can’t get it quite right. The closest we can get is “remastered” because it covers the passion and focus, but even that’s not absolutely spot on… and David Brown Automotive probably has the copyright on that anyway.’

What is proving so difficult to describe is a Ferrari 330 LMB born out of a 330 GT and re-cast (have that one on me, Tom) as a road car, a GT version of one of Maranello’s rarest racers. What piqued Octane’s interest is that transformation, the quality of the work and, well, the fact that it’s not a GTO.

The project goes back years and handily absolves Bell Sport & Classic for the loss of the original 330 GT, giving the company the freedom to finish it without the guilt of starting it. It began as a collusion between Essex farmer Ed Carter and Ferarri guru Terry Hoyle. Carter owned several Ferraris and was contemplating a high-end Short Wheelbase or GTO rep when