Ferrari 365 GTB/4 Daytona Review

Ferrari never officially called it the Daytona. The press named the 365 GTB/4 after Ferrari's first three places at the Daytona 24 Hours in 1967, when it replaced the 275 GTB/4 at the Paris Salon in 1968, and the name stuck. Lamborghini's mid-engined Miura had made front-engined supercars look old, and Ferrari's answer kept the engine in front and went faster: 280 km/h, about 174 mph, by the factory's figure.

Leonardo Fioravanti at Pininfarina drew a sharp wedge with the headlamps behind a full-width Plexiglas strip, replaced from 1971 by pop-up lamps because American rules banned covered lights, and Scaglietti built 1,284 coupes and 122 spiders. It was the last new twelve-cylinder Ferrari announced before Fiat took over road car production in 1969, and the last sold through official US channels until the Testarossa.

The Tipo 251 V12 displaces 4,390 cc, with two camshafts per bank and six Weber carburetors, and makes about 350 hp at 7,500 rpm; a five-speed transaxle at the rear evens out the weight. It is a heavy car at parking speeds. Ferrari Life's buyer's guide describes steering that only lightens as speed builds and an engine that wants five to ten minutes of warming before it is revved, and Petrolicious adds a cabin that gets hot under all that glass.

At speed it makes sense. In 1971 Dan Gurney and Brock Yates won the Cannonball Baker Sea-to-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash in one, New York to Los Angeles in 35 hours and 54 minutes, and Gurney said afterwards, "We never once exceeded 175 miles per hour." Judged against 1968 it was well equipped: almost every car has air conditioning, and Ferrari Life rates its seats and luggage space highly.

The Daytona cost about $19,500 in America, and it is one of the easier classic Ferraris to keep: its camshafts are driven by chains rather than belts and its cooling system is generously sized, according to Ferrari Life. The weak points are rust in the lower door skins and quarter panels, worn synchromesh, especially on second gear, an air conditioner that struggles, and fuel use of about 11 mpg at best; Petrolicious put an engine rebuild at up to $50,000 in 2013. A right-hand-drive 1973 coupe sold for £309,350 at Bonhams' Goodwood Revival sale in September 2025. Genuine spiders cost far more, while coupes converted into spiders trade below the real thing.

Sports Car International named the Daytona the top sports car of the 1970s, and Motor Trend Classic ranked it second among the greatest Ferraris. It lost the engineering argument, since Ferrari's own flagship went mid-engined with the Berlinetta Boxer in 1973, but it settled how a front-engined grand tourer should feel at speed, and Ferrari styled the 12Cilindri of 2024 as a tribute to it. Heavy low-speed controls, a thirsty engine and rust-prone steel are the price, and the category marks record them.