The last real all-rounders
11/21/2017
At the end of the 1950s, it was still possible to buy sports cars in which you could go on weekend trips and also have a legitimate chance of finishing in one of the top places at the 24 Hours of Le Mans.
A larger fuel tank with an easily accessible filler neck may have been on board for racing use, but otherwise the racing version hardly differed from the road car. This meant that there were hardly any restrictions on its use on public roads.
A good example of this type of car is the Ferrari 250 GT LWB California Spider, which (then and) now makes just as good a trap on the concours lawn as it does in historic racing, although you hardly ever see it there nowadays due to its depreciation. It was similar with the Aston Martin DB4 GT, but also with some other Granturismo sports cars.
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And today? What calls itself a GT at the 24 Hours of Le Mans is actually an uncompromising racing car that would barely make it over the threshold of a parking garage and would be quite an ordeal in city traffic, if only because of the car's lack of visibility.
It is therefore probably no coincidence that the all-rounders of the time fetched seven-figure market prices.
