The Greatest Road Ferrari?

What is the greatest road Ferrari of them all?  What a question!  Before you can answer a question like that you need to define what "greatest" means.  Fastest?  Most Successful?  Best looking?  Most valuable? Purest (whatever that means)? or some mystical combination of all or some of these with some other qualities thrown in for good measure.  I like to think greatest means that car which is closest to what we think Enzo was aiming for but how can you retrospectively discern what Il Commendatore was thinking about!

In the beginning he wanted to make racing cars but needed to fund his habit.  The best way to do that was to sell road cars and use the proceeds to make racing cars.  So he started making racing cars that could be used on the road such as the 159S etc.  But there were limitations to using racing cars on the road - uncomfortable, beasts to drive, rock-hard suspensions, peaky engines etc.  So next came the road cars that could be raced such as the 250 series. But it was not enough to race you had to win and win they did with cars like the 375M, 250TDF, 250GT, 250GTO, 250LM and 750 Monza, to name but a few.  These cars were so desirable because they had that indefinable blend of performance, drop dead good looks and race success.

I suppose most afficionados, if asked my question would unhesitatingly say the 250GTO and it would be hard to disagree.  But like all of these matters it's personal taste in the end that makes one choose.  And although I see the force of the argument I don't choose the 250GTO.  For me there is only one.

The 250GT SWB Berlinetta.  The last of the true front-engined road/race cars which you could drive every day and beat anyone on Sunday (except of course Moss in Rob Walker's 250GT - no-one could do that).
It is utterly gorgeous and embodies what the French would call le pur sang of what Enzo was thinking.  And then the rot set in.

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