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Father's ultra-rare Ferrari to leave family for a good cause

It isn't every day that the rarest of Ferrari models change hands. In fact, you can count your fingers to get the number of 275 GTB/4*S N.A.R.T. Spyders that ever existed. The 1967 Ferrari you see here is one of those ten Spyders, and it has stayed in the same family since it was bought new.
The car was bought through Luigi Chinetti, Ferrari's US importer at the time, by the late Eddie Smith Sr., a Ferrari collector and businessman from North Carolina. Smith kept it - and kept driving it - until the day he died six years ago. Since then, this remarkable machine has been collecting dust. Smith's son, Eddie Smith Jr., spent some time with Petrolicious to give a history of the car and explain why he and his family are going to do the one thing his father never could: sell it. The catch? All of the money it earns on the auction block will be donated to charity.
"It'll be a bittersweet thing, because we know the fact that all the money is going to charities that he would approve of," Smith Jr. said about his father, and it "will really make him smile, because he loved to give back."

Hot Wheels loses Ferrari diecast contract to Chinese company

If you're anything like this writer, chances are you've got a diecast model or two kicking around the house. And if one of those models replicates a Ferrari, chances are it's made by Hot Wheels. The Mattel brand secured an exclusive contract from the Maranello automaker in the late 1990s, but the latest word from Hemmings has it that Ferrari has ended its partnership with Hot Wheels and awarded it instead to the May Cheong Group. Unless you're an avid diecast collector, you may not have heard of May Cheong, but you may have heard of its brands Maisto and Bburago. Both brands are longtime players in the model car market, but it's the Bburago part of the deal that's particularly interesting. Founded in Italy, Bburago made a name for itself largely due to the scale Ferrari models it made back in the day. But when the Prancing Horse marque awarded the exclusive contract to Mattel, and with increasing competition from the Far East, Bburago collapsed. May Cheong swept in and scooped it up, and now the Italian model brand, along with its onetime rival Maisto, will be producing diecast Ferraris once again. Whether Bburago will use any of its old tooling to resume production of Ferrari scale models or start from scratch with all-new equipment remains to be seen, as does the matter of whether either it or Maisto will be able to produce the same quality of models as Hot Wheels has with some of its higher-end offerings. Like most collectors, this writer's looking forward to finding out. Looks like it's time to buy another display case.

Ferrari Purosangue SUV test mule spied in video

We all know Ferrari has lost its shame and is working on an SUV, but here's the first hint of it with this video of what's most likely a Purosangue test mule. Yes, Ferrari Purosangue is the terrible name reportedly being given to the upcoming vehicle that Ferrari will not want you to call an "SUV." But what we're looking at here is the body of a GTC4Lusso with some obvious SUV hints. Just look at the ground clearance and wheel gap on this thing. That's clearly not typical Ferrari style. The video was captured by SupercarsNews on YouTube, and is actually quite comical too. As soon as the driver of the Ferrari notices the videographer standing by the fence, he jumps on the brakes and backs out of there behind the cover of trees. All was for naught, however, because we got to see and hear the test mule anyways. We don't imagine the Purosangue SUV/crossover thing will end up looking like this when it comes out. It is the first physical "proof" of the Ferrari utility vehicle, though, with a launch sometime early in the next decade forthcoming. Unfortunately, the quality of the video is on the poorer side of things, so it's difficult to pick much out beyond the high ride height. The sound of a modern Ferrari engine is evidently there — we wouldn't doubt this car being offered with an electrified powertrain too eventually. There's no information on where this video was shot, but chances are the videographer is right next to Ferrari's home in Maranello with this kind of a vehicle out and about. So go ahead and watch the video above -- it's a pretty weird sight to see a lifted Ferrari. Related video: Rumormill Spy Photos Ferrari Crossover SUV Luxury Performance