By October of 1955, sports car racing in California had gone from a small subculture to a marquee entertainment event that attracted hundreds of thousands of spectators. Two of the scene's biggest stars at that time were John von Neumann, the region’s largest Porsche distributor, co-founder of the California Sports Car Club, and successful privateer, and Phil Hill, a college dropout turned racing phenom.

Neumann, a talented driver in his own right, had an arsenal of Porsche and Ferrari spyders, and often recruited the very best to drive them. One of whom was Hill, who first raced one of von Neumann’s cars just a few months earlier at Torrey Pines in July. Once Neumann’s latest shipment from Maranello arrived in late September, a new three-liter 750 Monza in Italian racing red, Hill was the natural choice.

Hill immediately ripped off two overall victories in his first two outings with the car at Sacramento and Glendale, flying past many Jaguars, V8-powered specials, as well as other four and twelve cylinder Ferraris. Under Neumann’s ownership, the Monza saw a total of eleven contests and seven finishes, with three overall victories by the hands of Hill and Johnny himself.

One notable event was at Pomona, California on the twentieth of January, 1957. The Monza’s final entry by Neumann, Phil Hill cruised to victory in the preliminary race the day before, however a torrential downpour riddled the course with massive puddles. Hill and the Monza took the lead from the start but held it only briefly, as Hill suffered multiple spectacular spin-outs when driving through one particularly waterlogged high-speed corner, which was tricky even when dry. With the spray sometimes reaching fifteen feet in the air, Hill retired after just twenty laps and one-too-many spins, saying he was “tired of making an ass of himself” in front of sixteen-thousand spectators.

Neumann parted with the Monza in March of 1957, replacing it with his famous Testa Rossa Clienti no. 0672MDTR, which is possibly the winningest Ferrari in history. The new owner was one Jacques Bellesiles, who paid $7,000 for the car. “Jock” continued to race the car in Southern California, having it repainted from Neumann’s signature silver and red to dark blue with a wide white stripe down the center. As an amateur, Bellesiles found moderate success with the car until he was forced to sell before the end of 1957 for tax purposes.

The next owner, Richard L. Brashear, only raced the car once, in the Del Mar novice race in 1959, which he won. Dick Brashear kept the car for eleven years before he sold it to Norman Thompson, who restored the car and raced it at the inaugural Monterey Historic Races at Laguna Seca in 1974. In the car’s first race since returning from a fifteen year hiatus,  Thompson suffered a roll-over crash, putting the car out of commission once again. Fortunately, Thompson was okay, but it would be another ten years before the car saw public display again.

After Norman Thompson’s death in 1995, 0582M was entombed in a shed in Manhattan Beach, California where it sat dormant for twenty-nine years. In 2022, the remnants were removed and transported to the shop of well-known Ferrari mechanic Donnie Callaway in Lancaster, California. Callaway, only the caretaker of the car, attempted to sell what was left of the car to a collector in India without the permission nor knowledge of the Thompson family. After the attempted unauthorized sale, among many other crimes, Callaway was arrested and the car was retrieved by its rightful owners. The current status of the car is unknown, at least by me, but hopefully it receives the care it deserves. I personally would love to see this car return to the Monterey Historic Races some day, wearing Phil Hill’s iconic number two.

See my complete provenance report about 0582M here.