Ferrari 250 GTO, Unpainted Copper

Before the 250 GTO wore paint, it ran in bare metal. The 1961 development car built by Ferrari's racing department under Giotto Bizzarrini had a rough, unfinished aluminium body, with hammer marks, weld beads and riveted panels on show; the team called it Il Mostro, the monster, and the press the Anteater. Crude as it was, it already had the low bonnet, high tail, triple nose intakes and covered headlamps of the finished car. Scaglietti then built the production bodies by hand, and that handwork, together with years of racing repairs, means no two of the 36 GTOs are quite alike.

Martisan's unpainted version carries that bare-metal idea through to the finished car. There is no paint at all: the copper body is left raw, its tone running from rose to deep bronze where the metal has been allowed to oxidise, and its surface shows the marks of its making. Gold wire wheels, a gold-toned V12 with six twin-choke carburettors under the opening bonnet and a spare on a gold wheel in the boot carry the theme through; the doors open onto blue seats and harnesses and a wood-rimmed wheel, and the windows and headlamp covers are real glass. Each car carries its own serial number. Martisan builds it at 1:18 on a brass chassis, from more than 2,000 parts.