Dynamic, from All Angles.(Escape Roads)

Byline: LARRY EDSALL

Ferrari had no plans to make major changes to the 365 GTB it introduced at the 1967 Paris show. After all, this was Ferrari's largest and most luxurious sports car, and over the course of its life it would account for roughly half the company's sales.

But still, something was eating at young Pininfarina designer Leonardo Fioravanti, the car's creator (see Revs, page 22).

Soon after joining the Italian studio famous for the sleek bodies it created for Ferrari's sports cars, Fioravanti designed the Dino 206 GT, which saw its debut earlier in 1967 at Turin and was heralded as a milestone in automotive design. The Dino's headlights were set well back into arched fenders, its V6 engine mounted midship beneath a roofline marked by sail-like panels flowing into the rear fenders.

Fioravanti's next project, the 365 GTB, like so many classic Ferraris, had a front-mounted V12 powerplant and featured what Pininfarina termed Superfast styling cues. But the designer had another plan in mind. "I made the first sketches and the surface drawing working night and day for a week, sleeping only a few hours every night,'' Fioravanti remembers. "The Daytona design process is a very special memory.''

And it produced a very special car.

The authors of The Complete Book of Collectible Cars wrote recently that the GTB4 is the "last, greatest, and most popular of the front-engine, two-seat production Ferraris.'' The Daytona is "arguably the prettiest, too, with sensational fastback coupe styling... Perhaps the ultimate in sex appeal aside from the later mid-engine Berlinetta Boxer.''