• the ferrari 612 scaglietti from the early 2000s was not necessarily anybody's choice for an all-time classic because it had kind of awkward styling.
• it sure has stood the test of time, though, as have its 533-hp v-12 and six-speed manual with gated shifter.
• this model is up for sale on bring a trailer. and, though the auction doesn't end until monday, march 21, bidding is already at $150,000.
sometimes you don't know what you've got until it's gone, and it looks like that's the case with this 2005 ferrari 612 scaglietti six-speed, currently up for sale on the bring a trailer auction site—which, like car and driver, is part of hearst autos.
in its own time, the 612 was something of an oddball—way more expensive and less powerful than a mercedes-benz cl65 amg, although it did beat the mercedes cl600 (and the bentley continental gt and aston martin db9) in a 2004 comparison test. but that win was in spite of its styling, not because of it. in that test, we paid passing mention to its "clumsy long-hood, cab-rearward proportions" and "unconvincing styling" and spent much more time waxing rhapsodic about how great it was to drive. a ferrari v-12 absolves a lot of sins. a ferrari v-12 hooked to a six-speed manual transmission with a gated shifter? it could be installed in a kia amanti and we'd still want it. but nobody had the 612 scaglietti pegged as a future classic.
well, maybe it's the special-order azzurro argentina blue paint or the setting of the photos here, but the 612's pininfarina-penned styling is aging quite well. its soft curves are of another era, as is its powerplant: a 5.7-liter naturally aspirated v-12 that was rated at 533 horsepower and 434 pound-feet of torque. the bat listing says that only about 60 manual-transmission 612s ever made it to the u.s., and that estimate tracks with what ferrari told us at the 2004 launch for the car. back then, ferrari had 200 u.s. orders for the car, and 90 percent of those were for the f1 single-clutch automatic.
this 612 has 15,000 miles on it, which strikes us as the right amount—it's still essentially a new car, but you can drive it as much as you want and not worry about depreciation. the original sticker price was $271,664, including $2005 worth of options that are hilariously written in by hand ("stitches in blu medio, steering wheel in blu medio, painted metal strip on dash"). above that line are 13 other options that are most notable for the one that's missing: the automatic transmission. it's pretty hard core to live in new york (where this car was first delivered) and go for the manual. nice work, you ol' plutocrat.
there's still more than a week to go on this one, so we have some time before we'll know how much the world is willing to pay for one of the last v-12 manual ferraris. but we're already sure that the 612, once considered a bargain, is about to get its due.