Richie Ginther was next to drive the 412 MI. The car returned to Riverside in 1959 for the Kiwanis Grand Prix. Now part of a divorce settlement and sporting silver and red livery, the Ferrari was entered by Eleanor von Neumann. Despite being as slight as a thoroughbred jockey, the 28-year-old Ginther manhandled the big Ferrari to the fastest qualifying time. In the race, he outlasted the attrition that claimed Jim Jeffords’ Scarab and the other major large-bore contenders to win the 150-miler at a blistering average speed of 88.75 mph. This would be s/n 0744’s sole victory in period.

Ginther and the Ferrari returned to Riverside later that year for the second Los Angeles Times Grand Prix. As with Hill in ’58, however, Ginther couldn’t go the distance; he retired when the engine let go on Lap 35.

At the end of 1959, after being refreshed at the factory, s/n 0744 went to Nassau, Bahamas, where Ginther drove it to second overall in the 5-lap Governor’s Cup at Oakes Field. In the big Nassau Trophy race, the 412 MI’s Englebert tires lasted only 15 laps on the harsh coral; ten laps later, the gearbox died. Adding insult was yet another Scarab class win. As one observant race reporter wrote, “This machine has been more than a headache.”

Was s/n 0744 getting too old? The von Neumann camp obviously thought so, and after Nassau the 412 MI was sold in a multi-car deal to Jack Nethercutt, who kept it for nine months before letting it go to Fred Knoop.

Knopp raced the Ferrari in a Cal Club event at Riverside in February 1961, delivering a credible third in Saturday’s race and second on Sunday, trailing Bill Krause’s Corvette-motored 300SL to the finish. But Riverside’s back-straight speed-trap record of 173 mph was still held by Ginther.

Three months later, Knoop gifted s/n 0744 in a tax deal to Bill Harrah, who would drive it on Nevada’s roads with a miles-per-hour translator gizmo attached to the tachometer to tell him how fast he was going. Harrah hired Skip Hudson to pilot the Ferrari on track, but results were poor in the few races entered.

Meanwhile, Charles “Pinky” Pinkham of Redwood City, California had developed a love for the 412 MI, so he traded Harrah a couple of Bugattis and cash for the now seven-year-old Ferrari. The Pinkhams showed the car at Pebble Beach and Hillsborough, had the engine rebuilt and very much centered their lives around it.

When Pinky died about a decade later, Monterey Historic Automobile Races founder Steve Earle made his widow an offer. “I said to Millie, ‘Why don’t we co-own the car?’” says Earle, who had seen Hill race s/n 0744 at Riverside in 1958. “That got her into circulation again, to go with it to the first Historic races at Monterey. We also took the 412 over to Pebble Beach for display that weekend in ’74.”

Earle paid off Millie a year later and became s/n 0744’s sole owner. “Dick Troutman helped me on the car, because we had to put the hood scoop back the way it was [Harrah had changed it], and the body back, too, and we painted it,” says Earle. “When I drove it at Laguna Seca, it felt like I was driving a water bed—the thing wanted to roll and lean out and all that. I could see why Ginther drove the Testa Rossa at Laguna when he had a choice of the two cars.”

Earle kept s/n 0744 for a couple of years, and raced it several times. “I’ve only seen one true race in my life,” he says, “ and that was Daigh and Hill having at it, the hero back from Europe driving this super Ferrari against a really amazing American car, duking it out. In my lifetime of cars, I’ve always thought there were two great Ferraris: Bill Doheny’s 4.9 Superfast—the ultimate road car with that 410 Sport motor in it—and the 412 MI.”