As I write this, it will be Fathers Day tomorrow. Here's the story on how my Dad's fascination with cars inspired my own, and how he came to own the Daytona.

As I'm writing this it will be Fathers Day tomorrow. Anyone who reads Jalopnik regularly will have seen the features that have run on Dad's and their cars that have inspired you to become a petrolhead.

My fascination with cars and the Ferrari Daytona in particular absolutely comes from my Dad. Like me, he is a massive petrolhead and I've actually lost count of the cars that he has owned in my lifetime (it's somewhere over 70 cars).

I'm told that the first car he ever owned was a very ratty Renault Dauphine, which eventually rusted to to the point the floor fell out of it driving over Hammersmith bridge. After the Renault Dad progressed through a series of Triumphs, starting with a Herald convertible which Dad spent much of his spare time working on, to the occasional annoyance of my mother when the evenings out had to be cancelled because the car wasn't ready!

As time wore on Dad was becoming increasingly successful in business and at the point when I entered the world in 1973 he drove me back from the hospital in his Aston Martin DBS Vantage (his second DBS). However, the car he really wanted was a Ferrari 365GTB/4 Daytona, even though he had been offered an Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagato for less money that the Daytona was selling for. How times change! It was 1974 and the world was gripped by the first oil crisis. Demand for high-powered Italian GT cars, whose fuel economy could sometimes be measured in single-digit miles per gallon, was on the floor. This was the perfect opportunity for Dad to acquire a year-old Daytona with next to no miles on the clock for only slightly more than half the new price of the car. Apparently he looked at around 20 Daytonas before settling on the one you see in this blog today, and his reason for choosing this one was it was the least rusty!

Certainly not a garage queen, the Daytona was pressed into service as his sole daily transport (although I think he occasionally pinched Mum's MGB GT if it was really snowy) and over the next few years the car racked up some 42,000 miles. In the more inncoent era before health and safety, I would often ride on the parcel shelf in the back with a pillow as a cushion. I won't be repeating that with my kids! I do recall riding in the Daytona up to the Ferrari concours (I can't remember the year) and driving back in convoy with six or seven other Ferraris of all eras, which was massively exciting for a five year-old.

The mileage took its toll on the Russian steel the Daytona (and all the other Italian cars of the period for that matter) was built from, and in around 1977 the Daytona relinquished it's duties as Dad's daily driver to another Ferrari, this time a 365GT4 2+2. The first of several restorations was then undertaken at this point and it was also changed from Dino Blue Metallic to Rosso Chiaro, something that both Dad and I now regret. Also during this period the steering wheel managed to get swapped with the one on Mick Jagger's Daytona, although that is a story for another blog! Dad also had Borrani wheels fitted (the car is now back on the original Cromadoras). The first restoration was never satisfactory and the car was given a full bare metal respray in 1985 by Moto Technique. It remains with that paintwork to this day.

In the meantime Dad had started running a revolving-door collection of cars which ranged from an old MG TF (described as my Dad as a Noddy car), through to the stunning a 275GTB/4 which is one of the 25+ Ferraris Dad has owned. Often Dad would come home (or when I would go round to see him after my parents split up) and say do you want to come and see the new car? While many of my friends would be talking about football, I would be talking about cars and instead of comics I would read my Dad's copies of Motorsport magazine. All this time the Daytona remained in the increasingly large garage, not always the most used but always my favourite.

Dad's ultimate favourite car and his dream machine when he was in his late teens arrived in the mid-nineties: a Ferrari 250SWB (see Memories of a 250SWB) but despite this my affinity for the Daytona remained, partly for sentimental reasons since it had been in the family since I was one, and also because the Daytona is much more of a dream car for my generation.

On my 30th birthday Dad passed ownership of the Daytona over to me where it will remain until such time that I pass ownership onto my own (future) children. As I recently got engaged, I'm certain that I will drive to the (UK leg of our) Wedding and take my bride home from it in the Daytona.

As you can tell from the many photographs, the car is still Rosso Chiaro and whilst we have talked about returning the car back to it's original Dino Blue, the Daytona is one of the few cars that looks great in just about every colour. That said, the darker blues suit the car best in my opinion. The trouble is, all of my memories with the car are of it being red (I only ever have vague recollections of it being blue and there are no photos of it in that colour) so I'm a little torn on what to do.

For Fathers Day I'm taking Dad out to lunch where I suspect a good part of the conversation will be about cars, probably the Iso Grifo restoration project he has acquired and I have been blogged about here. However, I think you can tell which car we will be going out in!

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