This Ferrari Daytona Competizione for sale has a unique legacy

Ferrari specialists DK Engineering, the masterminds behind the wild 430 Challenge-swapped Mondial, are now selling the Group IV Ferrari Daytona Competizione that Kirk F. White raced at the 1972 Sebring 12 Hours. There’s more to this Ferrari than just that, though, because the engine in this special racing Daytona is the same highly-tuned V-12 that Cannonball founder Brock Yates and racing legend Dan Gurney used to complete their 1972 cross-country run.

Today, Ferrari recognizes 25 Daytona Competiziones. Two mostly-stock prototypes and 15 race cars (five each from Series I, II, and III) were built by the factory, with eight more completed in period by privateers like NART and Ecurie Francorchamps.

This particular car, Kirk F. White’s Sebring Daytona, is one of the most extensively modified, complete with wide fenders, centerlock wheels, Ford GT40 Mark IV brakes, a heavy-duty suspension, and a quick-release fuel filler exiting through the trunk lid. Even more crucially, it’s got an engine rated at 450 horsepower, which was enough to cross America in a then-record 35 hours and 54 minutes. But how did the road-going Daytona’s V-12 get into the race car?

In early 1972, the engines were swapped between White’s racing Daytona and the Cannonball-winning street Daytona. According to DK Engineering, “a source close to Kirk White explained that it was simply because Traco Engineering felt that the engine block from #14271 was of superior quality and strength.”

Having qualified on pole with Skip Scot behind the wheel, the Daytona’s 1972 Sebring 12 Hours ended on lap 53 after the factory bolts holding the driveshaft called it a day. All-original and rarer than a 250 GTO, Kirk F. White’s Daytona Competizione is now ready for all the classic GT racing you can handle. And by the sound of it, I would say it’s already eager to cannonball its way through the field.