Even the ugliest classic Ferrari should bring a pretty penny in Pebble Beach

If we know the name Enzo Ferrari more than any other Italian racecar builder, it's not just because he knew how to make his cars go fast, but that he also appreciated how beautiful they could be. The golden era of Ferrari from the 1950s to the 1970s built the company's reputation for sports cars as art and art as mechanical power.

But even Ferrari has seen its name attached to a few less-than-attractive models over the years, and next week in California, Gooding & Co. will auction a car that many Ferrari enthusiasts consider the ugliest classic vehicle ever to wear the Prancing Stallion: the Navarro Special.

The Special left the factory as a normal 1966 Ferrari 330 GT 2+2, a luxury four-seat coupe powered by a 300-hp, 4-liter V-12, wearing graceful if slightly staid Pininfarina bodywork. Three years after its construction, it was bought by one Norbert Navarro, the wealthy owner of an eponymous night club. There's precious little surviving evidence for why Navarro disliked the 330 GT's original look, and it's not clear how much of the new design was driven by Navarro's own ideas or that of Piero Drogo, a former racer who ran a sports-car building shop and agreed to do the work for him.