Around the year 2000 (possibly even slightly earlier), a very special Montblanc 146 appeared in an auction on eBay.com — quite unlike anything seen before: completely gold-plated, with a dark-red cap and an engraving on the barrel that was supposed to represent tyre tracks. It was not particularly pretty — but very, very special. A modest bid was placed, but the pen was not won: the final price was about five times as high as the own bid, around 2,600 USD as best recalled.
A few months after the auction, a newspaper article revealed that Jean Todt (at the time responsible for the Ferrari Formula 1 team) is an ambitious collector of Montblanc and Montegrappa writing instruments. He had even managed to persuade Montblanc to build him his own fountain pen — with a red cap and a gold-plated body. Todt apparently lost it later or it was stolen from him. That made it clear: the piece from the auction was almost certainly exactly this Todt pen.
The remarkable point: up to then it was not generally known that Montblanc also accommodates fully individual customer wishes. The Jean Todt 146 therefore counts among the very first fully customised Montblanc writing instruments and marks a milestone in the brand's history — the beginning of what was later professionalised as the bespoke service via the Artisan Studio.
Related pages on fountainpen.de:
• Montblanc Meisterstück 146 (Le Grand): fountainpen.de/c-montblanc-meisterstueck-146-en.htm
• Skeleton Edition Ferrari Jean Todt: fountainpen.de/skeleton-ferrari-jean-todt-en.htm
• Overview Skeleton Editions: fountainpen.de/skeleton-en.htm
• Overview Artisan Editions (Bespoke): fountainpen.de/artisan-en.htm