We are getting some head way on the 1971 Ferrari 365 GTC/4 project car. As you may remember, this car was a solid and complete but ugly old car that needed to be freshened up. We stripped the car to bare steel and replaced rusty steel in the lower “chin” area, a common rot problem on these cars. The bottoms of the doors are great and we just recently pulled the gas tanks while replacing hoses to find that deep in the trunk floors are totally fresh looking.

The engine is nearly complete, the “big” parts are assembled, it just needs the carburetors and ignition installed and other minor parts. I have wrinkle finished the air cleaner boxes 2 times and still cannot get the correct finish. The cam covers and chain covers look great but I cannot get the flat sheet metal stuff to look good. I am determined to make these parts look perfect because they are such a dominant visual element to the engine.

Karl has put some serious hours into re-assembling the car, doesn’t necessarily look like a ton of work but every little detail needs an excruciating attention to detail. You cannot just install a new light bulb, you have to replace the old and cracked housing, crimp and solder on new connectors and apply anti-seize paste to all contacts. Every screw needs to be right. Many parts re-plated. on and on.

We re-upholstered the dash in high quality black vinyl instead of the “mouse hair” so it will last longer and look better over time, the carpets are new black wool but the rest of the interior will be original. The seats are solid dark blue so they should look good in this blue car.

Now for the tires…
At $470 per tire, probably not going to buy the Michelin XWX’s for this car!

I am slowly pecking away at the 512BB “sera blue”. I really like how this car is coming out except for sealing the windshield. In the past I have used urethane to do the final sealing around trim but I cannot get it to flow nicely. It keeps coming out lumpy. The Ferrari book says to use silicone but I feel that urethane has a more robust grip and will last longer. It is such a kill-joy to be making progress and be stumped on this detail because you have to trim all of the old stuff out and start over, 10-12 hours work?
Yeah

I was hired to to a pre-purchase inspection on a very nice 1986 Ferrari Testarossa the other day. This is a very attractive car with 40K miles and very little “road rash”. The reason I am mentioning road rash is that for some reason these cars age very quickly both on the interior and the exterior. These cars have both a low front end and long overhang in front of the wheels so curb damage is hard to avoid and stone chips are common. This car is clean.

Also, the interiors on these cars are prone to premature aging but again, the tan leather looks great but the chocolate colored dash is starting to pull, common on these cars. The car runs and drives very well and it went into second gear when cold as though it was brand new. Did someone put a 40K odometer into a 10K car?

These “single mirror” cars are super cool and I think that they are on the way up in desirability and value. They offer killer looks and performance with good reliability. I am finding that buyers like these early cars with the center lock wheels because they do not have the DOT mandated “mouse” seatbelts an the strange looking under-dash shelf.

The guy who hired me to do the PPI is debating whether to buy this silver car or the black car 1986 Ferrari Testarossa that I have for sale.

The Dino is in for its first major service after the engine was overhauled. We are going to do a head re-torque, valve adjustment and camshaft timing check. We typically remove the camshaft support caps to inspect for wear on major services because we have seen some ugly wear from plugged oil passages.

This is a very nice Dino that will be prepped to run trouble free in ‘08.

Remember that red Porsche 356 Coupe that we “thought” we would restore? Well, we changed our mind and located a solid car with a replacement pan and filler/block sanding work nearing completion. There were some other things that needed to be addressed prior to painting, random holes in the front fire wall (from a radio?) and other sheet metal to straighten out to make sure it is all nice.

One thing we found was -surprise- rust in the bottom of the LH door. We clipped it out and replaced the sheet metal making sure to make a wood form to duplicate the shape in the lower front corner of the door frame. The door skin in that corner was also replaced.

One other area needing addressing was the rear bumper. It was bumped the past and with some new metal and shaping all was looking good.

I ordered about $1300 in various parts to assemble the car after it is painted such as wind lace, door seals and other body seals. I have a feeling that this car is going to go together much better than the Ferraris we have been struggling with over the last few years. The availability of totally correct body seals and strips, screw kits and overall better build quality this should be a refreshing project.