We bought this car from a customer for re-sale but we are not sure if we should part with it. The car is so nice, I would even guess that it is the nicest 308 GT/4 on the planet.

It was a nice 20,000 mile car that was repainted to an extremely high standard in a magnificent shade of blue. The interior is original and imaculate with all of original detailing. The car is so smooth and easy to drive that you do not even want to push it hard because everything about it is so relaxed and confident. What a car!

It has many records from new and a complete book and tool set.

The GTE is FINALLY delivered. After overhauling the engine and putting some miles on the car I discovered a number of other things that the car needed. What a surprise!

We installed new rear suspension mounts, overhauled the axle with tapered roller bearings and installed a racing style drive shaft with Hardy-Spicer U-Joints instead of the dopey Ferrari style drive shaft that vibrates along as you go down the road.

I have always liked the look of this particular car and I think that it looks great in these photos.
The car looks even better since it is no longer at the shop!

We did some minor work to this 1961 Ferrari 250 Pininfarina Cabriolet series II. This is a very original car, not that original is wonderful when the leather is pulling away and the soft top is leaking but the car has some nice detailing.

The head bow on the top has some original herringbone material covering it and the rear under trunk lid material is some neat dimpled material. Great car to restore very accurately some day. All of the panel gaps are great and there is no rust on the car. It drives very nicely.

I synchronized the carburetors and Casey rebuilt the rear suspension and now the car is a dream to drive, engine is very smooth. The engine was overhauled in 2001 by a well known shop but the carburetors were not very well dialed in. The engine was popping and the air flow was off. Maybe I am just too fastidious and like to make sure all of the carbs are spot on.

Since the truck was clean while I had a camera in hand I decided to take a photo of it. The reason that we sold the Ford F-350 and two car enclosed trailer was because the one-ton pickup did not seam to hold up for over 100,000 miles. The way we drive, 100K comes up in two years and it was a pain to keep renewing the truck at that frequency.

We bought the Freightliner because is should be a half-million mile vehicle and while I am sure the engine and drive line will handle it, I am not sure about the electrical system. The engine is a 280HP Mercedes-Benz turbo diesel linked to a 6 speed manual transmission. The engine is great but the electrical system is constantly on the blink. I cannot understand how any vehicle made in this day and age can have lights that do not work and power window switches that constantly fail. Should we have expected windshield wipers to turn on even when it is not raining and for the brake lights to stay on ALL the time even when the truck is parked?

Anyhow, enough complaining.

The truck is very flexible with a roll back enclosed body and only two axles if you have to pick up one car and 4 axles totally loaded. The number of axles makes a big price difference when you travel toll roads and bridges. The price of each axle to get onto Long Island is a fortune!

Overall, this is a great truck and with the 4 door cab, a great kid hauler! I think our next truck will be Japanese though.

We purchased a Ferrari that does not exist. It is a totally original PERFECT car. No, it’s not perfect, it is a Ferrari, a machine that was made by human beings. Basically, this car is as good a display of a original and perfect (two words that do not belong together on old cars) 44 year old car as one could find.

I am a little shocked at the poor finish on the car and the bizarre details such as a fuel pressure regulator for the mechanical fuel pump and for the electrical pump. The interior is amazing, it even smells new!

The car was kept in one of the best settings possible for long term storage, it was in the dry state of Montana, kept in a heated building at a low temperature and every year thoroughly cleaned and oiled. The spark plugs were removed so the cylinders could be oiled and the whole engine was coated with a fine mist of Marvel Mystery oil. The spark plugs were never changes out, they were just removed and replaced so they were the original Marchall spark plugs still in the heads. We replaced them with NGK plugs and the car runs like new. Silk smooth, no smoke… lets put some miles on this thing!

What is more amazing than the top of the car is the under carriage. More on this later.

Last summer our driveway was getting bad, stone that was pulverized to where it resembled baking flour. Cars pulling into the place would create a monster of a dust cloud, and the delivery trucks would turn the place into a scene from downtown Baghdad.

We hired a earthmoving crew to “tune up” the driveway by installing some drainage tiles, tubes and blind ditches. They installed a tile over the septic and prepared the area in front of the shop for a concrete apron.

A separate crew came in to lay down the steel reinforcement grid and set the forms. These guys worked so fast that it seemed that the bulk of what they did was wait for the mixer truck!

Once the concrete was cured, the earthmoving crew came in and stripped the top two feet of the driveway and installed ground cloth and covered it with new crushed stone. After leveling the stone they packed it with a primitive vibrational roller that I will show photos of later. The guys and me were so jealous of machine operators, it looked like so much fun.

I do not know how we lived as long as we did without this concrete apron, what a difference it makes. The new crushed stone makes nearly no dust and once it settles after a year of use we are thinking of paving the whole driveway.

I am so irritated that I did not photograph the construction work being done but at least you can enjoy more photos of Ferraris and a Lamborghini

Nate has finished inspecting the bearings and spacers on the Lamborghini Miura project and has just replaced the synchros to make sure this car drives as new after we finish the engine overhaul.

This trans is similar to a Porsche 911 where you have everything hanging off that intermediate place and easy to get to. Overall, except for some strange details like the shift shaft going through the block on an angle and the common oil sump, this is a very well thought out power plant

Our old friend is back. We bought this truck in South Carolina 15 years ago and have sold it 5 times since then. When we first got it to our shop I repainted the dash in the “speckled” gray finish and replaced the oak floor bed. There was a piece of 12 gauge steel covering the original floor but the wood was not too bad under that steel. For the cost of replacing the wood we decided to just renew the stuff.

This great old truck is for sale again. Solid cab corners, original 6 cylinder engine with “three on the tree” transmission and “dirt in your eyes” cowl vent. This truck oozes personality, like a well worn pair of work boots.

Here is a beautiful Ferrari 250 that came in for service after completing the New England 1000 rally a few weeks ago. (www.vintagerallies.com) The car finished the event without fault but the owner wants us to address a few minor detail issues to make the car closer to 100%.

The week of the rally started on day of the Maranello RM Auction so everyone was speaking of the auction results and the value of there cars. There were guys with 365 GTB/4 Daytonas, Lussos, 275 GTB/4 and 2 330 GTC’s on the rally and all of these guys were pleased with the results of this event.

The owner of this 250 wants to tidy up a few details on his car such as the fitments of chrome trims and installing a few missing items. These details will not be lost on this car because the paint work is excellent and the interior and engine are detailed nicely. This car may be for sale when finished so should you be interested in a spectacular Ferrari 250 Convertible let me know.

A customer was telling me about his newly purchased Jaguar XKE Series II Roadster and how he was thinking of having us do some work on the car. He said that it was missing the convertible top bows and wondered how hard these are to locate.

Yesterday the car just showed up, no call to tell me it was arriving!

Whats the deal is with this car, is it nice with some minor “top rot” or is it a disaster. I am not a fan of wire wheels on cars built after the mid 60’s but are the wheels on this car nice or not?