Ferrari 212 Vignale Coupe bumpers

We are doing some work on a 1951 Ferrari 212 Vignale coupe and one of the projects was to fill in a number of holes in the front and rear bumpers. When we ground the chrome off to get to the parent material we realized that there were multiple layers of copper and nickel which almost disguised these as being made of steel. We kept grinding deeper and deeper to find lead and then finally brass.

We had made 4 sets of bumpers for Cunningham C-3’s with Vignale bodies and the originals that we copied were made from brass so I was confident that these were as well. It turns out that after grinding away we did indeed locate the brass parent material. I am stumped as to why they would have used brass sheet stock to make bumpers, maybe someone knows why they chose brass over steel.

After I filled in the holes with the TIG welder they were sent to the chrome shop. After a short amount of time in the Cyanide tank the bumpers all but disappeared and now look as though they were at the bottom of the sea for 100 years.

Turns out that the brass was so thin from multiple accidents and had been leaded over so when they hit the tank they disappeared. We decided that with the cost of brass to re-make the bumpers out of steel

Time to make another set of Vignale bumpers!
I will post photos of the new ones soon.