What year is this car, a 1957, ‘58? The color is called Dusty Rose and it is the perfect color for this Ford Thunderbird. The car is perfectly restored right down to the labels on the battery and date stamp on the alternator. I am kind of getting into these types of cars. This particular car is well optioned with two 4 barrel carburetors and some other odds and ends that I cannot remember right now.

Here are two early 60’s Italian cars, the Maserati Sebring and Ferrari 250 GT Lusso. As much as I like the Ferrari, the Maserati is such a wonderful car that is so easy to drive and enjoy. The seating position, the controls and the 6 cylinder engine with all that torque! The car has a more sinister appearance rather than the sinful curves of the Lusso. after all, the devil is in the details on these Italian styles.

Kind of terrible photos but I don’t have that much time to stage and shoot so no complaints Chuck!

Sebring Maserati with Borrani wire Wheels

Black/Red Maserati Sebring

Why do we have so many pre-war British cars here all of a sudden. Next in line is a ‘34 Bentley that is getting a transmission swap to a more modern unit. This Rolls Royce Phantom is in need of a clutch replacement and some other minor details to keep it preserved for the next 50 plus years.

Phantom Roadster Rolls Royce

If you take the forged steel control arms from a Ferrari 250 and tap them together, they will ring like a tuning fork for minutes. They are such beautiful parts because of the shape, the strength and the metalurgy. There are a number of things that I can critisize about the overall build quality of these Ferraris but one thing that I am consistently blown away by is the quality of steel that they used.

We convert many driveshafts on Ferrari 250/330’s because the screw used to grease the rear joint is hard to remove so they were never lubricated and are worn. Because of this we have to cut down the forged steel to clean up the surface or to adapt the flanges to common type U-Joints. The steel that was used is so hard that it kills even the best carbide cutter. Truly amazing steel.

Here is a photograph of the dirty old front suspension on the 250 Lusso which has been sprayed black some time ago. I never understood why the suspension components were a mix of nickel plate and black paint, why not all the same finish but as you can see from another 250 GT that we have here, the spindle, sway bar and other random parts are black while the rest is nickel finish. When we get all of the parts back I will shoot a photo because when the parts are all together the combination is beautiful.

Correct finishes on Ferrari 250 suspension

Front suspension on Ferrari 250 GT

I am sure that other makes of cars used these Borrani wheels but I have only seen these style of wheels on Alfa 2600 Zagato and Maserati 3500. The wheels are cool because the rim is aluminum and the center is steel that are riveted together. As you can see, these wheels need some major refinishing and the hardest part is painting the steel centers while keeping the aluminum rims with a satin polish. Most of the rims on these 5 wheels are damaged from scraping curbs but the tiny RUOTE BORRANI and TURBO SPORT stamp on each one is perfect.

Borrani Turbo Sport

Aluminum Rim Borrani

The last post was on a pre-war MG PA that is the model of light weight and delicate details so here is the polar opposite in British engineering. These are brake and suspension components on a very rare Lagonda Rapide, one of the only Lagondas with race history. Have a look at the aluminum castings that support the leaf springs and the enormous backing plate/hub ends on the rear axles. The castings are not perfect but they are massive and will last another 60-70 years.

Front brakes on Lagonda

Lagonda brake backing plate

Front suspension Lagonda

This car is in for a thorough inspection so it can be safe to use in vintage racing and touring.

I am not sure the age of this little thing but it is a very early MG, model PA. I would like to learn more about the car so if anyone wants to add what they know it would be outstanding.

What I do know about the car is that it is a blast to drive and a beautifully made little machine. The transmission is exposed as you sit in and drive the car  so you can see the nice castings and hear every mechanical noise whether it be a rocker arm tapping, gears meshing or the whirling of the rotating parts.

The car is so easy to drive and extremely responsive to where I wonder if MG went seriously backward as they developed the “T” series cars such as the TC, TD, and TF’s. The proportions on this PA are similar to the TC but with these super tall and narrow wheels, this is an adorable little car.

Very early production MG

Whenever I have a car way up in the air like this I feel it necessary to snap a photo.  When the wheels are off and the car is more at eye level the shape comes alive and you can see the subtle details that make the body of this Lusso so beautiful.

We are stripping this thing down to restore the undercarriage and eventually re-finish the rest of the car.

Red Lusso in the ari

Sometimes I just want to give up and stop working on these cars. We stripped and painted these Ferrari 512 BBI wheels 2 years ago and they are already “popping”, where the paint is blistering and developing tracks under the paint that looks like worm trails in mud. After 25 years of use, the original paint was definitely in need of removal and on one of the rear wheels, the paint was blistering but not nearly as bad as after we re-finished them. Why is this a problem that needs to be diagnosed?

These wheels have lots of magnesium in the alloy and this causes the casting to be very porous and oxidize very quickly. When we paint these wheels, we chemical strip them, then bead blast the wheels. Next we use an acid etch cleaner mixed with water to scrub and soak the parts and rince heavily with water. The next step may be the problem, we bead blasted the wheels again to remove the surface oxidation, followed immediately by a wax and grease remover wipe and a coating in epoxy primer. Maybe the glass bead had contaminates that were forced into the casting?

Someone told me that after you strip and clean the wheels, you have to “bake” them to allow casting to off-gas and prior to sealing it off with primer. I am not sure this is the case because if they still have “gas” in the pores then they will continue to off gas immediately after painting them.

If anyone has any tips, I would love to hear them!

Painting a Ferrari Cast aluminum wheel