Aluminum Ferrari Bodywork

Ferrari Coach-built Body

Here are two cars that have been together for over 50 years. The unfinished aluminum body is rumored to have been on Ferrari 340 America serial number 0030MT, a car raced for a number of years by the Marzotto team in the early 50′s. The red painted car, chassis number 0086 was a Marzotto Team car as well and in the mid-50′s the body (the bare aluminum one in the photo) came off the chassis 0030 and was fitted to 0086. Who the hell knows why but it looked ridiculous because chassis 0030 was inches longer than 0086 so the wheels didn’t line up in the fender openings.

In the 1952 Mille Miglia, chassis number 0086 was cloaked in a body identical to the one we made for the car which is shown in this photo. So I suppose these two Fontana cars will be together for another half-century or more.

Confusing enough?

Carrozzeria Touring Berlinetta

Ferrari Headlight detail

Touring Carrozzeria Body Dashboard

High Build Primer Ferrari

Here are a series of photos of the block sanding process on the Ferrari 166 Touring Berlinetta. The sheet metal is all sorted and gaps are perfect but the body needs hundreds of hours of serious elbow grease (sanding) to make sure it is all straight as an arrow. Syl isn’t scared of the “mud”, he completely fills in all of the door and hood gaps allowing him to block sand right across them so when the light hits the highly polished top coat you won’t see any waves or change in reflection.

Even though the grill we made fit the opening in bare aluminum, Syl spends hours making it perfect with skim coats of body filler and attacks the headlight rim contact areas with the same level of perfection. There isn’t any room for error when working with super fine trim that is used all over this car like the delicate headlight rings and the low profile windshield and rear glass surrounds. Imagine these surrounds,  start with a long  section of 1/4″ aluminum rod and whittle it down so only a quarter of it is used.  We re-made this trim because the delicate original material was destroyed when the car was disassembled.

Right now, the car is sealed up in high build primer with a blue tinted epoxy primer that seals the polyester filler from moisture and greasy finger prints. Now we have some more fitting here and there before it goes back to Syl’s shop to work out some more details such as the incredibly complex belt-line crown that goes from the headlight to the tail light..

We’ll probably have more hours in sanding and painting the dashboard that it would take to paint an entire late model car like a Mercedes or Honda. The dash on this car is a thing of beauty but it requires a perfectionist sicko to finish it because like the rest of the car, the trim that surrounds the gauges and switches are like string bikinis

This is so cool, it must be some sort of World War II Aircraft Manufacturing technique for welding aluminum by smashing it together that was used for cars. This trunk lid was made by Carrozzeria Touring in the late 1940′s and as much as I curse the way they build cars, this is some of the most amazing craftsmanship I have seen. Since it isn’t adding any new material its keeps the panel very light and super strong and without the heat of welding, the panel doesn’t warp and distort. I’m guessing that the force of smashing the two aluminum pieces together in a focused area causes enough heat to melt and stick them tight.

Welding aluminum with a punch

Aluminum welding technique

I’d like to see other examples of this attachment procedure and find out what it’s called.

Stainless Steel Water Pipes 250, 330

Tubing for Ferrari engine

Since I have the jigs, stainless steel tubing and motivation, I decided to stock up on some commonly used water pipes for Ferrari 250′s. The top photo is a mixture of trashed original parts and my re-made parts that attach to the water pump and have a barb for the heater return and a threaded boss for the thermostat bypass. The pipe in the next photo is a custom job for a repilca 250 that was sent to me for duplication. This part doesn’t follow any of my jigs so I made a crude jig to complete this order. I’ve done 4 pipes recently for 1962 Ferrari 250′s, an early 1962 GTE, a ’62 250 PF Cab and two 1962 Short Wheelbase Berlinetta. Even though they should all be the same, all 4 of these are significantly different with barbs going in different directions and the main bend radius unique from one to the other. I’d like to know how these were made originally because there isn’t any consistency in  the style of construction or shape.

These headlight rims were purchased with headlights and buckets to “bolt in” to the front end of the Touring Body 1949 Ferrari 166 Coupe. The parts are beautiful and very expensive (even though the chrome plating is flaking off) but there is no way to secure them to the car! I have to make these brass tabs which will be soldered onto the rims so I can use a bolt to secure them to the bodywork. I drilled the holes in the parts for more surface area for the silver solder to adhere the tab to the rim. Once I am done I’ll send the rims to the engraver to have the delicate “Carello” script scanned into the computer so when they get re-chromed we can engrave this important detail back in. What an expensive detail!

Carello Ferrari Headlight 250, 166, 212,

Trim Rim Ring Carello Headlight

If I were making a production run of something, this isn’t how I would do it. Ferrari made thousands of “250″ series cars all with these goofy water pipes for the cooling system which vary drastically throughout the 10 year production run.  They are so complex and hard to duplicate that re-making them nearly impossible. This “J” shaped pipe has a compound curve with barbs that have to be welded on in exactly the right location even though they appear to be stitched on at random locations. If they are off one millimeter, they will hit the oil filter or run into the fan.

These pipes are for the Lusso/GTE series of 250, but I can make a number of other styles from 166 up through the 275 cars utilizing my incredible and growing stockpile of bends and flared ends. Right now I am making a short run of the water pipe that connects the thermostat housing to the engine on a 275 GTB/GTS Two-Cam engine.

Water pipe for Ferrari

Water pipe copied for Ferrari

After overhauling nearly every part on the yellow GTE and driving it for 1500 miles, the rear axle started making some ugly noises. Unfortunately, the bearing wear allowed the pinion shaft to walk back and forth which damaged the ring and pinion gears.  Ferrari 250′s are notorious for having a low final drive ratio so since we had to replace the R&P, we decided to change from a 7-32 to a 8-34 so when the car is up and running I will report on the how the characteristics of the car change. A friend of mine with a 400 5-speed put a rear axle center section from a 400 Automatic in his car only to find that the car felt sluggish and less than athletic. Going from a manual to automatic rear axle ratio is drastic where we are only changing the ratio in this project slightly, from 4.57:1 to a 4.25:1. I would imagine that the ratio from an automatic would be something in the range of 3.5:1 versus a 4.11:1 with a 5-speed.

Just as I do with all of the early Ferrari axles we get in, this one will be converted to use a much more robust bearing assembly to make sure the expensive gears and other parts won’t be destroyed prematurely as this one has done. I’ve commented on this  before and I will note again that we don’t see axle failure on other cars such as Jaguar or Maseratis unless they are operated for an extended period of time without oil. With the Ferraris, we see catastrophic failure due to a cruddy design regardless of lubrication!

GT 250 Ferrari Axle

Have a look at these beautifully restored air cleaners for an early Ferrari V-12, complete with the little FISPA I.D. tags and machine turning detail. I never really understood why the “machine turned” look is so appealing, to me it  looks boring and uniform, to me these would look better in a satin nickel finish.

FISPA Air cleaner

Ferrari 166 air cleaner