Original Dino 206 seats

1969 Dino 206

Ruby and I had a look at the 206 on Friday, I really like the car. The interior is so cool because unlike most 206′s, it has the original seat upholstery with a loose weave pattern that can easily tear from a rivet on your jeans.

Dino 206 GT Ferrari

On Thursday, my daughter Ruby and I are going to Europe to look at a car that I put a deposit on, this super rare and original 1969 Ferrari 206 GT.  When I asked her if she wanted to go she said “no” but I don’t care, she’s going with me. We’re flying into Vienna and renting a car to tour around a little and see a city that my friend Pete says is outstanding, Bratislava in the Czech Republic. Pete has traveled all over the globe and loves Eastern Europe so much that he has pitched his travel show idea to a number of networks in the last few weeks. This guy is a real character and I think he has a sure shot at being on T.V. with amazing stories that he’s posted on Motley Planet.

Anyhow, this car is supposed to be exceptionally original with low miles and only two owners from new. It even has the cheap orange crushed velour that is vaporized on almost all other 206′s which is testament to its originality.

If the car meets Ruby’s ultra critical standards, the freight forwarders I use in the Netherlands will get the car to Port Roosendaal for delivery to Port Elizabeth in New Jersey by vessel. Ruby and I will take a bunch of photos so we can share them while the car is locked in a container with containers of tulips and wooden clogs stacked on top and all around it for 3 weeks.

For sale Ferrari Sold

Well, it’s off to a new owner, I really liked this car because it was the only 330 2+2 that I have driven that felt like a GTC, super quick and smooth with an endless progressive throttle travel.

Body shell of Porsche 356

It was a busy day yesterday with the guys hustling around the shop to keep what seems like 1000 going at any given moment. We finally got the Porsche 356B body shell out of the back lot and en route to Georgia. Nate and I were going to put the longer forks on the Skid Steer loader but since we couldn’t find them we just used the shorter forks which worked just fine, reaching the upper level of the truck with ease. I pity the fool who has to take this lump off when it gets to GA!

Car Hauler Fire Truck

One of our customers bought this Seagrave Fire Truck from Washington State and asked us to arranged shipment to our shop to make it into a custom car hauler. When it arrived we loaded it onto our friends ramp truck to get it off the flat bed trailer. Needless to say, both kids and adults were crawling all over this thing. It has a Detroit Diesel 8V-71 engine and Allison Automatic transmission

Maserati Front Suspension and steering stuff

Ghibli 4.9 Liter S.S. engine

Rolf is managing the Maserati Ghibli project which means getting all kinds of parts sent off to the sub-contractors for various things like plating, rebuilding, etc.. We are sending the interior panels to Italy for upholstery while our local guy is going to replace the top and carpets.

Sandblasting various Parts

Andy is sandblasting all sorts of Maserati Parts, today he was pecking away at the leaf springs and doors. He has spent the week blasting the Ford 8N parts and Maserati parts such as front suspension and rear axle

Inverted Ferrari V-12 type 168

Nate is assembling a Ferrari Lusso engine, we finally got the correct piston rings and a new high tech piston ring grinder with dial indicator, super trick. He is also getting all sorts of parts painted on the Ford 8N project and has assembled the transmission and final drive and put them in epoxy primer. He found the correct shade of red in PPG acrylic urethane aka “Concept”.

Maserati Spyder seat Rails

Maserati Ghibli Air cleaner housing

Eben is contemplating how nearly every part on the Maserati Ghibli project  car is damaged or hacked up. The bolt holes for the seat tracks are broken here and there, a threaded ear on the brake pedal is broken, and the air cleaner housing has been hacked up at the top for some reason. Why would someone go after this area with shears? Maybe once I get the entire car together it will become evident.

Casey and Syl worked the day on the blue 365 GTC/4, installing the front and rear glass and polishing a few odd marks out of the paint. Casey spent the week getting all the A/C hoses routed and other things together on this car that’s been apart for way too long (embarrassingly long time).

I dropped my kids off at school and picked them up later in the day. I also bought and sold the Jaguar XKE Roadster. I also packed up a complete A/C kit for a Ferrari 330 GTC in a huge and heavy box and developed a lead on a Jaguar XKE Series I 2+2 and a XKE Series 1 3.8 liter Coupe. A friend stopped in and we discussed all kinds of cars he has for sale, an Alfa Sprint, Lancia Flaminia S.S. Zagato, what else… He is looking for a Jaguar XK-12o Roadster and a Ferrari 250 GT PF Cabriolet S-II.

Our Bookkeeper Johanne was busy keeping our shop up to date with US Gov payroll status and all the million other bills she keeps on top of.

Peter was making some part, I just can’t remember at the time of this post… He was getting all the paperwork together for a Ferrari that we just sold.

And it looks outstanding. We haven’t installed the front seats because we are working on a better set of seat belts but check in later for photos of the complete interior. The headliner looks amazing too, but Jim cursed the project because the material is much thicker and extremely difficult to work with, you’d never know by looking at the arrow straight pleats and detailing

Ox blood leather Ferrari

Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 ox blood red leather

This is a very nice Blaupunkt Radio that is period correct for late 50′s  to early 60′s European Cars. It has all the little details such as the knobs, facia panel and amplifier. If you are interested in purchasing it let me know.

Frankfurt Blaupunkt

KONI gas charged self leveling shocks were installed in later production 4 seat Ferrari’s starting out at the 365 GT 2+2 up to the 400′s. Later 400′s and 412′s had hydraulic controlled self leveling shocks that adjusted by a little valve attached to the rear sway bar. KONI doesn’t make any parts to overhaul these self leveling shocks and rumor is that don’t even admit to having made them! We convert the rear shocks to adjustable ride height coil over units which takes away all the mystery because rebuild parts are available for these generic series 82 KONI’s.

365 GTC/4 KONI Shocks

Self Leveling rear shocks gas charged

Casey just finished assembling this engine after all kinds of people blessed it to make sure everything is in the required specification. The reason it came apart is because the valve guides were loose in the heads and allowing oil to flow right into the exhaust and eventually fouling out the spark plug. When we disassembled the engine we found that the cylinders were polished to a very high level of shine and couldn’t imagine that the piston rings would ever seat. In conversations with Hastings Piston Ring Company it was learned that the cylinders needed to be honed to a coarse 280 grit rather than the ultra smooth mirror polish. Since the engine was apart, we decided to have a specialist cut the rear “slinger” off the back of the crankshaft so we could install a conventional lip seal to prevent oil leaks.

The engine is running great and just today we took the car out for a drive in the Arctic Cold air where it performed perfectly.

308 GT/4 Ferrari Dino

We just bought this 1979 Ferrari 308 GT/4 and are going to go through the entire car to make sure it performs perfectly for 2012. These 308′s are sleepers, even though they are less sexy than the GTB and GTS’s, the consensus is that they are a much better driving experience. Since Bertone built this series the craftsmanship is much better as well.

This car is cool because it’s in European Specification model with single distributor, small bumpers and doesn’t have the ugly USDOT mandated rectangular side markers. It’s also cool because it’s so original and has a super clean interior and undercarriage.

More on this car later!