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

Re-finish Ferrari 330

It doesn’t look bad in this photo but the paint on this 330 GTC is displaying it’s age with small cracking, a few minor rust bubbles and areas where its flaking right off the sheet metal! I was looking carefully for signs of the original color which appears to have been blue from new. There is a hint of red paint around the front window but I can’t tell if the car was red at one time or if it was just some extra protective coating in an area that needs lots of rust protection. The car will likely be re-painted a dark blue.

330 GTC in for Paint

A friend of mine has a mounted swordfish that he caught in Florida that looked terrible because the paint job that replicates the skin is lifeless. The fish that Homer is making are amazing because even over a 2 dimensional panel, the colors look deep and alive as well as reflective as though you are seeing them underwater.

Here are some more photos of his fascinating work

Painted Fish on Aluminum

More painted fish

Fuel and oil pressure

Here are the two pressure gauges, the one I created, the BENZINA, and the one we based it on, the OLIO pressure. I used a thick acrylic urethane paint with lots of catalyst to make the needles white. It was done in the original fashion with a heavy build up of paint that I “floated” on the part.

Ferrari Red

A gorgeous Dark red that a prominent Ferrari Historian calls “mature”.

This is just out of the paint shop, no wet sanding or polishing on an overcast day. The camera is one of those heavy duty LUMIX point/shoots.  The car looks particularly amazing right now because it basically has 3 finishes, the glossy red, brushed aluminum and black Excelsior tires from Coker. It is beautiful!

Here is what amounts to about $5000 in labor, the front suspension on a Ferrari 250 completely overhauled and detailed.

New pins and bushings, proper finishes and hopefully it will look this good for more than a few years!

90,000 miles on a Ferrari

Cleaned up, overhauled and detailed

Here are some cool photos of the Ferrari 212 with red oxide primer and going into the PPG DCC Concept single stage satin black. As you can see from the air in the paint room, there is quite a lot of over-spray in the air which is necessary to get the entire frame coated.

Red Oxide primer on Ferrari Chassis

Ferrari Chassis in Red Oxide PPG Primer

Primer and Satin Black paint on Ferrari Chassis

Here is a nice photo of the 212 chassis with a fresh coat of primer and paint. We used a red-oxide primer from PPG and a special satin black That I feel is the perfect gloss in PPG’s DCC Concept line, a single stage finish. The finish is DCC Concept line is Acrylic Urethane and it is so tough and goes on so easy that it seems impossible anything work and look so good.
When painting something like this with all the tubes and welded areas, the bulk of the chassis is over-sprayed. It is quite an exercise to get under, upside-down and all around to ensure a good coat on all of the tubing. It is nice to know that the chassis will be coated to be preserved for another 50 years or more.

PPG DCC Concept Acrylic Urethane Ferrari