Signs of things to come. Later we found 35˚F temps and 7" of snow

After a drive to Long Island to pick up cars, and Philadelphia to drop off an incredible Velocette Thruxton motorbike, we finally made it to Hot Springs, Virginia and the colossal hotel resort, The Homestead. The hotel is rich with history and while lobby alone is massive, a series of parlor rooms runs its length such that any small group can get away and feel as if they have their own private space. (Gallery after the jump)

We set up to begin a series of mechanical, electrical, and other repairs on a few vehicles before the rally began. Checking the charging system on one of the nicest Lamboghini Jalpa’s we’ve ever seen, repairing the Electromotive ignition on a Porsche 914/6, and the drivers window on a 330 GTC.

The Dish...

There were also a few repairs that didn’t surprise us. A beautiful 356 came by with a seat back that had become unscrewed. It was recently restored and the seat was likely “temporarily” installed without a good tightening. A quick hunt around the 30 or so screws that hold the interior door panels and the sill trim on showed many more screws that needed a final twist. A really nice 250 GTE came by with some carbs that the Ferrari dealer had been tuning. Unfortunately the dealer hasn’t been tuning carbs on new Ferrari models since the early-eighties, so we balanced them and dialed in the mixture.

The Homestead with a Porsche courtesy car out front - a Cayman R no less

Driver's Meeting led by Rich Taylor of Vintage Rallies.

Our friends at Horseless Carriage asked us to deliver this Lamborghini Gallardo to a remote Vermont location, we are always happy to help Frank and his crew since they are so helpful and generous with us.

Gallardo

By the time we disassemble the distributor body and clean it up, replace the points and bearings and clean and adjust the advance mechanism we have about$700 in overhauling the thing. The advance mechanism on 365 GTC/4′s and 400I seem to get rusted up the most of any car we work on because they are right at the rear opening of the hood and lots of water gets dumped onto them allowing the advance pins to seize up. The photo of the distributor cap shows the corrosion in the towers.

4 sets of points in a Ferrari Distributor

Corrosion in Ferrari distributor cap

We hired a earthmoving crew to “tune up” the driveway by installing some drainage tiles, tubes and blind ditches. They installed a tile over the septic and prepared the area in front of the shop for a concrete apron.

A separate crew came in to lay down the steel reinforcement grid and set the forms. These guys worked so fast that it seemed that the bulk of what they did was wait for the mixer truck!

Once the concrete was cured, the earthmoving crew came in and stripped the top two feet of the driveway and installed ground cloth and covered it with new crushed stone. After leveling the stone they packed it with a primitive vibrational roller that I will show photos of later. The guys and me were so jealous of machine operators, it looked like so much fun.

I do not know how we lived as long as we did without this concrete apron, what a difference it makes. The new crushed stone makes nearly no dust and once it settles after a year of use we are thinking of paving the whole driveway.

I am so irritated that I did not photograph the construction work being done but at least you can enjoy more photos of Ferraris and a Lamborghini

This trans is similar to a Porsche 911 where you have everything hanging off that intermediate place and easy to get to. Overall, except for some strange details like the shift shaft going through the block on an angle and the common oil sump, this is a very well thought out power plant