Daytona #14273 - Is there life after death?

I'd want to see the windscreen trim installed before I was 100% sure that bonnet is actually short.

Pete

 

Pete.
I have seen the car.
Chris supplied them with a new over size bonnet skin and it has been made around 1&1/2" short, so it is now useless! The car was given back to Chris ready for painting!!!

I am trying not to say too much, as I am sure it will all come out at some point, but this was done by one of the UK leading independent Ferrari Specialist, and there is far more wrong with the car, than Chris has said yet.

 

Sad to hear an old Daytona has been wounded with all these bad actions done in the name of a 'restoration' project...
Time and money can fix most any thing but patience must be wearing very thin by now!
CH

 

Chris,

That result is very sad looking indeed.

No idea who your 'specialist' is, but I'd not send the car back there to correct this bodge-job, no matter what. Hopefully they won't go belly-up on the bill for setting this straight.

 

The butchering work on your frame is indefensible.

The only comfort I can offer is that a LOT of Ferrari panels "don't fit" as there is a lot of variance car to car......I run into it working on my 308GTB bodies.

BUT prior to them chopping up your bits, they should have had you in, and explained the problems and possible solutions. That part of this is also indefensible.

I hope you sue them into the middle of next year.

The 'correct' oval tubing is still available.
That part of this makes no sense....they were maybe trainging a new hire???

 

Not meaning to be unkind, but I have seen this happen many, many times over the years. Inexperienced people buy a written off car and assume it can be made good for a similar cost to repairing a crashed Ford. It takes years of ownership and restoration experience to understand what is involved and where the costs are. If you'd started with a complete, straight car, you'd budget 100K pounds to restore it. I would have guessed 60K to make that body straight, so you're already above the UK market price for a Daytona. Converting it to a Spyder would add at least another 50K.

I can show you pictures of GENUINE FERRARIS stacked up in breakers yards, they end up there because they're not economical to fix. And specialist repairers rip customers off all the time, it's a hard game I'm afraid.

 

I think this is an OEM Spyder he is building back as a coupe, but the rest of your post is spot on accurate...

Maybe that is 'why' they hacked away the fender supports, come to view it that way.....

 

go back to the photo in the first post, looks like the base of the coupe C pillars are still there. Possibly the roof was cut off by the emergency crew at the original accident, or by someone commencing a spyder conversion - although why you'd do that while the chassis was still a mess is beyond me.

When you roll a Daytona, the roof flattens like paper...

 

This car is a coupe. Chris says in his first paragraph in post number 1 of this thread that the roof was hacked off. It wouldn't make financial sense to restore the car as a Coupe if it was originally a Spyder as the difference in values is huge.

 

i hope you can find correct people to finish this car,its a special car i admire ,(original daytona ),as there as so many (chop top) cars ,that were (butchered).back in the early 70,s,
wishing you all the best
t

 

So we can 100% confirm that the intention is for this car to remain a coupe by it's current owner, gtospoons. This is the only thing I actually understand. I can't understand why "oversized" bonnet parts were required?. Are there two different types of Ferrari Daytona bonnets?

I also don't understand all the comments about the body frame being cut off if it was actually straight. But as Ian said, to restored a crashed car, or even rusty one, can require a huge amount of work and it is damn scary as so much as to be removed before you can start going forward again. Note looks straight compared to actually straight is a big difference.

As for butt welding the chassis tubes? ... what else where they supposed to do? I'm sure the original chassis's have butt welds somewhere on them too. I guess they should have ground the welds right down so you could not notice the weld? I only hope they v'ed the are properly in the weld preparation phase so we have proper and full penetration.

I also thought this car was being repaired by a Ferrari expert and yet you say:

Why is it not being worked on by a Daytona expert?

And lastly if the car is a mess why is it going to be on show?:

But most importantly a car is but metal, rubber and plastic. Don't give up on her, just get her out of there (if it really is as bad as you are reporting), sue the place and give her to a Daytona expert (such as the person who has restored Wheels1 car: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=183467) and I look forward to the touring holiday reports . Best of luck!
Pete

 

No Pete. The primary strength of a Daytona chassis is two long oval section tubes, which run from the front suspension mounting points to the rear. There are cross braces and diagonals which are butt welded to these tubes, but nothing interrupts the main rails.

Ferrari used a very thin wall tube of very high quality steel, you can let in a new section (e.g. 246's crack the tubes where the rear suspension loads are) but it needs to be done expertly to retain strength.

In the case of this repair, I would be very doubtful that the new (incorrect) tubes are correctly welded or that the metallurgy of welding unlike steel alloys has been considered either. The fact that they didn't bother to get the correct tubes speaks volumes about the quality of the job.

 

Daytona bonnet (+ trunk & doors) is an aluminium panel that is mounted to a steel frame by folding the edges over. The skins are supplied oversize and the body maker trims as needed to fit the frame correctly.

There is often variation in body and panel dimensions from one car to another, a function of being hand made rather than stamped in presses.

 

Thanks Ian, good answers. The gaps down the sides of the bonnet are poor too, very difficult situation for the owner.

Pete

 

Daytona's where built on a jig.
A new front clip should fit, with only slight adjustment and should never need to be cut up, not unless the frame was wrong. To prove the point Mike who did the body on my car, ordered a new front clip for a Dino GTS he is doing [ a few moths ago]. When it arrived from Ferrari he placed it on the frame and it fitted perfectly, even the old bonnet lid fitted the aperture well.
So yes they where hand made, but to a pattern, the problem arises when inferior parts are bought or the cars have been messed around with.
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Sorry....my error....

 

Oh dear, now I understand .

Pete

 

I thought about your nose problem when I saw this...
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Are we thinking the whole nose is angled down?

From this photo I am pleased to see that the roof appears to look right (I know there is a bog issue though), thus surely this car can be saved.

The primer on the front wheel also speaks volumes on the quality of their work. The throttle pedal issue is beyond amazing ...
Pete

 

Umm.. are we looking at the same frame? Bodywork seems to be the icing here.