Bob Norwood is building the P4 again.

When you say that the body's are built at "Danny Day's" shop,...... do you mean that they start with bare aluminum sheets and hammer the bodies into shape right there at the shop in Texas,....or do you have the body panels made somewhere else and shipped into Texas,....(from some mystery shop in Italy perhaps)? (I'm assuming that we are talking about ALUMINUM bodies, aren't we?) Many questions come to mind as I've asked before. Where does one obtain a blueprint of the original P4 chassis to work from??? And where does one obtain a PRECISE body form to build the bodies from???

 

+1 Your work is SIMPLY INCREDIBLE!! FANTASTIC STUFF THERE!!



doug

 

Thanks for the great work Bob and great to have you here. I appreciate your artistry and skill being a builder myself. Fantasic Cars

 

I would assume that Danny makes all of the panels in his shop. The tooling is not that expensive to make the bodies but the years of practice is. It takes about 10 years to get the hang of it. I have been trying some of it on my own and it's frustrating work.

 

Hi, and welcome to FChat!
About that statement: A full time member here uses his P car on the street very often. I am sure you will talk to him soon.

 

+ 1...

 

Welcome Bob. I have always loved your work & one day plan to buy one of your P4 cars! My all time favorite Ferrari!

 

Too wild !

http://www.bobnorwood.com/Un-Salted%20Flat%2012-Power.htm

However none of this explains what happened to the blonde.

 

>>>#1 The threat and lawsuit from Ferrari, was not a threat, I was sued by Ferrari when a customer crashed a 512 Twin Turbo Boxer into a tree going a 126 MPH in a 10 MPH zone in a park! Ferrari sued me in response to a lawsuit from the family. Working with Ferrari lawyers we worked out details of other cars I was building, they were particularly unimpressed by the F40 I was building.<<<

I remember hearing about this Boxer when I worked for Corky Bell at Japanese GT Cars / Cartech Turbo Manufacturing back in 1986.

One of our techs told me that he drove this Boxer prior to the owner taking delivery (the CarTech guy was named Todd Wilson) and claims that he mentioned to Bob that the car was "too fast" (is there such a thing?) and that they should not give it to the owner. Supposedly, Bob's shop said that they had no choice as the project had already been paid for in full. The customer lost control 2 weeks later & killed himself.

The above is all simply what I was told...I make no claim to how accurate the story is, but all I do remember is hearing about this incident. Bob....?

From that incident, and some others involving CarTechs customers, (& by my understanding) Corky Bell decided to discontinue turbo charging motorcycles. Supposedly, they were so fast that "one could take off from one traffic light and not have time to think fast enough to stop before the next light" (again, told to me by Todd Wilson)...and some customers were killed as a result. Nice to know that you can build something that can go that fast, but Corky didn't think is was ethical.

Cartech had a guy bring Corky a Countach that he wanted a twin inter-cooled turbo system created for...Corky turned down the job.

The funniest was a customer that asked CarTech to build a turbo system for his YUGO! "Not gonna do it" was the answer.

 

Wow. Bob, if you should pop in again, it's great to hear from you - never considered that you had never been a part of F-chat!!

Most people will never know the experience that some of us had, and as you can tell, it's still a source of pride......and it's own curse in that it made everything else a bit hard to exceed, or even match.

As for that ill-fated TT Boxer, I remember the start of it just before I left, some of those Kodachrome pics I have (and badly need to digitize) are of when it was in mock-up. It had just been finished on one of the few trips back to the shop not long after, and Dale took me on a quick run (no pun intended). Just added to my determination to get one someday. Quite sad to hear what happened.

I'll check with you before I inflict a pilgrimage of any more than a friend or two. My friend from WA hasn't made it in for more than a couple of days of pure business, so I haven't set a day aside yet myself. Looks like that may change, from what I see here.

Regards,
Kurt W.

p.s. - No, I still haven't cut off the hair.


308geo:
I wonder if that Yugo customer was someone out of Florida with a fondness for Cobras and fast boats.

 

Just noticed Bob added this to his profile yesterday - nice touch !
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If you're interested in Norwood P4 replicas - most probably.

What's more, it may get even better very soon, once this guy gets posting: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/member.php?u=39559

I should have guessed you gave Bob 'a little help' with the avatar, Tim.

 

+1000

It's an honor to have Mr. Norwood on the forum. I've been following you for year's Bob, as alot of us have, thank you for your input and insight.

Gregg

 

The cartoon below, by artist Richard Pietruska, is captioned:

I'm no art critic, but to my eyes, the car depicted looks rather more like a Norwood P4 replica, than a real Ferrari P4.

Funny - the caption doesn't mention the effect it may also have on your wallet.
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My previous post, of course, should have read:

.... 'artist and sculptor Richard Pietruska', the same person who makes these semi-abstract P4 sculptures, and other 'desireable objects'.

See: http://www.rev-mag.com/ArtandArtists/Peitruska.htm
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How about these two, then ? Paintings of the late Joe Marchetti's '#5' Norwood P4, by Lynn Masters and Hugo Prado.

(Both mistakenly captioned, on various art websites as 'Ferrari P4').
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How do I know this ? ..... Well, let's just say I had a little word with the artist. That's Lynn Masters' husband, Jim, in the photo.
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Awesome painting by Lynn. Thanks for posting all this Paul.

 

Last one from me for tonight ....

An oldie but a goodie. A familiar image of Bob Norwood proudly stood in front of his creations.

(For you '250 lovers' please ignore the one in the background - Bob doesn't do those anymore )
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O.K., so I lied.

Andreas. I think you can still get prints from Lynn (or various art dealers), but they do also come up on eBay occasionally, too.
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A Print that I purchased around '92. Artist : Alan Nies... he used to be in the Phoenix area at the time, but I haven't kept in touch with him since.
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Absolutely great thread. I've always wanted one of these, but even the replicas are out of my price range, at least for now. If they ever get down to 150-200 maybe not, but then again, maybe I'll get enough cash from the house nazi (just kidding) to buy one sometime.

Art

 

That is Margie and that is me when I was young and skinny!

Just returned from Cavallino and the Historic Ferrari Challenge races at Moroso. Someone told me the yellow P4 was down there but I did not see it.