275 needs Total Restoration, good price at $200k?

These cars cost $300,000 to $400,000 to restore because the shops can get that kind of money for it. The people that are into those kind of cars can pay that kind of money. For them it is a bargain to have a high end shop do the work. The buyers of these cars are not in thier garage working on these cars for 5 years. If the owners/buyers worked on thier own cars figuring thier hourly profesional rate work rate ($200/Hr and 4000 hours to restore a car) the home restoration would cost $800,000. It is just the nature of the market.

My wife tells me that each motor cycle that I have restored has cost us $15,000 each and she is right. 100 hours to restore a motorcycle at my hourly work rate of $150.00/Hr is $15,000. I should just buy them completly restored instead of as rust buckets for $600 it would be a lot cheaper.

 

Video of two that Sal restored.

http://www.gt40s.com/forum/original-gt40s/24262-ford-ferrari-wars-part1.html#post217674

 

Now we're getting a little closer to the truth. It's not about what it REALLY costs,.....it's about what they can charge. That's what I'm getting at. If I take a GTE frame to the bead blaster, or a 57 Chevy frame to the bead blaster, he couldn't care less what kind of car it's from. It's just a hunk of metal to him, and he charges an hourly rate. Things become different if he sees me drive up in an old pick-up truck with the frame hanging out the back, or if a shiny private enclosed moving van delivers it with my hired helper. (That's why a friend of mine never mentions that he is a doctor when looking at old cars. He's seen the price go up many times. He inquired about a 1935 Ford Phaeton that was all original and driveable. The price loosely quoted was $7500. We went to look at the car. Totally intact and driveable, it was a nice original. When the negotiations got more serious a few days later, the price was now $14,000. Owner had found out through the hospital grapevine that my friend was a doctor. He passed when he knew he was being gouged.)

I guess if people want to pay 10 times the going rate to have a car frame sandblasted, then it's their money.

 

Nice.

When can we see part three?

 

Coming soon.

Best

 

Arlie, while I'm generally in agreement with you, in this case the 275 in question clearly isn't in "good running condition." Look again at the first post in this thread.

 

True, but I was just running with what was posted in post #4, "assuming engine and drivetrain is decent". Even if it wasn't, deduct $75,000 from the $350,000 total restoration assumption and that leaves you with ONLY $275,000 to disassemble the car, repaint, and put it back together??? Jimminy Christmas,...... it's just a car! Pull the engine out of a 1967 Camaro and it's won't cost $275,000 to restore. You could hire a team of bikini clad babes to cater drinks to you like a royal sultan as you worked on the car, and it still shouldn't cost that much!

 

Totally on the money.

I have several friends who are physicians. Whenever they are in the process of renovating their homes I advise them not to reveal their profession, otherwise they get taken to the cleaners.

 

I just finished a complete mechanical restoration on a 275gtb. It was posted as "275gtb returning to life" as well as other places. Every mechanical part came off the car and was either rebuilt or replaced as needed. The cost was about 140K. Things add up quickly. The radiator for example cost about 2.5K to make work and look perfect. I think I have about 3K into the yellow and brown fuel and oil hoses. The total number does not include all my work of stripping all the paint myself off the wheel wells, engine bay, and underside which was not easy. It does not include primer and paint of these areas. I spent about 30K to replace the damaged nose and grille (these parts were aboout 7K from Brandoli in Italy), feather the paint in and paint the black paint where I removed, refit and rechrome the front bumpers and headlight rings. I had to make a decision to stop or keep going and do the entire car but I decided to stop because the paint and interior are pretty nice. If I had continued I think the bill would have gone from 170K to 300K for all new paint, interior, chrome, rubber molding,etc. Not every owner of these cars has unlimited funds, just normal working folks that happen to have bought one a while back and have to make payments...

 

+2, BINGO!!!

 

Wrong again. You would take the seats to an (competent) upholstery shop not a "Vette shop" you give them the old seats and tell them to match the leather. grain and stitching. It really is that simple.

 

It should look like this:
http://www.ferraris-online.com/pages/cardetail.php?reqcardir=FE-212PF-0263

Google is your friend. And if no knows what they are suppose to look like how can anyone make an intelligent judgement on a car such as yours at an auto show...err, I'm sorry concurs event.

The point he is trying to make is that paint is paint, bodywork is bodywork, upholstery is upholstery, and although quite unique, internal combustion is internal combustion, point being there is quite a bit of snobbery on this particular sub-forum here on F-Chat. People here want to belong to an exclusive club so they make it exclusive by saying "our" pigment (paint) was brought down from Mount Olympus and set in the palms of Enzo himself (so it is written, so it is done). Old registrations in the glove compartment becomes provenance and rust becomes patina.
Or that you can come to the realization that you own cars...wonderfully beautiful and fun cars.

 

I have a similar discussion in an old article in some ancient car magazine at home. Some guy wanted a replica of an old Bugatti and he received outrageous estimates on duplicating one of their early cars. So he took it as a challenge and did it himself. The article was basically his take on utilizing readily available materials and talent and avoiding the high dollar attitude that says "you can't do it". So he did it.

 

With vintage Ferraris you cannot be penny wise and pound foolish when doing repairs. No shortcuts. It will catch up to you one way or another.

 

Specifically, how is Ferrari steel or Ferrari aluminum different from any other car? It's not a foolish question, because perhaps somebody can supply us with the specific difference. For example, International Scouts trucks are notorious for rusting around the wheel wells. This can be attributed to the specific way the wheel wells are made, and also the fact that in their later production days ending in 1980, supposedly some of the body steel was obtained from foreign sources and did not have as much nickel content in the alloy that caused it to rust more easily. I have a 1932 Chevy coupe body that is totally brown with surface rust, yet the steel is incredibly stiff around the rusted out portions. It has rusted through in many places, but that is over a 70 year life span. An International Scout would be a total rust bucket in that same time span because of it's steel which was made of "mongrel metal" alloy.

What specifically in a Ferrari is made on Mount Olympus by the hammer of Thor that mere mortals can not recreate or repair?

 

I just scanned the thread, but a friend bought a 275/6C in 2001 for X, less than 200k, then decided to restore a few years later and put another 200k plus, and then sold it for somewhere in the 700k range at the beginning of the current spike. The car had all new interior when he bought it, so to my knowledge the work was all paint and mechanical.

 

You are right, if you want all the money and a guy is willing to pay all the money, he is writting a check for a Platinum finishing car when judged.

 

"It should look like this:
http://www.ferraris-online.com/pages...=FE-212PF-0263

Google is your friend."



Chicane, you truly are Master of both internet and marque! As it turns out, I myself bought 0263 from Mr. Sheehan and keep it parked on a black slab in my office:
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Very NICE!!!

 

No one is saying you should pay for shoddy work. We are saying no need to pay for an EXTRA high dollar paint job when a high dollar paint job will look and perform just as well. The "Ferrari Tax" is well documented here. Roll up to nearly ANY shop in a Ferrari for body or mechanical work and the guy tacks on an extra $20-50 an hour for the work performed. Talk about being foolish with one's money.

 

It's Much thinner. It is wrapped around a steel wire frame which after time results in a cancer like corrosion that is very difficult to repair.

If after looking over this you still think it's no big deal, the local body shop can do it, and I'm being foolish with my money I can't help you. No one can.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=111267&highlight=0854

It's unlikely that your cars will wind up on posters like this one if you drop your car at the local body shop to work on it...
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My point is the same one Jim makes with the body; he's just more articulate in the subject than I am.

We're talking about a fantastic level of detail for these cars. Yes, I could take my Europa seats to anyone and get a great job done. But it won't be exactly right; I've SEEN restored seats in Europas and while they look great, they have subtle differences that my eye can spot. This is fine for a car worth under $20k, no one cares, but as stated: the level of detail on a car fetching seven figures is to a completely different standard. A competent upholstry shop would not be up to the task unless they had experience with these seats. I am sure people like that are out there if few and far between.

You may argue that high a standard is rediculous, but that doesn't alter the fact the people who buy these cars demand it.

Ken

 

People also buy Polo shirts when other shirts will keep you just as warm for a fourth of the price. People pay high dollars for Rolex watches when a Timex will keep the time just as well. There's never a shortage of people willing to charge an outrageous price if others are willing to pay it. If nobody even considers the possibility of other alternatives, then nobody would ever achieve any other alternative.

Which would be better: Somebody buys that 275, gives it an inexpensive amateur restoration in their garage and drives it and enjoys it,........or it just sits in some dealers back room because nobody would dare to consider the possibility that it might NOT cost $350,000 to get it roadworthy and utilize it as it was meant to be,.... a car driven down the road.

I suppose that we're also to believe that a Ferrari can not be washed with NORMAL water,....it must be hand massaged with imported Italian mineral water and wiped down with a chamois skin autographed by Sophia Loren?

 

"Better" is a matter of personal opinion.

The fact is, a sloppy restoration will fetch a lot less than a meticulous one in the market, while the cost of a sloppy restoration is still quite high unless you're putting Chevy engines in it. The economics usually dictate that anyone restoring a valuable vintage Ferrari do it to the highest level so they can get the value out of it in the marketplace; this seems to hold true even when there is no intention of ever selling the car. Jim G. has said he will never sell some of his cars, he loves driving them, and they are as correct as he can manage in spite of the cost to do so.

Arlie, I appriciate your perspective. You see the sense in buying a basket case Lotus Europa, do a moderate restoration and go driving. My car is as fun to drive as any vintage Ferrari (more fun as a driver than some!) at a small fraction of the cost. This makes sense. My car has concessions to driveability that a Pebble Beach judge would take massive points off for. I don't care; I DRIVE my car so I make allowences.

But this is of course apples and fatty tuna sashimi: the Ferrari is a sought after collectable as well as a car, while my Europa is just a car (aside from my personal love for it!), and that's about it. The most I've ever seen a TC sell for is $33k and the guy had well over $50k in it, because he had the same attention to detail in his restoration that a vintage Ferrari deserves. I suppose he was happy to do it that way but it really makes little sense since he sold the car just a few years later.

Ken

 

Arlie

I personally have driven my collector cars 500K+ miles in the rain, and even the snow. How do you jump from doing a proper restoration to not driving your collection??

Finding buyers is something unrestored 275 GTB's don't have a problem with. Priced right they fly off the shelves.