Metal or Fiberglass 308 front valance ?

I think BigTex mentioned one time that one of the three early 308 carb cars in his possession has a metal front valance. all of the 308s i have owned or seen up close have had fiberglass front valances. deep or shallow.

MY QV also has a factory metal shallow front valance, and i am in the process of adding the deep euro valance to the car. ( waiting on the paint shop)

my thread on the process can be found here:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=249758


can any of you chime in on whether or not the 1979-1985 308s you have had contact with had glass or sheetmetal valances?

did it vary by year, or perhaps country of final delivery?

now that i have posted this, i am going to look for my assembly number (54) on the metal valance and verify it is indeed original to the car.

were the factory deep valances made out of metal at any time?

it occurred to a buddy of mine that you could modify a metal shallow valance to look like a metal deep "euro" style very easily.


thoughts?
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G'day mate

Been following this with interest! My 1984 308 Qv GTS(Australian Delivery) has a metal "short" valance.(We call em Spoilers)

I have seen both metal and Fibreglass European front valances used on 308's throughout the years and these are cars which I know are factory original.

I would think that like a lot of things with Ferrari at the time,it was a case of " use whatever was at hand and available Luigi" at the time!

When fitting the deeper European front spoiler are there any issues with the Fibreglass front wheel arch liners being too short?


Cheers

Pete

 

hi Pete, i will look at the fit of the fender liners when i do the final fit. as far as i could tell they were fine, as i did not need to remove them to get the bolts out with the grill and bumper removed. i removed them afterwards to look around in there.

the QV i have is the first metal valance i have seen. it is indeed original to the car, and is made up of several welded parts. everything on my car was undercoated at some time in the past, so i cannot find any marking on the underside without disturbing the coating.

 

My '82 GTSi has metal, short. RHD Euro spec.

AFAIK all long ones are finberglass. I was under the impression that all short ones after the vetroresina cars were metal, but that is then wrong?

 

My '77 is shallow, and fiberglass. I know because the number of times I have repaired it.

 

When I owned my (US) '78 308 it had a glass short valance. The new owner ordered another form the UK with the intent of changing to "Euro" a deep chin. He received a metal short valance and was told that it was an option in Europe at the time hence the mix-up I guess.

The nice thing about the short valance is excellent clearance and never having to worry about scraping.

 

My 1982 US car is short and metal.

 

Correct, all long (or "deep") ones are fibreglass. And I have had both FG and steel short frontvalances. Don't know if the Vetroresina (car)production stop is also cutoff date for the FG fronts, since they continued to produce the fibreglass lower rearend on Euro cars.....

 

my '79 GTS is glass
my '82 GTSi is metal

 

My 'newest' one is metal, Micheal....22641, 1977....it's three pieces, for one thing and does away with the fitment problems of the one piece 'glass.......

As always, I'll take all your 'cast off' parts, to support your efforts if unwanted......

I say the prevelance of the 'glass ones is due to the ease with which they are damaged...

The front "nerf bar" installed on my #22127 is one of the better ideas I've seen.....

 

I'd say "no' as my two 1976 and 1977 steel cars #20405 and #22127 have fibreglass valences.....all three of mine are shallow versions.

And still see pretty frequent damage! LOL!

 

My 81 has a short metal one and at outer corners I have to attach skid plates as it is worn through, which is strange as the quater mile of gravel road to the hwy is high in the center but no damage in that area.

Stephen

 

The outer corners scrape as you turn up inclines...like, say....a driveway!!!!

 

I have only drove up a drive way twice and that would 2 times each side, they there when I bought her in Jan 05 and the PO did have an incline driveway.

Stephen

 

As I recall the metal valance (shallow) replaced the fiberglass piece in late 1980 or early 1981 production, I believe the 308i parts book lists the production split, Ferrari just supplied the metal valance as a SS part from that point forward.

All "deep" valances were fiberglass. Someone asked if the stone shields inside the wheel wells are different on the deep valances, they are.

The deep valances look great, but as noted previously they are a pain in terms of clearance with curbs, driveways, ramps etc.

 

You got that right.....

My '83 Euro has a glass valance...deep style

 

Mine is a short glass one on a '78 GTS

 

my 84 had a long fiberglass one, I swapped it for a short fiberglass one.

 

bingo! excellent post. i looked in my parts manual and chapter / page TAV 152 # 19 shows as " Spoyler normale 60395902 and Spoyler maggiorato 60280500 ". i will make new fender inserts at work if i do need to change them. i work on biz jets and have access to the scrap aluminum in the recycle bins.

and thank you all for the replies!

 

'No' to what exactly Bubba? My point is, that short ones can be either FG or steel, the deep ones are always FG.

 

Yeh, I have a steel one sitting on the shelf here so I know they're real....anybody need one BTW?

 

What is this nerf bar of which you speak?

Thanks,
Doug

 

My euro '82 GTSi has a fiberglass deep spoiler.

The trick to avoiding constant repairs is to take steep driveways at an angle (very slowly).

 

My 1983 Euro 308 GTBi QV with original deep fiberglass spoiler...
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Mine had a few scrapes underneath but nothing cosmetic to repair. I always thought of my 308 as the 4 x 4 of Ferrrais. I don't recall scraping anything when I owned it. I went over lots of speed bumps and transitions