She was terrified and her eyes were the size of dinner plates

Nice car, hot wife; they seem to go together. So I asked my lovely bride if she'd like to go for a ride in the 400 on Monday. It has been raining in Texas but there was a break in the rain and I was feeling pretty good so away we went.

So back to the subject line of this post. What was the cause of the terrified look on my beautiful wife's face you ask? As usual in my relationship I am to blame. You see when I shouted in a very loud voice (with I admit a bit of panic in my tone) the following phrase her eyes almost flew right out of her skull.
What was the phrase?…..

“We’re on FIRE! Get the extinguisher and get out of the car!”​

Perhaps I should explain the situation and set the stage so you can experience the entire moment.

While I like letting the cars stretch their legs it just isn’t safe to do it in, or near, the city. When I’m out in the country I’ll let them run once in a while. Most cars will pull a bit though first and second gear. Some will even continue to accelerate hard through third gear. The V12 in the 400i coupled with the 5 speed transmission pulls hard through forth and continues to do so right up to the redline in fifth gear. The 5-speed really changes this car!

We were out for a ride on some great roads I love to visit on occasion. As I made a left hand turn onto a nice, even, and dry country road I let her go. I was ripping! When the speedo passed 100 I glanced in the rearview mirror, snatched 4th gear, and put my right foot back on the floor. I noticed a funny reflection, or something, in the rear glass. Since the time span from 100 to 120mph is less than a half of a second when you have your foot on the floor I glanced back at the road in front of me, watched the speedo continue swinging past 125, and glanced back in the rearview mirror. The funny reflection I saw before was now thick smoke curling up from the backglass!

My reflexes aren't nearly as fast as they used to be but let me tell you when you think you're about to turn into a flame broiled Texan you can move pretty fast. So now there is not only smoke coming from the back deck but also smoke curling up from all 4 tires as I try to stop the 4,000 pound monster that has quickly turned into a crematorium.

“We’re on FIRE! Get the extinguisher and get out of the car!”​

As I exit and see Helen is getting out I have visions of the 25 gallon fuel tank located in the trunk erupting into a tribute to Mount St. Helens. I open the trunk and jump back from the exploding inferno only to discover that my tool bag and other items are sitting there perfectly happy. "WTF?" I look over the edge of the trunk back into the passenger compartment, no flames. I quickly drop to the ground to look under the car, no fire here. "WTF is going on?" A quick look down both sides of the car, nothing. I hollar to her, “Where is all the smoke?” “Is it on your side?” “What the hell is going on?”

So here we have a hot looking middleaged woman who thinks she's never going to see her children again and a getting fat middle aged guy with battery acid joints, whos heartrate is about the same as the redline of his car, standing next to a perfectly running quarter of a century old Italian GT cruiser out in the middle of nowhere Texas that is NOT on fire. We must have looked so stupid! I'm telling you if that car could talk it would have been rolling it's eyes and had a funny look on its face while it said,"Whatsa matta you?"

Here is the best conclusion I have come to:
My 400 has front and rear a/c (Ferrari was one of the first cars in the world to offer this on production cars) and as I was feeling around I noticed the rear a/c vent, which sits in the rear deck, was cold like I had the a/c on and had a little condensation on it. We’d been driving with the windows down and it had been raining earlier so it was humid. My theory? At +6,000rpm the clutch for the a/c compressor may not have been able to spin freely enough to keep the compressor from turning. Therefore since the a/c was off the pressure would have built in the freon line. All I can figure is it released a blast of ice cold air though the rear a/c system and when the ice cold air hit the warm humid air in the cabin it condensed and looked like grey smoke. As long as I was on the throttle it was blowing ice cold air (read grey smoke) so as soon as I pulled over, POOF no smoke.

Needless to say my beautiful blonde wife failed to see the humor in the situation and I’m sure wonders why she ever lets me talk her into going for rides in old death traps.

Always an adventure..............

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"...colorful old..." I get it, I resemble that remark, good one (only smart people can write like that)

Yep, still works fine, but I agree I think something like that happened. I put a new dryer and pressure valves in it a year or 2 ago and run R12 in it. It'll freeze you out of the car.

It is a great color combo. Very elegant.
The best thing about the color of that car is I can get in and out of places and people don't see it. They'll pass me all the time without a second look. Driving my red GT4 and trying not to get noticed...not going to happen.

 

For those of you who haven't seen one, here is a picture of the offending vent.

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The color combo is really classy.

If you all want a funny story, here is one. My car sat on the showroom floor of the Ferrari dealer in Bologna, Italy. The first owner was a businessman in FL. He had, and still has, a collection of cars (I've talked to him). His wife's favorite color combo was blue/cream so whenever he bought another car he'd always get that color combe so she wouldn't yell at him too long. They were on vacation in Italy in 1984 when for fun they walked into the dealership. Apparently she groaned, turned to him, and said, "This is going to be a very expensive vacation."