David Piper restores the Talacrest P4

Not only does he have 50 years of racing the Ferrari Prototypes, it's the fact that he has spent the same time race preparing, maintaining, rebuilding, overseeing the P4 chassis build of 0900 and building it into a P4, the P4 drawings which were given to him by Enzo Ferrari, and the body of 0860 to use as the master for the P4 body of 0858. There can't be many who know the inside and out of a P4 like David Piper.

 

The Ferrari P4 Can Am conversion can hardly be called "iconic". As an also ran, that was converted half-heartedly, 0858 is perhaps deserving of a footnote when the history of the Can-Am is discussed-thats about it.
The McLarens, the 91710s and 30s, now those were iconic.

 

Yes, and the P4 is iconic and that's the difference.

 

Which this car will NOT be and THAT'S the difference.

 

so, why is he doing it wrong then? Surely Piper isn't in it for the historical correctness of it all. If he was, he would have declined all together.

 

+1

 

Yes - but as I know David personally, and like and admire him, he is and has been for a long time a dealer in race cars. He certainly does know a lot but that doesn't necessarily mean it transposes anything he produces into it any sort of genuine article or worthwhile project.

It may do - it may not, but just because he has the experience doesn't mean it does.

 

Well . . . near certainty both of them are wrong. I'll leave it to others to decide whether that's applicable in this case.

 

From what you said I don't think you know Daid Piper at all. Do your homework and then come back. tonascrew

 

Of course it won't be the genuine artilce but 0858 was no genuine Can Am car eather It was oiginally a genuine P4.So the descision has been made to take it back to as close as possible to the P4 it was oriiginally.Let's see how it comes out. You might be pleasently surprised If not many others will be. tongascrew

 

The factory modified it in period, and it raced in period, how is it not a Genuine can am car?

I don't understand that reasoning at all.

It seems to me some people venerate the P4 so much that they forgive and forget too easily.

 

The people defending what is currently happening to this car are simply grasping at straws to make their argument seem valid. Totally preposterous to think this car was not genuine before it ended up under the knife (errr... torch, I guess) at Pipers shop.

Perhaps George should add the letter 'y' to his screenname.

>8^)
ER

 

Not sure that last bit was needed.

 

+1. No need for talk like that. George's posts are always friendly.

 

According to Christian Huet's Cavalleria book Ferrari P3/412P, the actual size of the wheels used on the P3, P3/412P, and 412P cars, type 593 and the star type 604 are 8.5" x 15" Front and 9.5" x 15" Rear. The P4 type 603 wheels, also used on 0846 when it became a P3/4, are 9.5" x 15" Front and 12.5" x 15" Rear meaning they are a massive 3" wider at the rear hence the need for David Piper to widen the bodywork on 412P 0854 when he fitted the P4 type 603 wheels. I can't find anywhere other than in this thread that says that the Can Am wheels are wider than those of the P4. However, I would be happy to be proved wrong in the interest of finding out the truth.

Pics top to bottom of P3 type 593 wheel, 412P type 604 wheel and P4 type 603 wheel.
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Tough crowd. It was just some light-hearted humor.

...and friendly or not, the guy comes up with some goofy stuff from time to time.

>8^)
ER

 

Tru dat.

 

In a thread that borders on the contentious at times even light heartedness can be misconstrued.

 

George you need to do some homework and stop making silly statements that are not true.

Ferrari 350 Can Am was a genuine 350 Can Am.

It was Typo 603C (350 Can Am) not Typo 603 (P4) and that is fact.

It's chassis was 603C

It's suspension set up, springs, and disk brakes were 603C

It's fuel tank was 603C

It's body was 603C

It's weight and balance was 603C

It's wheels and tires were 603C as Pete noted much wider than P4.

It's engine was 247 not P4 with higher HP/Revs/displacement

It's gearbox was 603R not 603 revised to deal with it's stronger engine.

Look at this photo. One is 603 and one is 603R from 10 feet away you can see some of the differences.
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Remember Enzo's Ferrari's famous statement "the ox pulls the cart" when discussing why mid engine cars would not be competitive. He was also slow to pick up on disk brakes,monocoque construction, fuel injection eTc. He got talked into CanAm and quickly concluded he no longer belonged there. So if you have a choice let's go with 0858 as a sccessful P4 not an unsucessfull CanAm car. David Piper has a good idea what he is doing. tongascrew

 

Rah, Rah, Blaa, Blaa


http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/142355877-post894.html

 

We shall see.

 

Two separate things.

Was 350 Can Am a failed experiment? Yes.

Was it a genuine factory Can Am car? Yes.

Will it be a genuine P4 after Piper is done with it? No.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/142315121-post472.html

 

Ferrari put their rear disc brakes inboard on their first F1 in 1960 and weren't copied until Matra in 1969, then everybody copied them until the ground-effect cars needed them outboard to give clear airflow; also he put fuel-injection on the 120-degree F1 engine in 1963, barely a year after the British BRM and Coventry-Climax builders....so not that slow or lacking in technical innovation, I think.

Enzo never "belonged" in Can-Am, the 350 cars in late 1967 were more of a toe-in-the-water job, it was the 612 and 712 cars that were a serious try to get at some of those big bucks that McLaren were winning.

And to repeat, it's not Piper who initiated the conversion of 0858, he's a contractor to the owner and is presumably (!) being paid.

And I've met him and visited his workshops and looked closely at all his cars, as well as seeing them race for many years.

Paul M

 

for want of something better to do, a left-field comment: and Mercedes-Benz put rear [drum] brakes inboard on their W196 G.P. cars in 1954. But they were not the first. I believe that honor falls to the cars designed by Wilfredo Ricart for E.N.A.S.A., the Spanish national truck manufacturer, the Pegaso Z102b, in 1952. Below are photos I took as a young man at the 1953 New York Automobile Show at the Grand Central Palace. It is of the skeleton chassis Pegaso displayed there. You can see clearly the huge drum brakes either side of the differential and the deDion rear suspension members. This car was immeasurably ahead of every manufacturer in design features, four-overhead cam V-8 - Dunlop had not yet made its disc brakes available. Pegaso brought three complete cars to that show, a dark blue Touring-bodied supperleggera berlinetta, a whitec superleggera spyder and a one-off weirdly painted berlinetta built for Rafael Trujillo, dictator of the Dominican Republic.

Photos are copyrighted.

Wow! Hard to believe sixty years have passed and I'm still driving my cars with - may I say - elan!

P.S. To my eyes, that Touring berlinetta may be the most beautiful two-seat sports car of the 20th Century. I limit it thus, deliberately to exclude from consideration my 575M Maranello! ;-)
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