David Piper restores the Talacrest P4

First of all David Piper has never told me anything.Lets hope when his wife finishes her book we will know more.Second, which restoration is more important to the provenance of 0846.Restoring it as a reconstructed CanAm complete failure by Ferrari or the fairly successful original classic by Ferrari and one of the most beautiful cars Ferrari cars ever. So far the market place alone has decided, which is why no one wants it.Give D P&T a chance.Much going for them. tongascew

 

Then its been sold?

 

We're all familiar with the Ship of Theseus Paradox.

What's happened time and again in this thread- and frankly in your post to me- is people try to obscure the facts.

In saying that there are only a handful of original cars left they lump every single competition Ferrari into one over-arching category: having little to no physical originality remaining.
That simply isn't true.
Some comp Fcars have nothing (or near nothing) left compared to when they left the SF. Some comp Fcars are almost 100% what they were when SF sold them.
Many are some percentage in between. Due diligence on the part of the buyer and the help of experts is mandatory to know what you're getting.

The work being done now is a degree of magnitude different from choosing which race entry to restore it to- what race number, paint and decal scheme.
This car was built as one model. The builders then converted it into a different model.
The work now is throwing all of that SF work and history away.

To me, that makes no sense at all and flies in the face of preserving the history and integrity of what this car is and what it represents.
If you and I don't agree on these points, fair enough.
I just feel it's important to not sweep what's being done under the rug.
The owner is still doing it. It's a fait accompli.
But every time someone does something questionable like this, I think Fchat is an appropriate place to try to have a discussion about the significance of their actions.

Best,
Dave

 

Indeed. These threads are read by many who remain silent and anonymous. You never know by whom nor what effects the comments have.

 

@Dave P

notice the word 'average' in my post

 

I do. And thank you for pointing it out. It's an important distinction to make for sure.
It's my belief (my bias?) that when people have brought up these type of 'statistics' in this thread and others, that the implication or subtext tends to be 'so it's okay that someone is doing XX/undoing XX', and in so doing use the averages to justify modification...
rather than using the averages, if you will, to justify preservation.
Everything I've read and learned about 0858 indicates 0858 is 'above average' in the sense that it's mostly what SF sent out into the wilds as a 350 Can Am.

Further to your point in this post, perhaps what would be constructive and an addition to this thread would be a discussion specific to how much of 0858 today (pre-surgery) is what left the gates of SF.
I for one would be interested to know more of the specifics from anyone who has direct knowledge.

 

Jim alluded to an owner in this post.

 

Restore pretty much 100% ferrari work or reconstruct it to a P4 and in doing so throw away a huge degree of original Ferrari work?

Tough call.

 

Indeed.

Not many traders - if any - are in a position to finance stock of this value, especially when the ultimate selling price is a complete unknown and a haircut is a distinct possibility.

 

Well, I am likely in the minority, but if I had the means to own such a car, I'd probably be able to talk myself into preferring to have a recreation of a successful P4 built on the remains of the P4 chassis, than an unsuccessful Can Am, even if it meant taking a haircut on the value to do the conversion. In my view, the remains of a race car that finished second OA in Le Mans is worth more to me to have (warts and all) than an original, uncompetitive race car. Just where my sensibilities are, others clearly disagree. It's an academic point anyways, as I have the means to own neither.

 

Succes has nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with provenance. Originality has everything to do with provenance.

Market is interested in a 350 Canam for about 5 million. I wonder if the market is interested in a replica P4 for that money, even if it is based on a chassis that once was a genuine P4. The big mistake is believing that a replica body will bring back history.

 

Here's the message I posted three weeks and 170-odd posts ago, and one admiring reply:

"[Quote:

"Originally Posted by intrepidcva11

".....and in another six months [substitute whatever number you please] we'll be at 1500 posts, we shall have decided precisely nothing and the thread will continue until six months after Talacrest finds a buyer at a price they will accept - the six months is to allow the thread to detox - and everyone will go home saying I told you so.

"I've begun to think like King Solomon: perhaps there is enough spare 'stuff' hanging around to allow Piper to cut the baby in two and 'recreate' both a P4 and a 350! Making everyone happy and angry simultaneously.

 

I found myself daydreaming about this myself.....

Be nice to "retain" the 350, in some way,
if only for display purposes.

I wonder where someone finds a rear-engine
V-12 without a body............

 

Not to my knowledge. tongascrew

 

Sorry, when you said that the market had spoken I thought a sale was implied.

 

n n

Part of the problem is that except for David Piper there are very few still around with any direct knowledge. The history as it stands now is that Ferrari in early 1967 built 0858 originally as a P4. Just seven months later coversion to a Can Am car was started.Why? It would appear Chinetti,Harrah and others convinced E F to get into Can Am right away to support the Ferrari name in America and so the quick conversion of 0858. According to reports at the time the chassis and drive train remained "pure P4" underneath a new Can Am body.The whole issue here is in which form should the car be restored. For some reason here there seems to be overwhelming support for the Can Am fomat despite 0858 being a complete failure in Can Am racing. I believe it should returned to its original Ferrari P4.There is no one around who has more knowledge and experience with the P2,3,4,3/4, cars. than David Piper.The result will be the final judge. What may never be resolved is what is the accepted format of restoration for any 1950s/60s Ferrari. There will probably never be a generally accepted format and so the world keeps turning. tongascrew

 

The controversy, in part, turns on a disagreement as to whether this is being done. What we know is being done is that the last remaining 350 Can Am car has had its body removed, a rear subframe installed, and a P4 replica body fabricated using an unoriginal method of fabrication which produces an unoriginal surface texture. An incorrect Can Am engine and transmission remain in place. There is also something that Napolis mentioned about oil lines running inside the frame tubes, which I'm not clear if that was part of the P4 design or the Can Am design, or both, and it's also not clear if this design will be present in the finished product.

To use your own term, this part of the controversy therefore resolves to whether the term "returned to its original Ferrari P4" describes this finished product. I believe that no reasonable, shared meaning of that term is sufficiently broad to include this finished product. You disagree.

Can we now close the books on this part of the controversy?

 

Everyone is entitled to their opinions and David Piper IS the living maestro of many of the P series Ferraris.I think everyone would like to hear exactly why you seem to be the only one who holds D P in such low regard. Apparently Enzo Ferrari didn't, nor did Steve Mcqueen And if you wish to disagree please give specifics and facts. Just how much do you really know about David Piper. He had detractors but no one doubts his knowledge, dedication and skills on the race track and in the garage. If you really knew you wouldn't have to ask someone else to make his case. And finally regarding your 'Lastly' comment give me some specifics. You are very good at criticism but without specific facts it's hard to say where and how you reached your conclusions. I don't base my conclusions on ''pings'' and I don't look for winners and loses.tongascew

 

Yet you have determined that the 350 was a loser and not deserving of being maintained as it was from the Ferrari factory. And with regards to David Piper, the last time I looked, his last name was Piper and not David Ferrari. That is specific and fact. The 350 was butchered for bucks and profit and nothing more. It will never be a P4 again.

 

And if you had the origional p4 body and bits I would say go ahead. Otherwise you are not doing a restoration, what is being done is a recreation with period provenance. And yes many old racers are no better, but here youa re starting with all the period peices.

Yes other cars are restored with recreated dodywork, and this is fine where the origional bodywork is no longer around. Just look at the effort used to preserve crumpled bodywork on a e type lighweigth restoration, why did they not justy go for whole new bodypanels, period pieces have history and value.

But here we are taking period pices and replacing them with new build repo pices, it just dosent make sense. What you will have is not really the p4 from the 60's but parts of it. And aperiod correct and intact car is being butchered to do this. That really is the debate. Is it really different to chopping a breadvan into a SWB.

And yes if all you started with was the period parts that remain then building new replacement pices is the way to go, but here you have the period pices and are discarding them. You cant recreate period pices, and in the pantheon of value in terms of the car as an artifact, then period is always of more value. Now if you take away the artifact perspetive then just go for a full on recreation from Piper.

As to Piper, whu he was in the 60's 80's etc is not necessarily who he is now. From what i read he was a racers racer in an and saved these cars when they were not much more than used machines, so he had the vsion. But the cars have also been his bread and butter and he uses them to derive income, so changing something for more income is probably his view. Whereas hobbyists are maybe looking to a higher puprose than pure income.

Lets face it Enzo destroyed old race cars, had little regard for them. Now sensibilities are different, we even havce classiche so maybe Enzo himself would have a different view towards the old surviving racers, the factory sure does.

The answwer is sanctioned recreations, then the old builds can be preserved abd sppreciated for what they are.

 

Hang in there. Not soon, but the day is coming. tongascrew

 

Keep us posted.

As frustrating and futile as this thread may have become I think that its served a good purpose.

 

In a way I hope the books are never really closed. I really doubt this is even a possibility.I try to qualify my use of the word "original" to "as near as possible to the original" If I failed to do this on occasion, I apologize. I suppose one might close the books on this part of the controversy but I am sure "as near as possible" will have its detractorsThe oil lines inside the chassis tubes sound familiar. I am sure Jim can answer this. As for the finished product you will have to ask Talacrest. And the band played on. tongascrew

 

Sorry or the typo.Yes his last name ofcourse is Piper..You are totally correct.At least you got that part right and that 0858 as a Can Am car was loser.There is no getting around that. So who wants to be remembered as a loser? What is still unanswered is who and how convinced E F that he had to get into Can Am and why he had to do it in late 1967 rather than wait until 1968 and take the time to develop a truly competitive machine. My research ends with 1967 so I don't really know what was going on at the Scuderia My theory is that Chinetti had a lot to do with this. Lets hope someone can enlighten us. tongascrew