Stumbled across this 250GTO restoration

Yep. I wish people would let new restorations patina instead of continual re-restoraration to attain constant perfection. I would like to see the cars as they were in the day.

 

It is not a question of the work being deliberately inferior it is more a question of replicating the finish and this is must be best achieved using the traditional methods used by the factory. An English wheel and filler may produce an efficient, accurate and economic result but thankfully there are still craftsmen who take pride and derive satisfaction from applying traditional construction methods and a "hand built finish". Panel beating and welding like an Italian is a skill that is learned over many years !

I do not know how much of this car was wrong in the first place but I do question if the shiny, re-trimmed and pristine finish is a big improvement. Whats wrong with unsymmetrical bodies and door gaps you can drive a bus through ?

K

PS: I wonder if there was any prior discussion with Classiche

 

Classiche may not have been considered. If it had been the interior would have been returned to original specification instead of retaining the Graber type Lux trim that was installed by Armand Boller in his ownership in 1965?
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I own the ax that the young George Washington used to cut down the Cherry tree. Over it's lifetime the handle has been replaced 7 times and the head 5 times. It's not the "actual" ax anymore but it occupies the time and space of the "original" ax.

My head hurts.

 

Are there any restoration houses in the UK or US that use the Italian Traditional Hammered technique for restoring and/or making bodies?

 

This car was discussed in great lengths on this site during the restoration. See: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/vintage-thru-365-gtc4-sponsored-redline-restorations/88403-250-gto-restoration.html
Pete

 

Thanks much for bringing us back to this thread.A very interesting discussion.For what it's worth I very much like Telaio's comments. It seems English Wheel work can be successfully used particularly on smaller panels and then finished with some hammer work to match and fit with the surrounding original section. The final decision of where and how this work is done is primerily up to the owner who hopefully has done his homework and research for the best results. Unfortunately considering many of the restorations done in the recent past 10-15 years many owners and other"experts" have ordered restorations that have little to do with the period of the original or the actual original format of the particular car. tongascrew

 

Yes thankfully
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Who are they and what's the s/n of the car in the pic you posted?

 

Easy to work out from the nose

 

3505GT?

 

Give the man a coconut !

 

So Neil Twyman, who restored 250 GTO 3505GT, uses the Italian Traditional Hammered method for body fabrication, and not the English Wheel????

 

Cameraphone pic (top) taken from Godfrey Eaton's "Great Marques Ferrari" book of the Graber interior with wind up windows. The enterprising Irvine Laidlaw had this interior made into some limited edition leather wallets as well as having GTO cufflinks made from discarded aluminium during the 2006 restoration. I really hope they didn't destroy the seats. They look beautiful.
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Aluminum,humidity and electricity don't get along and it's the aluminum that suffers. After fifty some years some body parts may be corroded enough to be beyond saving.A boat with an aluminum hull will need many sacrificial zinks to absorb the electrolosis that would otherwise destroy the hull when in the water.Though not as acute the same applies to an aluminium car body. The only way to try to avoide this is to always store the car in a humidity controlled space and always remove the battery. tongascrew

 

I'm glad that fine art restorers of previous years didn't have the same liberal standards espoused by some here.

 

And yet many, back in the day did!

New techniques and products came along that made restoring fine art easier and many a restorer happily used them.

Today, there's big business in counteracting these period-restorations and more attention is paid to replicating the methods used to make the art originally (in some cases though it can't be done because certain products used originally are now banned from use on safety grounds).



As for 250 GTO's restored using an English wheel being worth less than one restored using hammers, that's far too much of a simplification. Other parameters have a far bigger influence on the value than the method of restoration.

For example, let's say you have two GTO's:

Car "A" has a great race history with numerous victories and many famous owners and has been fully restored with a lot of new metal, using an English wheel.

Car "B" has never won a race, had no famous owners but has been fully restored with the same amount of new metal, using hammers.

Can you honestly say that car B is worth more than car A?

Now if both cars have the same history of race results and owners, then it may possibly have some bearing on value, but I doubt it'd be that great! - Whilst the English wheel may not be the original way the car body was made, it's not exactly ruined the car has it? And once the lead/filler/primer/paint has been applied, then there's going to be very little difference at all to the naked eye.

Given the opportunity to buy a 250 GTO, would anyone here really turn it down purely because the restorer used an English wheel? - I doubt it!

But you'd use the fact to try to drive the price down? - I suspect the owner would simply bid you good day knowing that there'll be another buyer out there who is not that bothered and will pay the asking price.

And where does the need for originality end?

Should you really only use Italian metal for the body repairs because the original metal was Italian?
Should the paint be sourced from Ferrari because the original paint was from Ferrari?

Surely iff you want true originality, shouldn't the car only go back to Ferrari to be rebuilt? - After all, they built it in the first place!

 

Interesting question. Does the Ferrari that built them still exist? Experiences with Classiche suggest not.

 

Would you prefer to own a GTO with an incorrectly made body or one that has been made properly using period correct methods if ALL other factors were identical (race history etc,etc.)

Its a very simple question.

 

I may very well be wrong about this but I suspect that the English Wheel method would actually be more accurate at replicating exactly the dimensions/proportions/shape of another body. The Traditional Hammered method may be the method used in the day and is of course correct but I believe that it may be the reason for the variations in each and every body made. So if we are going to compare the two, from the master shape we would have a body made in a more correct/exact shape and a smooth mirror finish, negating the need for filler made by the English Wheel, or a body made with some variances from the master shape by the Traditional Hammered method. Really the comparison is like six of one and half a dozen of the other.

Actually thinking further about it we'd have a more correct shape made by the English Wheel but the wrong method or a slightly off shape with variances but the correct method by the Traditional Hammering.

 

But that makes it even more wrong. These cars should not be perfect, they were hand made and should still look like that ...
Pete

 

Conclusion: There's just no pleasing some people is there. Even when the traditional hammered methods are used by ex Scaglietti people such as Bachelli & Villa to restore a body, and the shape is not perfect and it looks hand made, the "shape is wrong" brigade come out in force. See this thread: http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/vintage-thru-365-gtc4-sponsored-redline-restorations/389077-simon-kidston-video-friends-reunited-jean-guichet-meets-gto-4675-a.html

 

This is not the usual dilemna. The typical dilemna as whether one prefers a car with a big race history and likely to have been banged and rebuilt at some point, possibly with a hammer if made in period or shortly thereafeter, or a car with less compelling race history and very original.
While my personnal taste is the contrary, market definitely prefers cars with significant race history even if at some point the car was burned down and ressucitated from ashes. At least what we can see from transactions and auctions.

 

I agree. I don't know why you would confuse this with if one had gold wheels etc?

Sure if one has more history it's worth more.

But if there are two identical cars minus the body my guess is the one that is done more correctly is worth more.