The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

Can you definitively say that Foghiari would not do this or is that just your opinion?

If Foghari wouldn't do this why would Piper?

With the added engine mounts would you then consider this to be a P3, 412P, P3/4, 0r P4 replication chassis?

Since it is was built under the 0900 number would you consider this frame to be a replica frame or a genuine Ferrari frame?

 

No, I can not say definitively that Forghieri would not do this.

I believe Piper may have added the mountings to the frame to run an engine with P4 type engine mountings. He has or has had many engines including 275/330 P2, P3, 412P, 365P, P4 and 350 Can Am types.

I think the biggest clues to what the chassis is are in the auction description which also describes it with the 3 litre 312 F1 engine which has similarities to the P4 engine so the frame may have been adapted with the additional mountings for that.

Is the frame built under the 0900 number? I don't think so is it? I thought it was DP3 or 003.

 

Sorry. I believe it would be known as #0003 if it is to be the replica frame.

I consider it one of three made, most likely by Vaccari and Bosi, when the 0900's were built. Not sure if that's factual, but this is my understanding. Therefore I look at the replica frame as 0900 0003 but I think it the real world it would be #0003 or maybe DP3.

So you believe the first two 0900's were built per the blueprints to P4 spec?

Do you believe these two were built by the same manufacturer? Any idea of which manufacturer?

The third frame you believe was built to P3/412P spec by mimicking 0854's chassis.

Do you believe this was carried out by the builder of the first two chassis or another manufacturer?

So you believe that the frame in that auction is then as it exists today?

 

I only know that one chassis was made to the P4 Blueprints and by the original chassis maker which is said to be Vaccari & Bosi. I do not know who built the others as there is just hearsay information regarding them.

 

OK. Please answer the questions that relate to the building of the third chassis.

The third frame you believe was built to P3/412P spec by mimicking 0854's chassis.

Do you believe this was carried out by the builder of the first two chassis or another manufacturer?

So you believe that the frame in that auction is then as it exists today?

 

Jim's chassis sounds like it matches the auction description. I'm still trying to find out who built it.

 

Thanks.

So you feel the modifications were already in place at the time of the auction to accommodate a P4 sized motor. And at the same time the original P3 engine sized mounts based on the frame of 0854 were also in place? In other words the frame was as it sits today and Jim G. in now way built this frame. It was as it was when he purchased it.

Would also be nice to know who was the one who then modified it to accept the P4 motor?

Your feeling though is that it was first built as a P3 frame and then somewhere along it's life by the time of this auction that P4 mounts were welded onto the already existing P3 engine mount framework. Or in your words a total transformation to the P4 tubing was not undertaken. Just an addition of the mounts to the already existing P3 Mounts?

Do you feel the only difference between a P3 frame and a P4 frame are the engine mounts?

 

What I find odd, is that throughout the entire auction description, many names are named (mechanic who assembled the car, coach builder who completed the bodywork, source of the running gear, etc.). However, not ONCE is there mention of who built the chassis. Surely that, too, would have been cited - unless it was rather embarrassing as to from where it came...

 

This is true. That chassis had to come from somewhere. Unless you believe that this is a massive fraud, then the chassis originated at Ferrari. Once you take that step, the rest is a matter of logic. Unless you believe that someone counterfeited the chassis, the steps subsequent to its creation are self-evident.

I don't believe it is counterfeit. The history is too long and too detailed.

 

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ghj5V5cUo1s]Billy Preston - Will It Go Round in Circles - YouTube[/ame]

 

Steve. I am sorry I neglected to add the obligatory 'with respect" at the start of my message and clearly the ironic humour of my repeated question was lost on you. That being said I apologise if you felt I was being impolite

Thank you for finally answering the question on how the frame came to be, with different engine mounts and repaired chassis damage.

Your theory on why chassis DP3 (003) is not 0846 has been extensively aired and acknowledged.

Would would be interesting is hearing information to support your theory that the frame was built in England as a mule for the various engines used to race the car.

Can you tell me what race history the car had before David Piper sold it ?

 

Apology accepted, Kim.

Another possibility is that although David sold the car in 1969, I believe Sir Anthony Bamford owned 0854 between 1971 and 1983 so it was in the UK. If so, David may have been the one who looked after it for AB and could have had a copy made in England of the chassis during this time and had the additional engine mountings installed for his engines with P4 type mountings. But again, this is only speculation.

I don't actually know where the frame was built to be honest. I'm also not sure where and if the car was raced/practiced but any car that's driven anywhere can sustain damage. David gave Jim a race history with the car (see below from Jim's 0846 pdf) but I'm again not sure if this was a paperwork exercise, like I believe the Certificate of Origin may have been, to support Jim's application to get the car road registered because of US Emission Regulations he incorrectly believed prevailed at the time he bought the car from David.
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Look, this is pretty simple.

If you understand the process of how prints were made in those days it all comes into perspective.

In those days there was an "original" velum pencil drawing and from that drawing "blueprints" were made to use in the shop to make parts. The pencil lines on these drawings were erased and new lines put down and new prints were made. In changing from the P3 to the P4 drawings, you first made a blue line print of the P3 drawing, put that in an archive, and then you changed the drawing to make the P4 drawing. After that time, you couldn't make anymore P3 drawings. If, a few years later they ran a set of prints for Piper, those prints would have been P4 prints. The reason is that at that point it is highly unlikely that P3 prints could even be made. Other than the archive prints that Ferrari would not part with, P3 masters to make those prints simply didn't exist anymore.

David has as set of P4 prints, and these are most likely all he has since they were made years after the P3 drawings would have been changed to make the P4.

For this simple reason Piper or the company making the chassis for him would not know where to put the mounts for the P3 engine, and would not have laid out the tubing in the chassis for a set of P3 mounts.

So now you have to ask how and why was this particular chassis end up with the P3 tube configuration and not the P4 configuration if the builder didn't have P3 prints. If you come at it from that perspective, it is very logical to come to conclusion that it is very unlikely that this chassis was built later to the P3 configuration when it those prints would not have been available. On top of that, you were making a P4 chassis to those P4 prints (which David most assuredly has), why would you make a chassis to a different configuration and change your chassis jigs to lay out different tubing configuration. The short answer is that you wouldn't. None of that makes sense.

If you were going to build a chassis to accept the P3 engine, then you would build the chassis to the P4 prints and since your jigs and fixtures were set up for that you would mod the chassis for the P3 mounting, which would be different that this chassis.

The only logical conclusion is that makes any sense at all is that this was an existing P3 chassis first, and then it was modified later to fit the P4 engine. Since all of the P3 chassis have been accounted for, except for 0846, it becomes the only logical chassis that could have been modified for use with a P4 engine. Since we know that 0846 was most certainly modified for exactly that purpose, it gets hard to ascribe any other scenario other than the one that this is the chassis from 0846.

Hope that this all makes sense and I'm not saying that it is impossible to have in later years built a P3 chassis and then modified it to fit a P4 engine, but the reality is that somebody would have had to have gone to extensive lengths to do that since P3 prints were not readily available at the time this chassis was supposed to have been constructed. This is just one more reason that the scenario that this chassis was built later makes no sense.

The only thing that makes sense is that this chassis was built earlier and then modified to fit the P4 engine. Not exactly proof, but now the mountain of circumstantial evidence that this is indeed 0846 is just that much taller.

 

solofast.

You correctly describe how drawings were created, modified and copied.

It is a leap to say the P4 chassis drawings began life as the P3 drawings.

A new part number would most likely get a new drawing.

Only a search of Ferrari's archive for the original vellums could determine which path was taken.

I take that back, a look at the revision history table on David Piper's P4 prints would describe the drawing history.

 

Thats exactly what I had been thinking............

 

Please would you give the forum the benefit of your expertise and explain the significance that the wheelbase of Jim's chassis is 12mm longer at 2412mm when using the P3 mounts with a P3 type engine and the 1966 Tipo 593 or the 1967 Tipo 603 gearboxes/transaxles installed. Using the information he cites it shouldn't be and may prove that it isn't 0846 at all or even built to correct P3 dimensions.

As Jim cites the SCHEDA TECNICA Technical Data Sheets in his 0846 pdf and this 12 mm extra length as an identifying feature of his chassis as 0846 which I believe he may have totally misinterpreted. The SCHEDA TECNICA actually states that the wheelbase of the 1966 P3 was 2.40 m exactly, NOT 2412mm as he incorrectly states in his 0846 pdf. I believe Jim is making the mistake of thinking that the differing P3 and P4 engines and their differing mountings make the difference to the wheelbase whereas according the the SCHEDA TECNICA the P3 wheelbase, originally at 2.40 m for 1966, only increased to 2412mm when the ZF 5DS gearbox was implemented on those P3 chassis that were converted to 412Ps in 1967 i.e 0844, 0848, 0850 and 0854. According to the SCHEDA TECNICA the P3 wheelbase was not 2412mm in 1966, but 2.40 m and the ZF 5DS gearbox was never implemented on 0846. It went straight from the Tipo 593 gearbox in 66 to the Tipo 603 gearbox for the 67 season. I believe the differing engine mounting positions between the P3 and P3/4 should have corrected any differing engine dimensions or engine positioning within the frame and kept the wheelbase at the constant 2.40 m as is stated as the wheelbase lengths in the SCHEDA TECNICA for both P3 and P3/4.

All the above is assuming the SCHEDA TECNICA is correct of course, but it's what Jim cites as evidence for his chassis being that of the original 0846.
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You'd have thought that if the original chassis maker had actually made the chassis, Doug Nye would have cited them as an excellent selling point wouldn't you? In fact that's exactly what he did in his description of DP2 (0900) that was being auctioned at the same time in the preceding pages of the same catalogue. He went on to say that the original "Kapa Emme Oh" KMO Reynolds high grade drawn steel tubing which was supplied by Ferrari and built to the Factory P4 drawings was used to make the chassis of that car. None of this was said for DP3 (0003), only that it was again made to original form.

 

In my experience in the industry even if they did a new part number for the chassis, it is unlikely that they would start from zero and do an entirely new drawing. That would be way too much work and take too much time. Remember that the P4 was planned to make the P3 obsolete. There would be no real reason to keep the P3 drawings as original just for the sake of keeping up with the few cars that remained. Remember too that 0846 was already being modified, and a set of blue line drawings documenting what was there originally if they needed to fix a P3 would suffice.

Forghieri has said numerous time that they were working at that time at a furious pace. They didn't have enough people to do the Dino's, the F1 cars and the endurance cars.

In that environment, if 90% of the drawing was the same, and the car it was replacing wasn't going anywhere, there is no way they wouldn't erase the P3 details and pencil in the P4 features. JMHO and qualified as such, but with 40 years in the industry that's what I'd bet happened.

 

They also may have let a draftsman trace the 90% the same onto a new sheet and then let the engineers make the changes.

A five minute review of DP's P4 blue prints would provide the answer.

 

Right. So, either this chassis was of unknown origin at time of auction, or it was thought best not to highlight from where it originated due to unscrupulous actions...

 

Did Doug Nye write the auction description?

If so are you aware of where he got the information about the frame?

Are you aware of what parts of it are Pipers recollections versus outside sources?

 

Doug Nye did write the auction description. I would guess that the information came from Piper himself.

 

Thanks. I believe the point of what the source for the information was should be clarified.

 

Without knowing who made the chassis it's a possibility. However, Jim stated in his 0846 pdf that David has in writing referred to his chassis as having been built by the original chassis maker. Please could Jim supply evidence of this as I can't find any.
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To convince the world the evidence you then need to find is who did build the chassis and how and why.

If you believe that this is not 0846 due to it's a replica chassis then you should be able to deliver a pretty convincing yarn as to how it came to be, and make it sound somewhat factual or even just logical.

Do you stand by the auction listing as your opinion of what happened?

How much of it do you believe is Pipers knowledge versus info taken from other sources?

Logically if Piper's 0900 is indeed built by Vaccari and Bosi, and I believe these three chassis were all built around the same time, why would he switch to another shop to build the other ones? Logically he would go with the guys that built them in the first place. Would you not go with the guys that were there from the beginning? in on the planning and maintenance since the start, if you had them at your disposal for the first frame? You wouldn't order the other two from them?

But if you feel that this is not 0846 or at least V an B's product, well then, the frame had to come from somewhere? If this is your belief, I would see if you can justify our questions of how it was built and why? How it was modified to be this way and hopefully have some idea of by whom if not V and B?

Why they built it, and why the built a replica this way is the only questions that matter.

If you can, please look back at my recent posts. Answering those question may help out.

I believe from his previous post Napolis is done answering questions in this thread. At this point it probably comes to personal research and finding the logic in peoples knowledge, that are still willing to answer, to deduce how, as you believe, this "replica" frame practically came to be.