For your information, BIRA has a Ferrari collection that makes a Daytona seem like small change. Hardly a bystander, just someone who is critical in his assessment. Personally, in my experience, I think 2.5 years is not that bad. In theory it could be done in a year but it never works that way. Cars stand by waiting for people to clear up their schedule (more than parts IMHO) for months on end. It's a stop-and-start thing. And also very dependent on exactly what is missing from the car or not. It is also dependent on the market. At the moment every monkey and his dog want to flog their Daytona and thus people are very busy and parts are in shorter supply. Onno
The above is actually pretty realistic, having the Restoration done over that period was a great way to spend a Saturday once a month to go and inspect the car to see what I was paying for, and also to get to know the guys who were doing the work. Finding the bits needed was quite difficult, and thanks to Lyle and Judie Tanner, and Tom Shaughnessy, for their help in the US. I have been offered 3x the amount that it cost for the restoration and purchase, but I did not do it for that, as it was one of those childhood dreams of owning 'The fastest car in the world:The Autocar' and have loved them since I first saw a picture of the car in the early 70's, and am just waiting for a dry day with a dry road without salt to take the car out for its first real drive! I will post some pictures of the interior when I can work out how to get my camera to take correct photos under fluorescent lights, which currently makes the car look silver instead of the correct blue/silver.
Thank you Onno to defend me! Actually I don't want to reduce anyone's joy for his achievements. And actually I was asking for feedback and experience of others! Just a comment made from 30 years collecting and more than 10 big/ full restorations. First ones were difficult, some I gave up ( a famous Ghibli travelled to 3 shops before ending up dismantled and being sold,,,as is,in the eighties) but for the last 10 years with the same guys we worked pretty efficiently. In 2 1/2 years we fully restored with overlap ie not side by side, a Gullwing ( one of the most complex cars specially when it has special specs and was US restored in the seventies, never done so much de chroming!) and a 275 GTB barn find which was badly rusted on the bottom part. And in both cases full engine and mechanical rebuilt , the GW has been tested 1000km and the GTB which is otherwise fully ready is just delayed,,because the ( famous Dutch) leather supplier,,is late and there is nothing we can do ,,except to wait,,, and in the meantime we raced every year with different cars MM, TA, and this year LMC with 2 cars and the 300S was de facto fully restored ( body repaint, chassis repainted, engine swap to put original in, wiring redone) in six weeks between LM Classic and flying the car to Pebble Beach where we were second in class.OK race cars are simpler to restore , it is true and the guys pretty much worked day and night,,but this was a tight schedule. So I was just reacting for 2 reasons: One is that we see more and more adverts saying restored during a 10 years period with 5000 hours,,,with the idea that longer is better,,,I don't believe this is the case for car restoration. The second reason is that the feeling that it takes so much time to restore is discouraging people to do one and they jump on restored cars. Which is bad for safeguarding cars. So I also believe that supervising a full restoration is a very interesting project, even if I believe that preservation is even more complex, getting back the original paint of 424/564MD below the newer color was the most exciting challenge and the car got twice class winner, once with me and once with subsequent owner for that...erasing paint by hand to get to the previous and original layer is more like the work on a 16 th century fresco that bodyshop! Next project is a B 24 Spyder America garage find and we will see if we can preserve rather than restore,,will be challenging. PS: monkey or dogs speaking, Daytona are wonderful cars. Had a plexi one many years ago, was probably of all cars I had sold the only one I was missing because it is so nice , powerful, balanced and easy on open road....The Group IV is a little bit more noisy,,,but with 480 hp of Roelofs engine,,powerful enough! PS2: UK in my experience was always slow. I fully restored a Maserati Vignale Spyder ( ok my project management was not so good those days,,) and it took almost 3 years and the Miura took more than 2 years...so actually became a little bit frustrating. Reason was one single guy was primarily assigned to the car, of course gives consistency but not sure this is the right method.
Assume that's 33 RHD plexiglass Daytonas? There are somewhere between 150 and 200 RHD Daytonas in total depending on who you talk too.
I hope you don't think I was suggesting that - reality is just that a lot of cars are being restored for resale at the moment. Enjoy the car, she looks wonderful. Onno
Here you go Steve, these show the colour better. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
yes the total of RHD cars was 158 both Plexi and pop-up headlamp models, and i quote from information from the archives: "The car you see here is an early European specification Daytona, as it has its headlights set beneath a transparent full-width Plexiglass cover, where as later examples and U.S. versions featured pop-up headlights. #13421 is one of these early Plexiglass variants and one of only 33 ight hand drive cars. It was the 14th example imported by Maranello Concesssionaires, but only the 10th right hand drive model, as 4 of the first 14 were left hand drive all by chassis number sequence. The car retains early features such as a wooden steering wheel and Borrani spoke wheels and non-headrest seats that are only found on a small number of the early series Daytonas." i will try and take some interior photos at the weekend!
An early USA Daytona with a serial number in the 14,4XX range features the silver nose paint. Road Test, the American monthly magazine featured the Daytona on the cover of it's March 1972 issue. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Was the silver nose paint option or standard for a special model year? Is it true there was also an option for a coloured stripe around the car, in silver and black?
Hi Steve. It's a bit confusing re the numbers, 158 is the number of "UK" RHD cars, there were 190 RHD cars world wide, within one or two. In total world wide there were 41 RHD plexi cars, yours was the 13th RHD car, world wide. "Anorak moment" Re the Borrani's, do you have the original bill of sale from Ferrari " you can get this from Tony Willis", It would be interesting to see if it lists the Borrani wheels on it, It would be great if it shows them and proof that some cars had them from the first owner. Re the steering wheel, not all plexi car had wooden wheels, yours could have done, I think it did have a leather one at some point. Can I just say, I love your car, and it came out really well, and the color is cracking. My car took nearly 5 years to do, so yours was quick in comparison. http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/vintage-thru-365-gtc4-sponsored-vintage-driving-machines/183467-holey-daytona-42.html If you want a chat some time, please pm me you number. Grant
The silver nose paint was standard for the early USA market Daytona coupe and spyder models. I think it was done as a styling feature to mimic the look of the earlier plexi nose cars which were never legal for USA deliveries. The silver nose continued to be seen until about serial number 14,900 in the USA delivery cars which would be late 1971. Some customers deleted the silver nose on their order. By 1972 the nose was painted the body color as standard. I have seen the colored stripe in black and also red but not silver. The red stripe was a request of Dr Jack Frost for his white Daytona spyder. Sorry for the delay in answering!
