Ferrari Challenge Car values Factory Built vs. Customer Built

I think 100608 would have to be a'95 car based on the sequence number. That nay even have been a late '94 build car. My car was built sept '94 and is 100329.

 

All challenge cars had the 2.7 fitted, even fully dealer converted cars. It was part of the spec.

 

Yes, but the issue is whether the car was built at the factory or a kit. If you buy a street car built by Ferrari in 1997 or 1998 it will not have the 2.7 twin intake motor.

However, if you buy a Ferrari and its VIN shows it is a 1997 or 1998 and it has a 2.7 motor as the original motor in that car then you have a factory built race car.

 

Factory built in New Jersey in a hidden warehouse with most of the others in North America LOL

 

You are right, my car partially striped from Ferrari.

 

Correct - '95.

 

Nice! I (and likely other folks here) would appreciate learning more about your car's history.

 

Wether the car was built in the factory or converted at the dealer, they are exactly the same. Using the word "kit" makes it sound like the car is some sort of kit car. These cars had to be the same so as not to give anyone an advantage. One could say the "kit" was installed at the factory on later cars but on earlier models at the dealer. Really makes no difference in my mind. What we need to find out is which cars were converted outside of the dealers and factory and being passed off as challenge cars. Robb will be collecting a lot of info over the coming months or year(s) and we will know a lot more as time goes by. IMO a car that has any kind of challenge race history is worth more than one that has none simply because that shows that it was and is an original "challenge" car.

 

+1

 

The 2.7 motor itself is no different, it's just the electronics. There would be no way to tell by the motor alone if the car was built by the factory or at a dealer as they all had the motronic 2.7 system installed on the original motor. They didn't swap the motor when they installed the challenge kit...

 

In Englewood Cliffs. I've been there (it would have been 360 era), cool place. They had an f1 motor, a 360 and a maserati in the lobby. Which was on the 2nd floor.

 

I have good news. I have full records on the cars and will try to unveil full results as a Christmas present to the group. I am in touch with the factory in Italy and the team's and organizers from back in 1995 -2001.

I could care less about what people want to value. Owners will want higher values, buyers will want lower values. That will always vary between collectors, enthusiasts, and owners as an individual opinion.

What I can do is provide all the information as to ALL the cars, their history, and numbers so we can dispel any myths and erroneous information.

Look for a dedicated thread soon.

The history is great. The cars are great.

Robb

 

I don't know if anyone outside of the factory can say they were "exactly the same." That would be an assumption. Just because they were running in a same make series doesn't mean they were exactly the same in and of itself.

Which begs an interesting question: Why did Ferrari decide to stop providing the conversion kits to dealers and instead move production in-house?

Perhaps its time for a 355CH Book

 

I was raised there and many of my schoolmates family worked there, we used to rides our bikes in the lower garage when it was fiat then renault then lotus? cant remember, lastly ferrari LOL that building was handed among that crowd quite a bit. They even had a bunch of formula one cars being worked on but darned if I can remember what ones not ferraris.

There is 2 more places they have locally where conversions were done along with the port work before cars went out to the dealers.

 

My car had an S in the 10th digit followed by 0104377 and was bought in late 1996 and was one of the 95's left in FNA's warehouse in NJ. I registered it and drove on the street for a while. My first race was in March 97 in the torrential rain at Sebring, and although I had done some testing this was my first race and first experience on rain tires. It was an eye opener, actually, you could see nothing, it was raining so hard and the spray was unbelievable. People were spinning every corner and Paul Frame totaled the front of his car hydroplaning into the concrete barriers at the end of the front straight on lap two.

 

True about "exactly the same". IIRC, there were certain teams/dealerships that seem to have better and more consistently prepped cars. Even in a spec series, there's variability due to multiple factors. There were even some early cars that did better than the newer ones.

Re: switch in race car assembly, I can think of several reasons including consistency and financial, but these are conjectures on my part. Admittedly, if it wasn't for the street-registration factor, I would go after the likely better-documented later cars.

Yes, a book in which proper research is done would be great. Whoever writes the book, it would be interesting to identify the standings not only by driver but also by model year and team. I think Robb is on his way to getting data. Thanks, Robb! Looking forward to learning more about these cars.

 

Good stuff! I figured Paul had a mishap as I have photos of him and the car at Texas World Speedway (April 97 - a month after Sebring) with yellow bumpers instead of red. I can relate to racing in the rain; I'm still amazed how much trust I put on other racers when racing with almost zero visibility except for spray in front of me.

Sorry for the hijack on this thread but I appreciate the info.

 

Ferrari went to great lengths to ensure that it was a level playing field and all cars where the same, to the extent of providing the engine ecu's for every race to ensure no one was running a re-mapped engine ecu.

If a manufacturer for a one model race series was caught providing some cars that were more equal than others it would be a marketing and credibility disaster - it wouldn't have taken long to figure is some cars where different to others.

Ferrari went to factory building with the 360C and subsequent challenge cars for 2 reasons:
Cost saving. Building the car in race spec is cheaper than buying a complete car and the kit and then having it converted to a Challenge car.
The 360C spec is a lot further removed from the road car than the 355C was, making a kit impractical as an "in field" conversion

M

 

So if the factory did not build these cars until 97 then does it mean that 96 cars that were 5.2 were retrofitted to 2.7 at the dealers? I have a 96 which is a 2.7 car originally delivered to Europe (Germany) then imported to Florida and I was always curious whether it was factory built or retrofitted? s/n 104646

 

Yes. All F355C built after 1996 would have been converted back to M2.7 to be eligible to race.

 

Some euro street cars were still m2.7 in '96 (there's one locally here, original swiss delivery maybe?), but due to federal regulations all US delivery cars were m5.2. All challenge cars that raced in the series were m2.7 no matter when or who built them. If you bought a '98 road car and later decided to race in the series, the dealer would have installed the m2.7 on the original engine along with the rest of the kit. Factory and dealer cars should be fairly indistinguishable as it was a spec series.

I believe even the last factory cars still had a portion of the kit installed by the dealer, I don't know if any of them were fully assembled by the factory. Maybe some Italian cars?

 

Many thanks have to go out to Robb for doing this. Its not easy and will be very interesting to say the least.
Thanks Robb

 

+355

 

Yes for sure

So much of the correct info is already lost and we need to save what we have
I know Ferrari did not keep good records at all.

Go Robb Go

 

I believe you may be incorrect.

At a certain point, likely by 1997, Ferrari began building the Challenge cars in-house.

Ferrari would not build a car in 1997 or 1998, then install an OBD2 5.2 on the assembly line then transport the car over to another area at the factory where they would then pull the 5.2 motor and related hardware only to then install a 2.7 OBD1 motor and hardware. That makes no sense and the people at Ferrari don't work that way.

These later produced Challenge cars, built at the factory (thus ensuring uniformity in construction and quality [perhaps for quality and liability reasons]), would feature VIN numbers that would reflect their year of construction. E.g., '97 or '98.

However, they featured OBD1 motor assemblies. To get around import laws pertaining to street vehicles in the U.S., Ferrari delivered these factory built Challenge cars in 97, 98 etc., to be sold by dealers without titles as competition vehicles. The idea was that the cars could only be used on a race track, thus avoiding, e.g., EPA regs.

That is why you can have a car built by Ferrari in 1997 or 1998 featuring an OBD1 drivetrain.

Of course, it's said a couple of dealers with long standing relationships with Ferrari and with special clients did in fact have titles issued to these cars, as they did have 17 digit vin numbers, thus making them capable of being registered like any other Ferrari, provided the dealer provided a title.

Fertile ground for Robb's literature and perhaps authorship