The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

I have posted many times in that thread. I posted this most recent link because it represents something new.

 

The following is an email I sent to Ing. Mauro Forghieri after reading the signed letter from him posted a few days ago, his response, my response to that and his further reply:


16th March, 2016.

FAO: Ing. Mauro Forghieri.

From: Steven Robertson.

Dear Ing. Forghieri,

Re: Ferrari 330 P3/4 0846.

I hope this message finds you well?

Some time back you very kindly answered some questions I had regarding a chassis whose owner, James Glickenhaus, claimed that it is that of the 1967 Daytona winner, 330 P3/4 0846. You examined some pictures of the engine mountings of this chassis and concluded the following in quotation marks.

"Never the factory could accept the schowed solutions to bolt the chassis to the engine. At the factory was easier to modify in correct way the triangled-tube necessary to have a perfect engine mount. Your chassis is a P3 arranged by some body to accept the P4 engine and the correct wheelbase 2400."

Naturally, from your above reply, I and many others in the Ferrari community, concluded that the chassis owned by Mr Glickenhaus could not be that of the original 0846 that won Daytona in 1967. However a copy of a letter, which is attached to this email, from you dated the 14th of March, 2016 addressed to Mr Glickenhaus has today been posted on the web site www.ferrarichat.com in which you confirm that Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is that of the original 0846. Please see the attached letter. Is this true, Ing. Forghieri?

I, and many others, would greatly appreciate your reply very much indeed. We look forward to hearing from you and I thank you in advance for your attention.

With the utmost respect,

Kind regards,

Steven Robertson.




The following is Ing. Forghieri's reply on the 17th March, 2016:

Dear Mr Robertson
Yes this is the letter I sign after a meeting
With Mr Glickenhaus. I confirm also the letter to you after I have seen the way in wich somebody have modified in the engine bay the chassis ( the single
photo from you)
As you see in the letter to Mr Glickenhaus I wrote that i reconize the chassis of the car modified in December 66 but I did not say that it was the 0846 car.This do not exist any more
because of the modification done by somebody after the Le Man's 67 and not from my dpt as per your photo.
I told this also to Mr Glickenhaus and confirmed also to him by some statement by Ferrari.He have a P4 only.
Best Regards
Forghieri




I then replied to the above on the 17th of March, 2016 as follows:

Dear Ing. Forghieri.

Thank you very much indeed for your reply. It is very much appreciated and I am extremely grateful. However, I am now very confused. In your letter to Mr Glickenhaus you confirm that you modified Mr Glickenhaus's actual chassis and that Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is the actual chassis that won the 1967 24 Hours of Daytona. Please see your wording below in quotation marks:

"Dear James,

After studying the P3/P4 Chassis in the car owned today by you I confirm that this is the original P3 Chassis that I modified in December 1966 to accept a P4 engine and that this original modified chassis then went on to win The 1967 24 Hours Of Daytona.

- Ing. Mauro Forghieri"

In your letter to me some time ago you confirmed that the Ferrari Factory would never have accepted the solution on Mr Glickenhaus's chassis to bolt the chassis to the engine but you confirm above that you did modifify his actual chassis and that his chassis is the Daytona winner. This is firstly saying you did not modify it in your letter to me but you are saying you did modify it in your letter to Mr Glickenhaus. History proves chassis number 0846 was the 1967 Daytona winner. You say in your reply to me that chassis number 0846 does not exist any more so please could you explain how Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is the 1967 Daytona winner as the 1967 Daytona winner was 0846. You also stated that you didn't say Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is 0846 but if his chassis is the 1967 Daytona winner then it must be 0846? Is this the case? Is your letter to Mr Glickenhaus being interpreted correctly?

I and many others in the Ferrari community would be extremely grateful to you, Ing. Forghieri if you would be kind enough to clarify your statements and let us know if Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is the actual 1967 Daytona winner, chassis number 0846. Many people are now reading your letter and taking it as proof that Mr Glickenhaus's chassis is the actual 1967 Daytona winner, chassis number 0846.

We look forward very much to your reply and I thank you in advance for your attention.

With the utmost respect,

Kind regards,

Steven Robertson.




Below is Ing. Forghieri's reply on the 18th of March, 2016:

My Dear Mr.Robertson
I realize that in USA is a fight also for vintage car.The letter to Mr
Glickenhaus is allready around the world.
I will try to explain what, I was believing clear:
1) THE car is a P4 but without number of factory.As per many statement.
2)I reconize that the front end was the one i modify
slighly.The"original"was prepared for the test in december at Daytona
test and the winner at 24 h.I did not say the 0846 for the present chassi.
3)If it is true that the car was purchased by an englisch driver the only
number useful can be ,if i remember well the story,0003.Can somebody
believe this?
Somebody try to repair the distorced chassi with the poor arrangement your
photo schow to me.So this was done after LE Mans.
I hope that nobody can define in future the Mr Glickenhaus P4 with the 0846,
this number do not exist anymore for every Ferrari expert.
B.Regards
Forghieri

 

Exactly.

I have miurasv on "ignore" so I can only see his posts when you quote them and respond. The importance of Napolis' letter is that it directly addresses the issue, and there is a photograph (with Napolis) of the writer of the letter. This authenticates Napolis' proof.

If miurasv has a letter from Mr. Forghieri let him post it, along with any authentication. Until then: "advantage Napolis."

 

If anyone would like to contact Ing. Mauro Forghieri to verify the authenticity of his emails to me please feel free to do so.

 

So in short, when seeing the bare metal first hand he recognized the front chassis as original Ferrari that he worked with his own two hands in period. However due to that same chassis being scrapped by the factory some time after he doesn't believe 0846 exists anymore no matter how much of the damaged chassis was retrieved from the dumpster.

Fair enough.

 

OK. Sorry.

I got a copy of Napolis' letter and asked him if he was going to post it on F-Chat. He said he had not visited F-Chat in a while and said I could post it. I got the impression that he had not authorized anyone else to post it, and I hadn't visited the thread for a while.

My apologies.

 

Well,

I don't give his answers the value of a proof, but, and probably because I am french and Italian and French have many similarities, I sure wish that whatever he writes, he writes it in Italian. Not to say that I am a master at English myself, but that would be much easier to understand, because even the sentences are confusing.

Rgds

 

Steve,

I respect that you see things differently from Napolis and you certainly have your supporters.

My official position is that I believe what Napolis owns is the surviving elements of the chassis of 0846, but I am always open to new additions to this ongoing discussion.

For the record in case there is any confusion, what Ing. Forghieri has said to you is that the identity '0846' no longer exists.

In factory records the identity 0846 is stricken and his examination reveals that subsequent to that factory designation, non-factory hands have performed work to part of the surviving remains (sacrilege, it would seem unless Classiche gets a cut). For those 2 reasons; the writing off of the number in the records and the laying on of foreign hands, for Ing. Forghieri the number 0846 is omertà.

THAT SAID, he is saying what I have said and what Jim is saying and others have said; Jim's car is built on the remains of the chassis that was built as 0846.
Ing. Forghieri has confirmed with his physical/forensic exam what Jim has and has confirmed that it is, in fact, built on the remains of the chassis was built as 0846.

HE IS ONLY SAYING "Don't call it 0846 anymore" which is a legal distinction.

No court or lawyer can negate the laws of physics and materials science. It is now known to the world, as confirmed by Ing. Forghieri what Jim has.

Nothing you have published refutes Jim's claim that he owns the remains of 0846.

Forghieri's request that it not be identified by the number it was born with is just that, a request. At best it is akin to a contesting a copyright or trademark.
It has nothing to do with what the actual metal is, which is what Jim says it is, and which Forghieri HAS NOW CONFIRMED.

Best Regards,
Dave

 

I am quite happy to see Mr. Glickenhaus get even more confirmation of what I believe to be 0846, whatever you choose to call it.

Well done Jim!!!




PDG

 

It appears MF is stating the front end of Jims car is a P4 which MF worked on in period and remembers that element, but the rear end with the modification to convert from a P3 to a P4 engine is not his/ferrari work at all, which was the original reason when Jim/Sal saw Piper 003 that they actually thought it could be 0846.

So is MF saying the front end is from the original 0846 but the back end is not? and is a later addition/modification? probably by Piper, thats how I read it.

 

Yep, thats how I read MFs email reply. While in Jims "confirmation paper" it definately sounds like he took credit for the rear chassis/engine bay mods, and those are the only ones mentioned. Also MF calls the car that he mod'ed the front end of a P4, so theres the slight problem that 0846 to the best of our knowledge never had a P4 spec chassis front end. So we're back to square one I guess.

 

However MF does confirm a timeline for me in this sentence taken from his first reply to Steve

"As you see in the letter to Mr Glickenhaus I wrote that i reconize the chassis of the car modified in December 66 but I did not say that it was the 0846 car.This do not exist any more because of the modification done by somebody after the Le Man's 67 and not from my dpt as per your photo"

Considering the P4 did not appear in public until 67 and presumably the new P4's would have been in build then, MF must be referring to modifying 0846. He later takes the Classiche line that cars modified not by Ferrari cannot be considered as Ferraris and therefore should not claim a Ferrari chassis number?

if it is not '0846' what other chassis could it be that MF recognises as being modified in December 66? It cannot be a Piper chassis as he did not build his until much later and all of the other P4/ 412P chassis have been accounted for.

 

Maybe a spare chassis?! But no matter how you twist it the two statements severly contradict each other, though maybe some important stuff was lost in translation. Also it seems baffling to me that MF apparently believes the front chassis part of Jims car is a mod'ed P4....

 

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

The contradictory stories, letters and emails are baffling. The only way to solve this is to get David Piper, Jim Glickenhaus, Ing. Forghieri and a case of wine in a room, and that ain't gonna happen.

Was there a second shooter on the grassy knoll?
Does Jim Glickenhaus own chassis 0846?
Secrets will be taken to the grave.

 

An interesting way to look at it that this is a mystery that could be cleared up if the parties that were involved at the time wanted to. Instead it is somewhat of a set circular deductions that cloud as much as clear the picture. Perhaps that is because, while Jim certainly deserves our respect and thanks for all he has shared, his car is not what he would like it to be.

People who know way more then I, (not hard), didn't and don't feel this was/is 0846, but they don't want to publicly say that. And that in fact they also respect Jim and don't want to rain on his parade, so if pressed we get a situation that Jim can point to and say - see it's 0846 and others can point to and say - well that is not exactly what I said. So my deduction is this as close to 0846 as anyone is likely to get. Full stop.

 

imo italian mentality is different to you ess mentality. it seems this has not been taken into account in the appropriate manner. no critics. just my 2 cents. love this thread. cheers. clemente

 

MF seems to be a very obliging guy who is happy to reply to basically complete strangers questions, and it seems he does not want to hurt anyones feelings or ignore the matter.

I was very surprised he even replied to Steve, and continues to engage with him, Jim is a chap with connections who has managed to meet face to face and it looks as if MF did not want to denigrate his car either, so has gone along to some degree with Jims wishes, but is also not backing down on his previous statements made about the car. Bit of a catch 22 yet again.

 

It is very clear that Ing. Forghieri has signed this letter in error as he has said that he and his department did not modify Mr Glickenhaus's chassis to accept a P4 engine and even refers to the modification at the rear shown in the picture of his chassis as a "poor arrangement". He also very clearly says 0846 does not exist any more to include that he hopes nobody can define in future the Mr Glickenhaus P4 with the 0846.

 

Now you are just carried away by the pride of your arguement and have lost all objectivity and credibility to anyone who is reading.

At no point did MF ever say he signed it in error, as you claim. You attack the credibility of Jim's letter because you claim MF doesn't understand English well. Yet you disingenuously confront and cross him in emails in English and he responds in English. He repeated to you twice in his replies unequivocally that he recognizes this chassis as the chassis he worked on that won the 24 hours of Daytona. He repeats that he declines to identify it with a number as he notices other post 24 modifications. He repeated his statement over in English that he recognizes the chassis as the one that won the 24. Rather than back down when you hit him with a contradiction, he repeats it.

MF repeated several times that he recognizes the front of this chassis as the one he worked on that won the 24 in 66. If you cannot admit that the standard you held up now proves that at least part of this chassis was from the chassis that won the 24, you are discredited as res ipsa.

You can have your beliefs. You can make arguments for them. But it's clear you've doubled down on a argument that an 81 year old mans recollection and statemeant controlled (as was set forth elsewhere unnecessarily) and refuse to back down on it. Now your stuck and the look on Jims face reflects what many are thinking. There's good faith arguments and bad faith ones. There is polite enthusiast discourse and discourse simply to win an argument at all costs. And Fchat has paid a price for the later from you, by driving away the single most generous Fchat contributor in its history. Give it up.

 

Summary:

1) Ing Forgheiri confirms that part of the chassis in Jim's car is from the original 0846.
2) Ing Forgheiri also confirms that he considers 0846 to officially "not exist" post 1967 or thereabouts.

Ok. Got it. This says that Jim's car is what survives of 0846. What any one person chooses to call the car is not "provable". Its a judgment. But, please carry on for another 377 pages...

 

I'm confused...