The Tavarish 355 re-building thread

As many of you have already seen YouTube wrench 'Tavarish' bought the burned 355 from fellow YouTuber Hoovie and has put it in his fleet of project cars. For those who missed it here is a link to the thread where this is discussed:

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/hoovies-355-exploded.582619/

Given that it is winter for most of us and that we all like to see a good project, I thought it appropriate to dedicate a thread to this car and the work that is being done very publicly on it on YouTube.

I don't know Tavarish but I have enjoyed watching many of his videos on YouTube where he resurrected a Gallardo. I find him to be fun, ambitious, and enthusiastic. He does not make outlandish claims of his abilities and is happy to be transparent of when he does things well as well as when he messes them up.

This is not a thread for purists. The car will not grace a concours field any time soon and it will very much be a patch quilt special. That said it is an entertaining watch and I wish Tavarish all the best with the build. I am certain that scouring the internet for info that he will find this thread and I hope that we can all chime in where possible with constructive feedback to help his project along.

Here is a link to the first videos he posted on the 355:

 

Didn't he say something about a turbo?
Let him have his fun, the internet is nothing but click bait so it's ok with me.


At least he's not scared to get dirty.
Maybe a bit crazy but we all have some level of crazy.

 

Those timing belts look good as new.

 

I'm looking forward to seeing him pull off such an undertaking. I mean the thing is a trainwreck. I love cars that are a mess, but even I wouldn't touch that thing. That's saying a lot. To rebuild it, convert it to a hard top and turbocharge is quite a feat. I'm interested to see if he can pull it off.

 

Might as well go single center seat while he's at it.

sjd

 

I dig cars that are a mess too, and have done several trainwrecks.

Before:

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After:

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sjd

 

I will admit to watching Tavarish as a guilty pleasure. The cars are never finished and now that he is taking on the dregs on other YouTubers the "hits" are guaranteed to continue. I give him credit for taking on these projects but these cars aren't any better after he makes six months of videos.

Does anyone feel there should be an effort by the 355 guys of FChat to reach out to Freddy?? I'm down.

 

He does encourage people to reach out to him, however I've personally tried reaching out to him as did my friend who is relatively well known in the lambo world. We both were ignored.

 

And what a fine job he was able to do without your assistance.

Too bad your offer went ignored. I don't like all the bad information that is disseminated by Freddy but I do give him credit for trying to encourage people to "wrench every day". I have in the past with a few friends that work in production thrown some gear to starting YouTubers that we like and it was always appreciated. It takes an awful lot of subs/views to get the attention of any of the gear manufacturers and then they give all the free gear to the more successful Youtubers that could actually afford to buy it. The cool top YouTubers give away most of the promo gear to others starting out.

How did you go about contacting Freddy?

 

Already have.

 

Today's Installment:

 

I contacted him via Instagram like he said to. It's just kind of a slap in the face to type out a message and not even have it opened, especially if you say you read everything you are sent. Either way I wish him luck on this project.

 

Cool. Please keep us updated if you get a response.
I just skimmed through the latest upload and Freddy once again crammed three minutes of content in between pitching three sponsored products and his own merch into a nearly 12-minute video, so maybe he doesn't need or want any help.

YouTube is pretty awesome.

 

It's been 43 weeks so I'm not holding my breath

 

That was meant for Phrogs. Let's see if anything comes of it.

The Tavarish Channel is at the limit with the amount of product it is pushing. Not communicating with the community is unacceptable to YouTube.

Do you guys watch any other automotive YouTubers on a regular basis?

 

I appreciate the effort he puts in. With complete used engines available for $12-15k it doesn't make a lot of sense to me why he wants to use the burnt engine. He would be further ahead to break it down and sell the serviceable components to off-set the costs. While he believes the cylinders didn't get water in them.....he is wrong. The water he found in the intake surely found its way into at least half of the cylinders. Since he hasn't drained the oil....he just hasn't seen it yet.

 

Nothing Freddy does to any of the cars makes any sense to me. The Lambo, if it is ever seen again didn't look like too successful of a project and I wonder if that car will be seen again. I got a kick out of one of the Mercedes projects were throwing every code imaginable and Freddy purchased something off eBay to make the light go off from a brake system error versus actually addressing the problem.

The logical thing that most of us would have done with a burnt car like that is to not buy it. It isn't even a good "parts" car let alone a candidate to be put back together. When the car burned it got attention on YouTube and broke out in the media. Freddy was savvy enough to get the car to use for six months of content whether he completes it or not. That's an awful lot of uploads to pack with sponsored products and long intros and wraps.

I have rebuilt a number of cars from the rat-rod level on up, and I could tell you that Freddy hasn't picked a single good candidate for a rebuild up to this point. The Tavarish Channel isn't about anything but clicks but I would still help him out.

 

I agree but at least he makes an effort. Bravo and Youtube have all pushed the car restore/build stories but they always seem like hack jobs because they always up against some stupid deadline imposed to create drama. That either means people watch the show for the drama or they watch it to see how pros restore cars. So far...drama wins.

 

Part of the entertainment and appeal is that the projects are ambitious and do not make financial sense. Following a well budgeted and planned restoration would be so incredibly boring even for the most die hard enthusiast. Of course Tavarish earns his primary living by being a YouTuber so there has to be an appeal to keep people watching and tuned in. I think he strikes a good balance and am interested to see if the 355 engine can be started without pulling the heads. My feeling is that it can even if it is not the safest and most by the book way to do things.

 

Yuuup drama sells, back in the late 90's early 2000's we did a vast portion of those drama bikes builds in 3 days to build, actually we built dozens of the bikes and just had some squids do it on camera. People like being fooled

 

YouTube creators do many things but entertainment is what people watch Freddy for not enlightenment. I have been entertained by him and as we are discussing him currently so have you. The biggest thing that has always impressed me about YouTube is that if you can borrow a camera or even a phone and have Internet access your content is immediately available to the planet. Production skills will come eventually if you want to make better quality videos. Freddy needs to improve his video production quality if he wants to make it to a million subs.

Bottom line, we will get to see what happens to this 355 Spider over the next year and it should be both interesting and entertaining. The 355 is special to me as I owned one for over 20 years.

I am VERY easily entertained so here are my favorite YouTubers from Finland.

 

The quality and entertainment value of you tube car channels is amazing... better than most tv shows...

There are videos of Russians fixing cars that have been totaled and rolled into a ball. The work they do is amazing...

Last night watched a video of a Russian mechanic that dropped a car in a lake, left it for a year and a freezing winter. Then pulled it out, and with some hand tools got it running. Flippin amazing...

 

People wonder how the Soviets beat the US into Space.

Is this the video you are talking about? Lada

 

Just dont find any of this entertaining at all even when I did it. I dont watch TV or movies and never watched anything I did.
It's just lost time I rather do something else with

 

Yep. That was cool...