308 Chassis/Frame.

There are a lot of parts missing

 

Its a GTB and we would have been well served if the center section had better torsional and flexion rigidity.

Flexion wasn't too bad but torsionally they were too rubbery. Better than some but not as good as it could have been.

 

What is the visual tip off it's a B?

 

Side tubes are deeper to compensate for the structural loss of the roof.

 

Some 308GTS chassis pics that someone posted before -- note the very tall rectangular tubes running along the inside of the bottom of the door openings that Brian mentioned (without a roof, it's still a flexible flyer):
Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

I'd go with the same reason that all car manufacturers have different chassis for convertibles and non-convertibles of the same model -- no reason to add cost to the non-convertible chassis since it's already much stiffer with a roof than the convertible chassis.

 

As said by Brian...the visual clue when climbing into the car are the door sills of the GTS which are higher, they make a kind of hump above the said additional tube.

Rgds

 

Don't follow you here. The B chassis without a roof would hardly be stiff enough to not fold in half under its own weight. If you mean that they could've planned ahead and designed a chassis for the B that would work for an S, they already had experience with 246GT and 246GTS so it wasn't like they didn't know about this issue -- they just made the same choice (to make them different).

 

Over the years, as far as I have seen, Ferrari introduced the Berliner TA before the spider/targa versions. The traditions continue with the SF90 and now the 296.

 

And it was improved by the 308. By the standards of the day is was considered good. As I said better than some. With modern tires it is far more noticeable today and with our experience with modern chassis of aluminum and cabon fiber they seem quite flexible but in 1977 with XWX's we were pretty satisfied with them. I mean it was a street car, a production sports car. Ferrari wasn't aiming for "Perfect at any cost".

Drive a 355 then drive a 360. Back to back models and chassis stiffness is as different as night and day. The 308 was what, 8 model evolution's ago?

 

Do you have shots from the side, front and back?