Proper Badging Placement Dino 308 GT4

if its a 75 remove it. That was dealer installed. . But youll have 2 holes in the rear panel.

 

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So, that one is in the wrong place per the Tech Bulleti sketch.

 

Not wanting to a debate that turns into a “ oil thread “ row , mine is a Italian 208 77.
The number plate ( image shows a U.K. registered) fills that middle space of the rear panel.
There is no filler behind it, just a pair of plate fixing holes .
The horse is like them all twin bolted on through I assume factory drilled holes at manufacture.

Also the deck badge is “ Ferrari “ .Again no previous owner filler from switching out a 208GT4 badge to Ferrari- assuming the screw holes don’t sync ? .

The bulletin is really for the ( we all know the back story ) era 75/76 in the states .

I suspect back home in Marenello there were various badge whims and minor changes, some customer requests .Some market sensitive over the modal build period 74/75 to 80;

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Just when you recovered from the rear badging headache let’s move to the front .
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Mine has a front panel like this ^^^ .Underneath i can see bondo filler protruding from those two badge screw holes .
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Yet the car a 77 ( allegedly) has a Ferrari nose badge ,
Wheel centre caps and steering horn button are all “ Dino” ……although easy to switch either way .

Further confusion is the Italian and thus transferred to U.K. documentation state it’s a January 77 registered car in Italy .Yet the chassis number 13594 according to those guys who follow numbers( using factory info ) etc say it’s a 78 car built in June that year .They are pretty insistent on this number sequence thingy even though it’s Italian docs predate this .

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Conclusion.Like oil there is no right answer definitively of the correct badging ( oil )

 

No holes because the horse was not installed where Ferrari issued the tsb.

 

Yes US cars

 

My U.S. market ‘75 has the horse but I have no idea if it was delivered new with it, dealer installed, owner installed, etc.

 

Absostone - I doubt very much your car #13594 was built in June 1978 as my car #14302 was (and this is from renowned expert Marcel Massini who gave me the exact date it left the factory) is a July 78 build.

I expect Marcel would give you build date for your car if you ask him.

 

09966

 

My car #13834 was built in October 1977 as a 1977 model year US spec car and came from the factory badged as a Ferrari. The prancing horse is in the number plate area as per post #3 but being a US spec car there is room for the horsey beside a US size plate. A UK plate would cover the badge if positioned in the diagram that absostone posted which is part of the factory re-badging directive for US spec cars that were made previous to the factory change over to Ferrari badging.

A casual look at some Euro market GT4s shows the horsey next to the light per post #1 which would be the incorrect position for either the re-badge campaign or from the factory badging for later US spec cars. The photo shows a US rear bumper and since no one would convert a Euro car to US bumpers one would conclude that his horsey is in the wrong place although if it was my car I wouldn't go to the trouble and expense of moving it.

Perhaps some Euro car owners could comment on how the European market cars came from the factory with the badging switching from Dino to Ferrari. It's worth reminding everyone that this whole badge switch was instigated by US Ferrari dealers and importers for US spec cars as we had no "Ferrari" badged cars available for sale here of any model. Dealers and owners in other markets jumped on the bandwagon.

 

plenty of room next to a US plate for the horsey

 

Getting confused at to which car is which.

 

That makes two of us

 

I went through all this when I was getting my car repainted (1975 US model) and decided to go back to Dino badges.

The reality for a 1975 US car is that there is no right or wrong way the car should be badged. I'll explain…

If you look under the nose of your car and there's a horizontal rectangular inset, then your car left the factory badged as a Dino. There is a correct way to badge a Dino, but in this case that's no horse on the car. Anywhere.

If you want to keep badged as a Ferrari, then you're pretty free to do what you want with it. Yes, a TSB was sent out on July 1, 1975, noting proper placement/replacement of badges. The horse, specifically part 102402, was to go to the right of the license plate. The Ferrari nose badge was to placed above the Dino nose badge (so it would have both Dino and Ferrari nose badges), horn button should be swapped, wheel center caps should be swapped out, and that was "officially" how it should be badged.

ALMOST NO ONE DID THAT.

Most dealers removed the Dino nose badge, filled it in, and slapped on a Ferrari nose badge. Most dealers put a horse on the back, but they did that with whatever stock they had available and on wherever they felt like putting it. Some dealers added the "Ferrari" text badge over the Dino 308GT4 badge on the trunk (or even replaced it). Often times the ignored the horn button and wheel center caps, or sometimes only did some of those.

Keep in mind, too, that these badges were made available to customers so they could either do it themselves or have the dealer do it for them—and any customer may have wanted something completely different done with badging.

So, for 1975 US cars in particular, there's no "correct" Ferrari badging as every dealer and customer likely did it differently. To throw gas on the flame, they didn't even leave the factory consistently badged either. I know at least four folks with 1975 US cars that don't even have the horizontal inset indicating it was once badged a Dino (and their cars were all manufactured prior to July, 1975).

This why judges have a hard time at concours events with 1975 US cars. Mine was judged this year (won Silver), but should have been higher as they were incorrect on three things (and I proved that to them after the fact).

Correct badging for any 1975 US car is seriously a case-by-case basis, and then you'll usually have the conundrum of deciding "do I want it badged as it left the factory, or as it left the dealer," because those will most likely be two completely different things.

 

My #13948 was build in October 24, 1977 - Information from Mr. Massini.

 

My #13834 was build in October 21, 1977 per my Heritage Certificate, the one they used to send out for free. Those Italians must have been really hard workers. Looking at a 1977 calendar the 21st is a Friday and the 24th is the following Monday, maybe some Ferrari elves came in and built almost 60 cars over the weekend. As with most things Ferrari the "build date" is probably more of a suggestion, the date the paperwork is completed, the date the car was moved to the storage lot, the date shipped? The Heritage Certificate for my Triumph TR4a lists the completed date and the date shipped from the factory, also the name of the ship that brought it across the pond and the receiving dealer. Then again the British are much better at historical records, almost to a fault.

 

The Brits are the world’s archivists.