The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

If we are talking hypotheticals, I don't think it's a stretch that Piper was only allowed to to build and sell these P4's as Pipers and not as Ferraris. A guess would be that would go against the deal he made with Enzo to produce the one he was given permission to make.

 

There was no deal between Enzo Ferrari and David Piper regarding making P4s and no permission was ever given to him by Ferrari to make any P4s at all. Not even one. There is no Ferrari P4 with chassis number 0900.

 

Interesting Steve. I wouldnlt disagree with later Piper P4s and I don't think Piper ever claimed those to be authorised. But what proof do you have on the provenance of 0900 which I think is the only one for which Piper claims Enzo gave approval, if not actually authorising.

 

I have it in writing from Ferrari themselves.

 

Ha - what do they know!! Who knows what Enzo said to Piper who had a close relationship with Enzo. Of course they will deny everything. Only Enzo, not now possible, and Piper, who won't tell, know the real truth. All else is conjecture.

However - 0900 is a truly wonderful car and is no different to the whatever you might call the real thing. It has been wonderful to see it raced properly over the years rather than mothballed.

 

So the person who signed such statement was "in the room" every time Mr. Ferrari & Mr. Piper met/talked ?

Exactly.
Besides, hasn't it been long and well established Ferrari (the company) having made/published countless erroneous claims/statements regarding the history of their decades old products.

But none of this will stop others continue conjecturing and inadvertently prove their own conformation bias and inexperience on this subject.

 

Are we allowed to see such proof? Or, FYEO?

Regards, Alberto

 

Ferrari know a great deal about their own business. The particular person I was dealing with certainly does. It's ridiculous to say Ha - what do they know!!

Of course Enzo Ferrari knew David Piper having bought a number of significant cars cars from him through Ronnie Hoare of Maranello Concessionaires but I've never heard before that they had a close relationship. If Ferrari built Piper's P4 why would they deny it?

When I asked Ferrari about this particular P4 of David Piper they did a thorough investigation of all Ferrari Classiche technical archives which contains information about every chassis manufactured and sold by Ferrari. On the basis of the search of the vehicle depicted in the photographs I sent i.e chassis number 0900 of a Ferrari 330 P4 they confirmed it has never been manufactured or sold. They stated that it was built without authorisation by Ferrari using parts obtained by various means that were assembled outside the official network and has never taken part in any Ferrari Racing activities.

Ferrari confirmed that on the 12th September, 1997 David Piper sent a fax to then Chairman and CEO Luca di Montizemolo requesting the recognition of a Ferrari 330 P4 type vehicle bearing chassis number 0900, a request that had already been submitted to SAT by Angelo Amadesi in order to register the vehicle for the Historic Challenge in April of 1997. The request was denied.

On the basis of the authenticity requirements adopted by Ferrari they confirmed that the aforementioned Chassis 0900 is not original and is ineligible for Ferrari Classiche Certification.

Yes, Piper (not Ferrari) number 0900 is a wonderful car and it cannot be denied that it does contain many genuine Ferrari parts including the spare Ferrari number 0858 350 Can Am engine, the Tipo 603R transaxle and 4 suspension corners as well as the discarded body from 330 P4 0860. However the chassis, the centre of the car that holds everything together was not built by Ferrari or their instructed manufacturer of chassis Vaccari and Bosi and neither were any of the parts united by Ferrari to build an actual car. It is not a Ferrari.

 

Well, Piper lived in Modena for a period. Enzo referred to him as "Our Piper". So I think there was a relationship, thoughb who indeed had a "close" relationship with Enzo - my bad word. Indeed I interviewed Piper for a Thames Valley FOC "Evening with David Piper" some 14 or so years and he and his wife Liz recounted they visited Enxo in Maranello and were warmly greeted and taken to lunch and Liz was showered with gifts .

Piper has never claimed that Ferrari had anything directly to do with building the car, other than that he used Ferrari parts supplied by Ferrari However he has said that Ferrai supplied him chassis diagrams and that he had the chassis built by the same company that made the original P4 chassis. So of course it would not show up in Ferrari records. You are right that it is technically it is not a Ferrari in that it was not built by Ferrari. I wasn't disputing that. But I would contend that Enzo smiled on it. But only Piper will know the truth of that, most of the others involved no longer being with us

 

A perfect description of yourself. Zero research, contributes nothing whatsoever except unjustified derogatory remarks/attacks and absolutely clueless.

 

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/the-piper-p4-0900-just-what-is-it.439633/page-4

See posts 91 and 92.

 

Piper does claim that Ferrari made the chassis, at the factory, and built the car.

The story has changed over the years from it being stated in an obscure 1979 Old Motor article written by Doug Nye that David wanted to make a P4 with the spares he had available from the purchase of P4/350 Can Am #0858 and the nose, tail and doors from P4 #0860 supplied by Tom Meade for which he needed a chassis, but Ferrari were too busy to make him one so Enzo Ferrari is stated to have given him the P4 drawings from which David spent the previous 4 to 5 years from the 1979 article building the car himself and also said to have been given the number 0900 by Ferrari.

Around 1988 the car was offered for sale at auction for which Doug Nye also wrote the description, but there is no mention at all of the car having chassis number 0900, and is only referred to as DP2. It was being auctioned alongside P4 replica Piper DP3, the subject of this 20 + year thread, the chassis/bodywork of which was built by Mario Allegretti and Silvano Cantelli. The chassis in the description of DP2 was stated to have been built by Manicardi e Mesuri, Ferrari's chassis maker. But it was Vaccari & Bosi that built the P4 chassis. Nobody has ever heard of Manicardi e Mesuri chassis makers.

A few years ago David personally stated in the Talacrest video below, that Ferrari actually built the chassis and the car using the spares he had which was overseen by ex F1 and Sports Ferrari Racing Driver and Engineer Mike Parkes, who was said to have been working at the Ferrari Factory at that time. Parkes actually left Ferrari in the late 1960s who went on to work for Scuderia Filipinetti and then to Lancia but was very sadly killed in a road accident in 1977. Again it's stated, here by Piper himself, that Ferrari gave the car chassis number 0900 as well as the P4 drawings to him. Ing. Mauro Forghieri stated to me in writing that it was preposterous that Ferrari would give away or sell the P4 drawings. I have been told that the P4 drawings, including those for the chassis, were actually loaned to him by Diena & Silingardi, Sport Auto, not Ferrari. You can see and hear for yourself what he states below:



Being a fan of the Ferrari Racing Prototypes of this era, as well as David Piper, I decided to get the real facts of the situation because the story had changed again, and I so wanted the story to be true, especially as he also stated in the video that they had found all the details in the Old Man's office re the build of his P4, so I sent the above video along with a number of pictures of the car to Ferrari with pictures of the chassis and engine number tag, as posted by @Marcel Massini, where they conducted a thorough investigation regarding whether the Piper P4 was in fact a car that was built and put together by Ferrari with a chassis made by Ferrari, the results of which I posted here.

 

Face it Timo, you are straight from 'Monty Python'...

And I quote:
The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

 

...and Piper raced those significant Ferraris quite successfully too and still owns at least a couple of them and many bits of a few others today.

 

"If some of the remaining components such as engine and gearbox were considered as possible spare parts, the chassis, because of its racing history and the fire damages suffered, was definitively scrapped." From the letter from Umberto Masoni of Ferrari to Mr Glickenhaus.

The engine and transaxle in Piper 0900/DP2 are quite possibly from the remains of 0846 bored out to 350 Can AM spec. The Tipo 247 4.2 litre Can Am engines were bored out Tipo 237 4.0 litre P4 engines as confirmed by Ing. Forghieri. No other spare engine from these cars has surfaced or is claimed to exist.

We know that the engine in DP3 (JG's P4 0846 fake) is a 3 litre 312 F1 engine, not a P4 engine at all as JG states and the transaxle in that car is a John Hajduk copy made and copied from 0854 and some of the internal parts from a 512S.

 

Or, as the Tipo 247 engines and 603R transaxles in P4/350 Can Ams 0858 and 0860 were being rebuilt during their racing period, the bored out engine/transaxle from 0846 could have gone in either of those 2 cars and a primary engine/transaxles from 0858 or 0860 could have ended up as the spares that Piper bought from Paul Hawkins' estate used in his P4 number 0900/DP2. All speculation of course but possible imo.

None of this makes Piper P4 0900/DP2 any more or any less genuine or more a Ferrari as there is no question that the engine/transaxle in the car are 100% authentic Ferrari units. It's just interesting which of the P4s/350 Can Ams these frive train units originate from and were used in.

 

Thanks for all the info Steve

 

Whatever the whole story might be, and I doubt any of us will ever get to know that definitively, I can only say that 0900 or whatever you want to call it has been driven in way more races than any other definitive P4 and has given immense pleasure to me and many other and for that I thank David Piper.

Many of those races were during the lifetime of Enzo who didn't seem to object!

 

You are welcome, Francis. Did you see my post #11212 here?

 

Yes I did

 

But we do now know definitively the only relevant and important parts of the whole story:

• That Ferrari or their chassis makers Vaccari & Bosi did not build the Piper P4 chassis.
• Ferrari did not build/unite the genuine Ferrari parts into a car.
• It is not Ferrari's chassis #0900.

 

updated http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/detail/0846.330p3.htm

 

good research.