Air horns

Once in a while, I see the trumpets on a Ferrari air horn in some color that I had never seen before. Of course the owners invariably claim it's an original color. The complication is that there are, I believe, at least three manufacturers of these horns. Has anyone made a study of these horns? What colors were used, and by which maker?

 

Ah Ed, do you ever look at Tom Yangs page? There was a fantastic thread on air horns with amazing pictures from air horn factory production lines etc. I think if you do a search over there it will come up, though it was many years ago.

 

I have refurbished a few of these Horns and colour matching the Red Candy was always an issue, I have used a company called Kustom Kanz candy red, its a 3 stage paint process and really does stand out but i have to admit its too candy when using silver flake !I have tried a few candy reds but still cant find a great match If anyone knows a really accurate paint brand for the candy red horns I would love to know !
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No idea on the original paint codes from FIAMM.

I used Dupli-Color MC200 Red Metal Cast Anodized after reading about the restoration of 4879 GT

It's a little darker and maybe less flakey than the Kustom Kanz example shown above.

A big can, so I still have enough for another 100 horn sets !

 

I put air horns on my late wife's Spitfire. What a hoot.

 

lately i have seen a 330 GTC car that had the horns silver hammertone color vs candy red.

any thoughts on this?

 

One of the issues I see during horn restorations is that people try to use red metallic paint in order to replicate a finish that was never metallic paint in the first place. Original Fiamm air horns received a clear red finish (almost like a varnish) over the silver cast aluminum. As such when you look at the horns you are seeing the underlying silver of the horns shining through the semi-transparent red coating over it. When you use metallic paint the sparkle of the finish comes from the metallic flake in the paint so the horns never look as uniform as the way Fiamm did them. This problem is made worse with the complex curves on the horn making painted horns look even more incorrect. I had the fortune of coming across a small number of NOS horns stashed away in a garage in rural Italy and if you look at the original finish it is TERRIBLE and the thinnest coat of colour they could get away with.

If you want to restore your horns to a high standard here is a link outlining the process I used. The result is perfect and perhaps too perfect as the finished horns never would have come out of Fiamm looking that nice. Then again with most Ferrari restoration items the result is better than original.

Dino 246 Restoration Blog: Giving Dino a voice. The horn restoration

Here are also some more pics of the horns installed:

http://dino246blog.blogspot.ca/2013/10/beauty-resides-below-battery-and-horn.html

 

The FIAMM horn color, while essentially a transparent red, has a very slight purple tint, if you look an original untouched horn through the later 1960s. Indeed it is not metallic and was applied over a polished metal base. But the color is not so candy red.

 

Here are 2 photos of my horns after restoring with Dupli-Color MC200, followed by a photo of an NOS set from eBay (Ferrari Dino 246 365 BB Daytona Lamborghini Miura Maserati Fiamm Horns Set | eBay). The eBay set is the Serie 2000 model and looks to me like it is slightly newer than what came on the Dinos, but I suspect the factory horn color is representative of the earlier horns. The second photo is from tuning the pitch of each horn using an iPhone piano tuner app (do not attempt without earplugs!).
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Does anyone know if the red tubing starts life semi-translucent or completely opaque?

Also, the electrical spade connectors shown in the picture, does anyone know a good source for these?

Thank you.

john

 

My guess is that the tubing varied depending on when the horns were produced and/or what tubing was available to Fiamm at any given time. I'm pretty sure my hoses are original and they are opaque red (although they do look ever so slightly transparent in some photos). The NOS tubes from the eBay listing in the prior post also appear to be opaque, but the tubes in this listing for an older set of horns appear translucent and have Pirelli stamped on them -> Ferrari 250 275 Lamborghini Miura Maserati Mexico Fiamm Roadmaster Horns Set | eBay

 

Gee, almost any auto parts place has spade connectors.

Often, they only have ones that have molded insulation around them. But this is
not hard to remove with a little cutting wheel on a Dremel

 

Lowell, the spades in the picture have clamps that grab the wire. The hardware store ones do not look like these.

Peter, thanks. If yours looks somewhat translucent today, it's possible that it started life even more clear.

john

 

Hi John: I believe the terminals you are referring to are known as F type. Sometimes the electronic supply stores have them. Bob

 

Good to know, thanks Bob.

john

 

Trying to sift through the minutia, but no-one seems to answer the question: What colors, beside the red, were used, if any? I don't recall any of mine being anything but red, but I see them all sorts of colors now.

 

I don't think there were any other colors except for the candy red over metal for the early (Dino and before) cars. Fiamm still makes air horns and have been making them continuously over the years, but the look of them seems to have changed constantly throughout the years of production. The newer ones (since somewhere around the 70's) usually have blue or red plastic horns. If seems like the best way to date the various horns is to look at the bases where the trumpets mount. The oldest ones are rounded metal, then they had more angular and ridged metal bases, then partial or full plastic bases. I suspect the solid red and solid blue horns that are sometimes seen on vintage cars are non-period retrofits.

I think the Pantera used all metal Fiamm's with what looks like candy blue over metal trumpets, but I don't think I've seen any of those on Ferraris. There are just my observations. I'm not an expert, so I'm happy to be corrected if wrong.

 

At the italian concourso show this yr, Tom Yang had an unrestored GTC car there - and it had silver horns....surprised me!

I also thought all of them were to be red?

 

Its difficult with the different light conditions (pic 1 in sunlight) but the colour in pic 2 matches well with the originals in pic 3. I think MC200 works because it is meant to mock an anodized finish rather than a flake. Co incidentally I think this looks close enough to the original. Close enough for me, but not perfect. As mentioned above I'm sure the originals were badly and cheaply painted, most modern restorations are probably done too well.

 

Going back to the photo from the Fiamm Factory in the 4th post of this thread, if you look to the right you will see that they are producing a batch of Silver horns at the same time as the red...
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Thanks, guys. At the FCA annual meet in Palm Springs a few years back, there was a black S.II Cabriolet, shown by a well-known dealer, who swore that his black horn trumpets were correct. That, and a few others, prompted my question.

 

Interesting, I've never seen any that were silver. Fiamm does make some stainless horns for marine use, but the marine horns are a lot longer.

I briefly thought the assembly line photo might just be showing the horns before they were coated in red, but it wouldn't make much sense to assemble the horns before painting, so they it seems like the horns on the right must be painted silver. Would love to see pics of silver horns if anybody has them.

 

Just to confuse the issue a bit more, in the 70s I bought a set of Fiamm musical horns (3 trumpets) which were painted blue.. Two of these found their way on to my GTC at a time when I could not source other replacements.

Does anyone else remember the simple press ad of the time? 'Remember, Ferrari fit Fiamm'.

It didn't say anthing else - and didn't need to!

 

Appeared to have been made in various colors.
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