Daytona Plexiglass

It was suggested that i move this conversation here instead of the Daytona area. I am looking at a 1970 Daytona with a plexiglass nose and was asking the pros and cons of the car. As usual people either love it, hate or have some smart remark?????????????????
What i was trying to ascertain is what they are worth since you don't find many around. The car has had a complete restoration about 9000K miles ago; RED on TAN with BLK inserts. All of the original tools and books are there; 9" optional rear wheels and she is not wearing wires. I would say it is probably a strong #2

THX
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I wait for being contradicted but 9 inches wheels were never an option for plexi Daytonas..most if not all of them also had a wooden steering wheels, at the time,,��

 

Chassis number of the car you are looking at?
And yes, no 9" rear wheels please and it must have a wooden steering wheel.

Marcel Massini

 

Interesting about the wooden steering wheel, there are two fairly early model plexi Daytona's in SA, both are original car and neither has a wooden steering wheels.

Any idea as to when there was a change over to leather?

 

Mr. Afromsky,

Please forgive me if this come across as yet another useless "smart remark?????????????", but I'm just trying to offer some advise based on limited (dozen or so examples within past 10+ years and two currently in my shop) experience with this particular Ferrari model and some times I probably come across bit more abrasively than I need to.

In general consensus, I believe, most Daytonas recently available/for sale have been trading or had asking prices averaging between $400K to 800K (or so).
Market guide in August/September 2014 issue (#202) of Cavallino (magazine) suggests Daytona Coupe values between $500K and $850K, but it all REALLY depends on individual car, condition and level/quality of its "restoration".
Some might be just freshly painted and upholstered with little cleaning/detailing and replacement of few parts here and there around the chassis and/or engine bay, while others have been completely disassembled and most, if not all, of their 100.000+ parts and components thoroughly rebuilt/reconditioned/refurbished to like new condition or replaced with as good or better quality items.
Both approaches are (unfortunately, way too) often referred as "complete restoration", but obviously there should be a noticeable difference.
You also state "... restoration about 9000 miles ago". Was that within last couple of years or two decades ago ? If latter, how well has it been maintained/serviced and/or has it been "exercised"regularly after that ?

And with all due respect, would you care to clarify what exactly do you seek with "...pros and cons..." ?

Without further details, including in-depth documentation of the "complete restoration" and/or thorough inspection of the car in question I can't see how much better value estimate anyone could provide.

Additionally, I believe most of my above ramblings could apply to MOST collectible/hobby/vintage cars, regardless of make, model or year.

 

The wooden steering wheel is a MOMO, 40cm wheel. I have both types and can post pics for reference should you require them.

 

The wood wheel is present. This is what i received from the person and the pictures:
1970
Serial # 1363X
Red with beige leather
All matching numbers
only 9.000 km drove after complete restoration
"9"inches rear wheels ( optionals)
All books and tools,
3 owners
I am trying to pry the information out but it is coming very slowly.
What i wanted to know is this car worth more or less than a none Plexi Car??
I personally don't see a difference but i would rather have opinions from more qualified people.

 

I am confused as well.
Clearly you are not wanting a concours car as you say it's condition 2.
So 9 inch wire wheels will work fine, in fact I would say more cars now have 9 inch rears than not.
Most plexi cars do have wooden steering wheels but not all.

I know of one car that has just been restored and they change the leather wheel for wood! The early leather MoMo wheels, had MoMo stamped on the back of the bottom spoke in a square pattern.

back to the question.
A plexi car will be a euro car so it might breath a little better than a USA car with smog equipment. Driving an early car would be much the same as a later car. As far as i am aware plexi cars are not more unreliable than later cars.

Condition and maintenance and use are the three most important factors. If it has not been driven much that's worse than being driven a lot.

9000 miles means nothing really as Timo says you need to get a PPI done. My car needed an engine rebuild around 9000 miles when it was only four years old. The owner at the time told me in a letter that it was because he had not used it!

 

If anyone knows of a great driver in a #2 condition can they please let me know?

 

Just read your post above.
If you had two cars in the same condition, colour etc, the plexi would generally sell for a little more because its rarer.

 

There were a little over 400 plexis made and some have been converted to pop-ups after accident repair. So they are relatively rare and even more so in the United States.
Very early plexis only initially came with wood steering wheels, but around 1363X they had long been equipped with wood or leather. (My 13547 came with the MOMO leather wheel.) The switch to leather was intelligent because during heavy, low-speed steering the extra frictional grip of the leather is very helpful. (That’s why many drivers of cars with wood steering wheels use leather gloves.) The wood wheel may look more “vintage”, but it is not ergonomic on a Daytona.
Visit the “originality” page of The Daytona Registry for info on steering wheels and many other things:

DaytonaRegistry.com - Originality

And wouldn’t fuss about 9” rear wheels. If you prefer 7” rims, they’re cheap and readily available.
Hope this helps.

 

Thank you for the information. I am beginning to understand the issue much better now, and it appears it really doesn't matter whether it's Plexi or not.

 

Additionally, many other aforementioned individual details, like steering or road wheels, presence of manual/tools, etc. or how many previous owners (unless perhaps only 1 or 2 or celebrity) should have very little, if any effect on value when compared to overall condition, maintenance and/or restoration documentation/records, especially when such relatively simple details are quite easy/inexpensive to change, if so desired.

 

I wish i had as many answers as you have questions.

 

In my mind, plexi are a little bit more desirable not because they are just rarer, but because this was the original design of Leonardo Fioravanti. I had a chance of having diner next to him in Maranello during the Daytona tour, celebrating the 40 th anniversary of the car, with my then Daytona plexi, and it was very clear that the plexi was what he had in mind when he designed the car, and the opening lights were an after thought.
So if you want the original deign and/ or this feeling makes anything to you, go for this one. Having said that, most if not all the plexi come without the head rest on top of the seats, and the maintenance of the plexi as well as quality of lighting for night driving, specially when raining, is more problematic. But may be you do not intend to drive at night under rain,,,

 

inspect a plexi nose in person. the trim and hardware used in the design is on par of a kit car. not well executed when compared to the artistic, delicate chrome used on the 275.

 

Serial #1363X ?
13631 and 13633 are 365 GT 2+2's, 13635 is a Daytona in Italy, 13637 is a Daytona converted into a Spider.
I assume you are talking about 13639 then.
13639 was completed 18 July 1970, assembly #254.
Originally painted Marrone Colorado 106-M-73 with Beige VM 3309 leather interior.
Sold new to Gustavo Lombardi in Italy.

Marcel Massini

 

Personally I really like the plexi look over the pop-ups....so cool, streamlined, unusal and now that we have that bit of info re "original designer intent", more so !

Jack

 

Marcel-- do you know what happened to Daytona 12961? I looked at it back in 2004, and should have bought it, but of course didn't... I always wondered what happened to it.

It was a decent, honest driver back in 2004...

 

Which brings us to the famous story of the Daytona prototypes , MM will tell us the chassis numbers and there was a thread on them recently , I think there are 2 cars. Story goes they were the missing links between 275 GTB/4 and the Daytona as they look half way between them.
L.Fioravanti's story is very different. He penned the Daytona immediately but when they were testing the car they did not want to hurt the sales of the GTB/4 , which was released a year earlier and create problems in the relationship with Ferrari. So the prototypes were not an evolution between the GTB/4 and the Daytona, they were actually a muleto designed to hide the reality of the Daytona so if you see them quickly on the road being tested you would assume it was a 275 and not a new car. But the new shape, with the plexi nose, was already designed by that time.

 

I am not crazy about Daytona to start with. Too square. To boxy. When you see a 275 GTB or a 250 series car with the round curves- a Daytona is hard to fall in love with. If sometime forced me though I would chose a plexi version. Here I saw a beautiful one at Concors in London. The color was light blue/silver- it was to die for (sort of).

I have to admit a Daytona is a muscaline car. No doubt about it.
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^ notice the front corners of the engine hood have been rounded. should be sharp corners. this was done to prevent cracking of the paint.
plexinoses always look good in photos, not as nice in person as the plixi trim is very kit car like.

 

I'd like to clarify something in above statement.
Rounding the corners of the hood is just necessary side effect for rounding the adjacent corners where front panel meets front fenders. These "outer" corners in their original "sharp" format and construction methods are commonly affected by metal fatigue (= cracking), which is created by slight body-flex during use of the car. This "rounding" is one effort sometimes performed during major re-paint or restoration of a Daytona to help prevent aforementioned metal fatigue reoccurring. There are other ways this can be done. The hood itself is not commonly known for cracking due to metal fatigue.

 

Plus the front bumpers are in the wrong place, maybe the client wanted it like this, as it has just had a major rebuild.

 

Bumpers were moved more outward only later cars. The light blue car's bumpers look correct for a plexi.
The thing that sticks out on the light blue car are the 10 unoriginal silver screws attaching the plexi panel (they should be black) and the black windshield wipers (which are correct for later cars, but plexi cars originally had silver wipers and arms).
Here is another...
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