My new 355..

There were two different kinds of rear bumpers for the F355's. One with slots and one version without. US cars were fitted with the versions with the slots. Canadian cars (like mine), required a stronger bumper due to national standards at the time, and therefore the version without the slots was fitted on Canadian spec cars. I can only assume that bumpers without the slots are the strengthened versions that provide compliance above the US 2.5mph requirement. I have heard that the strengthened version is about 10lbs heavier than the "slotted" bumper.

 

Ah! Well that explains mine... It's a Canadian car...

 

I don't think so. My 05 US spec car has no slots.

 

I've seen a lot of US F355's while shopping for mine. All the ones that I looked at and even the US cars my friends have recently bought have the slots. It didn't matter whether it was a '95, or a '96 through to '99. GTB, GTS, or spider, again, it didn't matter. US Fiorano Editions had them as well. In Canada, there was a big controversy over the bumpers when importing a US version. You had to have the upgraded bumpers in order to import a US car and after a while they became unavailable. That kept US F355's inadmissible for years. A visual cue for the upgraded bumper was the lack of slots.

I cannot explain why your US cars don't have them. It does appear that some US cars were delivered without the slots. Perhaps the factory ran out of the US spec ones while assembling your cars. Who knows. If you have any explanations, please enlighten me.

 

I can't figure it out. Of the three 1995 cars currently on ebay, 2 of them do not have slots and only one does (the light blue one discussed in another thread).

They are all US spec cars.

Daniel, can you help us out with this?

 

wow thats a beauty

 

Very nice and best of luck with it.

 

My Euro 1998 GTS has "slots".
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

What I can't believe is that this slot business has gone unnoticed for so long. SCANDAL, I say...

Sorry for taking the thread OT, let's get back to talking about how beautiful this car is!! Damn, it might be the only color combo I would consider swapping for. Maybe it's because the first F I drove so long ago was a 360 coupe with these colors. Nice car, congrats.

 

I started looking for a good black and tan 355 three years ago but there are only three manual gtbs in the uk and the only one I fouind was in awful condition. I love black and tan and same like you only colour combo I would swap for! Lol

What's funny is that I found an even rarer colour combo!

 

My F355 is a 1997 build date: Dicember 1996 and has no slots (yes ..... December was spelled with an i on my ID plate ...... ).......... I have been trying to make sense of this myself for some time .......... .............. maybe this is reason for a new thread to get to the bottom of this.

BTW to the OP ............. congratulations on the beautiful 355 ...........

 

Beautiful exterior color. I'm not loving the purple interior though.

 

Screw any haters, your car is beautiful.

I LOVE the interior. Red and tan is so boring.

 

95 Spider = No Slats

I actually considered putting a mesh grill in there.... I didnt even know they came with the slats like that.
Pretty cool
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

yours is a kit car...if you had built it using a 88 Fiero GT chassis you would have slots

 

............

 

I was going to say the same thing, but could not be that harsh...I am thinking its a euro thing...

 

Hey Goth what is your chassis assembly #? mine s a 97 with a december 96 build and it has the slots in rear bimper

 

Oh my God...very beautiful.