Exclusive: Texas Man Rebuilds $1.5 Million Ferrari Enzo

The forward attachment point behind the rear window is what you want to check very carefully for cracks.
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I noticed an Enzo for sale on a well-known site. With 4 days left, and no bids, you can have it for three quarters of a million dollars. It has less than 5 miles on it. I am not affiliated in any way with this car or the owner or the site.

 

A man sat at a metro station in Washington DC and started to play the violin; it was a cold January morning. He played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. During that time, since it was rush hour, it was calculated that thousand of people went through the station, most of them on their way to work.

Three minutes went by and a middle aged man noticed there was musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds and then hurried up to meet his schedule.

A minute later, the violinist received his first dollar tip: a woman threw the money in the till and without stopping continued to walk.

A few minutes later, someone leaned against the wall to listen to him, but the man looked at his watch and started to walk again. Clearly he was late for work.

The one who paid the most attention was a 3 year old boy. His mother tagged him along, hurried but the kid stopped to look at the violinist. Finally the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk turning his head all the time. This action was repeated by several other children. All the parents, without exception, forced them to move on.

In the 45 minutes the musician played, only 6 people stopped and stayed for a while About 20 gave him money but continued to walk their normal pace. He collected $32. When he finished playing and silence took over, no one noticed it. No one applauded, nor was there any recognition.

No one knew this but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the best musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written with a violin worth 3.5 million dollars.

Two days before his playing in the subway, Joshua Bell sold out at a theater in Boston and the seats average $100.

This is a real story. Joshua Bell playing incognito in the metro station was organized by the Washington Post as part of an social experiment about perception, taste and priorities of people. The outlines were: in a commonplace environment at an inappropriate hour: Do we perceive beauty? Do we stop to appreciate it? Do we recognize the talent in an unexpected context?

One of the possible conclusions from this experience could be:

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing the best music ever written, how many other things are we missing?

 

Worth it's own thread (hint, hint!). Maslow's hierarchy of needs lists beauty ... not at all. Remember that all men live lives of quiet desperation. People are often too desperate to appreciate beauty.

 

That story is quite old. I don't really understand the relevance of posting it here. So matthewsauto, are you saying your talent in restoring Enzos is just as great, and nobody is stopping to notice, except perhaps kids? Surely that's for others to judge? I don't think you should be promoting it yourself. Further, that experiment says something about choosing the appropriate location. Maybe you and your Enzo should be tearing it up on a track or attending auto shows to be truly appreciated?

 

Spot on. Somehow Matthew thinks that he can do as great a job repairing an Enzo as the factory or an actual authorized shop.
He's the one confused if he thinks that it's no big deal for the cars history to show that it was put together at a salvage yard in Texas after a significant accident.

 

Not in this case.

The cars that Bob works on are quite different than Enzo's. You can't plug an SD 3 into a P4 and learn if the car was ever mechanically over revved. You can't determine if the rotors are safe by looking at them and a P 4 rotor costs a LOT less than an Enzo rotor. The sub frames are sacrificial but if the stress transmitted to the carbon tub is too high the entire tub has to be replaced and measuring the imparted stress requires very sophisticated instruments. The Factory basically replaces the entire car, "Drives a new car onto the vin plate" as in the case of the Enzo Mike bought and discussed here. I'm not saying that this tub was overstressed, all I'm saying is a potential buyer may want to know if it was. An SD 3 will also let you know if the engine ever overheated, the gearbox ever overheated, the shocks were over stressed, the wing was over stressed, the lift failed all of which can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix and can cause catastrophic failure until they are.

 

+1

You'll always pay one heckofa price if you fail to "go ugly early " during a downturn. Price in front of the market trend, not behind it, lest you get left behind.

 

Are you sure he & his Enzo don't frequent those venues?

 

Agreed.

Because of the history of this car, its easy for the haters to pile on with silly comments. Many Ferrari dealers across the country can have the car checked out. Its really not rocket science.

As an aside, I will say that as technology progresses and electronic management becomes standard, the cars are becoming a tad complicated for many, and I shudder to think of the costs of replacement or repair of many of these electronic components in 20 years when they fail and become unobtainable. I prefer the cars from the era when less was more. The type Bob Smith likes to work on...

 

Depends on what you mean by frequent. It implies a number greater than 1 or 2. And I am not saying he didn't do that. Rather, he should be engaging in that activity rather that being on a chatboard tooting his own horn behind some irrelevant tale of unacknowledged master musicians in subway stations.

 

It actually is rocket science. Detecting fatigue in composite structures is not trivial.

 

Fair enough...

 

The idea that an Enzo is more suited for the the track is silly. It's wheelbase is too short, there's a reason the MC 12's wheelbase is longer. It doesn't have enough downforce and the downforce it has is unbalanced. It's tires aren't the latest technology, it's CCB's aren't up to the task of track use for too long and replacing pads and rotors is 30K plus, another advantage of the MC 12's iron rotors. It's shocks didn't last for an entire lap at the ring at speed without being over maxed, that's the fail light you see on the video. It's under-tired especially in the front which makes turn in not all it should be and the traction control comes on often for the rears which are also too small. It's long front overhang and road shocks allow the nose to kiss on a very hard turn that crank leans the car to the outside.

The Enzo was designed in 2003. Ferrari has learned a lot of things since then. A Challenge 430 or a Scud is a lot more fun on a track.

 

Tru dAt.

 

While I previously defended the body work and agree with what Joe Sackey posted about that, I think it is short-sighted to call the repair complete. While the party involved may have repaired it to his best that is great. But in this case, more is required. I understand matthewsauto point about Joshua Bell and ascribed status. In matthewsauto's case he views himself as just as good as the factory but without the ascribed status (clothing etc.), understandable. The work that he has done looks quality and is to be commended.

However I believe this is the best point of the thread and is the source of the contention here.

The point being that on the more complex materials and composites things are no longer as straight forward as they used to be. Superficial repairs can be just that. With a tub made of a brittle composite, failures present themselves suddenly and without warning.

Until failure, the tub may appear be fine, however the fact is impact loading causes a stress more than twice the magnitude of a gradual load of the same force! The tub will not show any signs of stress and is subject to repeated cyclic loading. Finally this is not something that should be left to chance, keep in mind the consequences of failure for the tub are dramatic to say the least.

For this reason it would be best for the tub to tested and instrumented, for a ~$1MM car why leave things up to chance? It should be closely examined especially considering that the impact wasn't a light fender bender. This is something that the factory would have to do.

 

Oh please!

 

You guys are making the same point (albeit much more eloquently!) that I was making before.....

There are probably a very few places in the world who are qualified to check out a carbon-fiber tub highly-engineered car and make a decision about whether it's up to snuff or not. And it's not like working with metal where you check for cracks or bends or such. In addition to having the right tools to actually check the car, there is the additional hurdle of knowing what you have to check. As Jim said, there are specific parts that should be checked, and I'd wager there are some high-zoot engineers at Ferrari who have a lot more in-depth commentary on what should be checked and what the relevant measurements and tolerances are than Jim posted.

The bottom line is that if the car is NOT repaired correctly, and the owner is going down the road, hits a pothole and experiences some sort of catastrophic failure, then...

A) They may get hurt, or worse
B) It's going to cost metric tons of cash to put right
C) Ferrari is going to deny any liability on a car with a "non approved" repair job, regardless of how much the repair shop insists it was repaired correctly
D) If you DO end up with a $600k repair bill and Ferrari says "sorry, not our fault - talk to the guys who repaired it", does the slightly-under-market Enzo come with liability coverage from the shop, specifically covering repairs and consequentials, in writing? I'm going to guess... no.

When you introduce an outside party to the repair job, you not only introduce a lack of equipment and knowledge compared to OEM, you also introduce the ability for finger pointing.

An Enzo repaired by Ferrari carries the implied liability on Ferrari if they didn't fix it right. An Enzo repaired by a non-OEM-approved source carries..... what? A verbal assurance that it was fixed better than factory?

Clearly the latter affects the value. By how much? Well, we're all just pissing in the wind by guessing, because the car hasn't sold, despite being offered at a discount. So clearly, it's more than the current owner (and repair shop) thinks.

That doesn't mean it wasn't fixed perfectly well. I am sure, cosmetically, it's 'as-new' or perhaps better. Structurally, I think that guarantee can only really come from Ferrari.

 

Werd

(http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=werd)

 

NASA is just down the street. You think they be able to check it out? I will make an appointment. Wait... one of my customers is an astronaut. I will call him.

As my uncle used to say: I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.

Perception.... I have much to learn in this life.

 

Good God are you guy still hammering Matt about this Enzo?

LET IT GO & MOVE ON!

 

Matt

Lets cut to the chase. How did you determine that the tub was not stressed beyond it's safe limits by the crash? If you had NASA confirm that the tub was not over stressed I'd agree that it's safe. Is that what happened? Regarding the mechanical condition of the car did you hook the car up to an SD3? What were the results of the SD3 tests? What is the remaining rotor life? What's the remaining clutch life? Did the gearbox ever over heat? Did the engine ever over heat? Did the engine ever mechanically over rev? Was there ever a lift or wing fault? Were all recalls done, especially the fan recall? On an Enzo mileage isn't as important as how was the car used. There's one up for auction soon that has only 400+ miles. It's also had it's clutch replaced. It's interesting to note that they mentioned that in the auction description. IMO that would make me ask the same questions about it's mechanical history. Carbon Fiber riding helmets are very clear about the fact that if you fall, even if there is no visible damage you should return them to the factory to be tested. IMO a carbon tub that has been in a crash should be tested as well.

 

I have lived in D.C. and used the metro. Depending on the station, one of the first things you want to do when using the DC metro is to get out of there.

Park your Enzo in SE DC and I will briefly glance at it as I quickly drive by. Park your Enzo almost anywhere else and I will get out of my car to look at it.

Not exactly a fair comparison.




I now live in Houston, very close to you, and do resto - custom - hot rod building for a living. I know of your shops reputation and firmly believe that short of a factory restoration, your shop has done the job as well as can be done.

Anyone who has not done this type of work cannot fathom the extent of research, the time involved on parts procurement, or the amount of hands-on quality control that a project of this entails. Not to mention the expertise of the actuall crew involved.

Think Corvette NCRS types. Everything about every Corvette ever built can be judged or documented. If done in a way that everything can be "documented", it adds value.


Although I can neither afford, nor want an Enzo, I can only assume that anything short of a factory rebuild is unable to be "documented" and therefore does not add value and possibly detracts from the actual value to potential buyers.

Were it someone else who wrecked the car, there might be a percieved "star value" that could be worth additional moneys. Alas, it was just E.G.



I will for offer my proffessional opinion of the repair and performance of the vehicle following your offer to let me ride shotgun on the day of your chosing.


I personally think that you did an outstanding job. This talk of stress on the tub makes me wonder just how many people who can afford these cars drive them to limits that they would experience a failure in this area? A pothole? Give me a break! Most guys who restore/rebuild cars for a living "overbuild" them better than the factory ever did.

If you need an Enzo to drive at the absolute limits, this may not be the car for you.

If you want an Enzo to drive fast and look like a million, this may be the car for you.


Mark