David Piper restores the Talacrest P4

This whole thing has become REALLY boring :-(

 

Almost tawdry.

It's not like anything new is being added. Just same stuff back and forth with increasing acrimony.

 

Yes!

 

You have provided no evidence, never have and probably never will.

You have made claims, then claimed them as somebody else's and completely ignored the links I provided to you that disprove your claim that all images show 0858 at a Talacrest shop. That claim simply isn't true.

Thankfully I held no hope of you coming up with anything and you haven't disappointed. In terms of your claim regarding Enzo:

'E.F. gave Piper full rein of controle of the future of the P4 cars and that's what he is doing.As I have said previously if you don't agree don't blame D P. E.F. passed the ball to Piper and said run with it.' Tongascrew

Feel free to re-read Ney's excellent retort to you claim on page 83, post 1648.

 

Interesting to see that most of the argumentative and opinionated posters seem to hide behind absolute anonymity, disclosing nothing whatsoever in their profiles........

 

By their posts you shall know them.

There are all sorts of reasons for anonymity. We'd lose a lot more than we'd gain by forcing full disclosure. But your point is taken.

 

Everyone can have an opinion on this issue and I have no complaints about Ney's. As far as we know there is only one person still around who was in the room with D.P and E.F and David has stayed out of the fray going on here. His wife apparently is working on a biography which may answer some of the questions, still probably just from one point of view. It seems to me that when someone gives something he has created and owns to another with no preconditions,that are known, and gives an official build #0900 to create a reproduction/replica it indicates that this someone wants no further involvement of any kind with this particular something.I doubt this would happen today and E.F may, after the fact, have wished he had put conditions on the deal. I can understand E.F. may not have been to happy when David built two more repros and used build numbers based on 0900. I have not gotten to look into Franco Gozzi's book or others of the time to look into this but suffice it to say with an arrangement like this one can understand that D.P.could assumed he had a free hand to do what he wished. Remember D.P was already a very good customer of S.F. at the time and had been very successful campaigning several of their cars as an independent. Again these are my opinions and I welcome those of others. tongascrew

 

This is wonderful news. May there be more like it. I also agree that over restoration is rampart. There is enough research available to get a good idea of how a particular s/n originally looked and was built. Let the restoration reflect this. tongascrw

 

The question remains do you believe Enzo gave what he gave to Piper to aid him in racing what he had and what they had agreed upon or the 'free hand' to build two more and to be involved in projects like 0858?

Until I see proof Enzo gave Piper permission to destroy factory cars to dress them as something else I will safely err on the side of caution and presume he didn't.

 

Here is an idea . . . I will put together a syndicate who will buy the 350 Can Am. We will then take back to is original configuration as a Can Am. I think that the Can Am in the original is beautiful--maybe not the most beautiful car in the world, but certainly deserving of its respect for history.

Having said that, it must be priced accordingly. And, my thought is that the FrankenFerrari (that is a great name, even if you disagree with it) is worth about $10 million. It will take a sizable investment to get it back to form, and I don't see it aproaching $20 million (upon subsequent sale) anytime soon. So, $10 million is about all one can pay.

 

Indeed.

The whole exercise can be summed up in a single word....money.

Is the current owner doing this because they think the world will be a better place with another "P4" - No.
Is the current owner doing this because they think they can get more money - Yes.

Everything else is an attempt at justification for the exercise.

 

I have no proof about what you say. As far as I know no one else does eather. Mine is a statement based what little is known.I know of no evidence the E.F gave D.P. permission to destroy anything. 0846 came to Piper as the destroyed remains of an unidentifiable P car along with what P series spares had remained at the factory. By giving these to Piper as well as an s/n one can assume that E.F. was aware and in approval of Piper building some kind of reproduction/replica with some kind of official Ferrari sanctions. To date no documentation has surfaced to back this up. This is just my opinion which is generally accepted. I think you can safely assume E.F. never gave Piper permission to destroy anything. I would like to think that E.F. would approve what Talacrest. Piper and the car's owner are doing with 0858 but this is just my opinion. I approve of others having a different idea of what should be done with 0858. I just don't agree. tongascrew

 

If the owner wants to destroy the car, it is his to destroy.

Back in 2002, a financial perfect storm hit me. It was bad. I was selling everything--cars, paintings, watches, etc.

I had a good wine cellar at the time, and it was hard to sell wine. So, I said to my wife one night . . . if "I am going to go 'down' (financially) then I am going to go down in style. We are going to drink our way through the wine cellar."

We started drinking our good wine with any occasion. I can vividly remember that one night, we cooked hamburgers with our neighbors at our house. I opened two bottles of Opus One to go with Hamburgers!

So, call me a rogue or a barbarian, or whatever. I owned the wine. ANd I did with it what I wanted. You may not agree with serving Opus One with Hamburgers, but I can tell you that it is an exquisite wine to pair with Hamburgers.

 

Fantastic answer, often forgotten in the discussion here is that whatever we, the armchair experts think, it is up to the owner to do as they wish...............

 

Good for you. Nothing wrong with taking the Ferrari to the drive through to pick up those burgers either.

I hope things have turned around.

 

and the antithesis of good stewardship.

 

Opinions...assumptions...
Why don't you call or email David Piper??? ASK HIM.

 

Opinions...assumptions...
Why don't you call or email David Piper??? ASK HIM.

 

True, and in your case you have done the right thing, personally and as a custodian of history BUT really who are we to judge. I just think it is forgottten that an owners wishes is theirs to decide and make happen. An owner can choose anything between allowing the car to slowly rust away ala #0384AM or the extreme over restored cars ala Ralph Laurens collection and everything in between. But that is the owners right, isnt it, and so long as they dont destroy the "fabric" of the car it should always be there with the possibility of restoration.

Personally my preference is for untouched originals where you can really feel the history and truly believe Nuvolari or Moss or Ascari sat here and in an ideal world all cars would be like that and if I owned a car I would preserve it dents, flaky paint and all but who am I to begrudge an owner that wants to complete a 100 point restoration ?. If thats what they want and they can afford it..............

 

Yeah, thanks for the thoughts. It was a fight, every single day.

And after I got through it I realized that nothing could kill me. And I never wanted debt again.

BTW, before I got finished working through the Opus and the Montebello and the Petrus, I sold the 355. Things turned around soon and I was able to get a 360 CS.

 

I'm a sucker for a happy ending and the CS qualifies.

 

You must be a great American.

Here is a quote for you.

It is the closing lines from the first inaugural address of Ronaldus Maximus Reagan.

"[The current crisis] does require, however, our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds; to believe that together, with God's help, we can and will resolve the problems which now confront us.

"And, after all, why shouldn't we believe that? We are Americans. God bless you, and thank you."

QUOTE OF THE FREAKING YEAR!

 

Thanks. Fair to middlin' for an American. Which clearly qualifies in the top ten percent of any other national demographic.


I Kid, I Kid.


That and "Trust, but verify" may bookend the man.

 

For the moment I am quite satisfied with my opinion. I respect your and other's opinions. Right now I am in the middle of updating files on over 2500 s/ns When I get this done I will I am sure give the David Piper more time. I am sure there is a lot of very interesting stuff there after his over fifty years of European road racing. Sounds like you would like to know more now so pick up the phone or E mail D P yourself. That way you may actually contribute something worthwhile to F Chat. And if you find my opinions wanting we will be very interested in your research. Looking forward to hearing from you when you have something historicaly factural to contribute. tongascrew

 

aha!

I've been away for a month or so - away from the thread - just returned to see if we had hit 3000 posts. But the above states in as succinct a manner as possible the nub of this thread's disagreement.

Good stewardship vs. commerce.

and the owner of any object with significant extrinsic value must decide, when dealing with and then de-acquisitioning what is theoretically a museum piece, which course he will take. But we must always recall that it is 'owner's choice'.