The (one and only) '0846' Debate Thread

Well... here is my take. If I have made any erroneous facts to come to my take please let me know.

1. Using the word acquired vs on loan/borrowed.... who cares. He did acquire them for his use. This is splitting hairs in my opinion.

2. The old man sold him spares to build one car and gave him permission to use chassis 900.

3. When building anything... we all know its cheaper per unit to build more than several. I could see someone saying well since we have a guy building a chassis for it... lets have him build two just in case something happens to the car... and something happens to the man who built the frame. When you are having windshields molded or anything built on a jig... you don't make just one.

4. So... I don't know Pipers character whatsoever. I don't mean to cast him in a bad light undeservingly... but knowing car guys and race guys... I could see this scenario....

Old man gave me permission to build one replica using these genuine parts and one chassis number of 900. I will have a spare chassis made... because... well spares are good... now a 3rd chassis wont bear then chassis number of 900 and it won't be an official ferrari. I will use my own chassis number of DP003 or whatever... Somewhat sticking to the grey area of the deal.

If Piper was truly in hot water over the agreement with enzo and ferrari... Wouldn't he have been much better off (not in hot water) to claim that DP003 was actually 0846 even ficticiously. Even if it didn't have a shred of 0846 he would be in less hot water if he claimed it was 0846 since 0846 was written off.... we would have been talking about this 30 years ago!

Instead, which to me is very telling but obviously not hardcore physcial evidence, is that he called the car a replica (against his agreement) labeled it DP003 or 003 (giving light that he built more than his original 1 car he was allowed) and has stuck with that for 42 years. At no time did Piper ever call 003 0846 even when it would have gotten him out of a possible jam and potentially have put a large some of money in his pocket!

Why would he do this? It doesn't make a shred of sense to me.

And now we have a good physical examination of the chassis... its looking more and more like 003 is not 0846. Its getting pretty close to definitive. I guess I wouldn't wager $100 dollars that it was... and Im sure those that have been reading this thread would agree.

As fun of a ride and story that it has been... the beautiful restoration etc... nice pictures... the nice guy and very big car guy that jim is... the car is just not shaking out

 

The tube we've seen on 0858 and 0854 (arrowed in red) may be what the left foot rest attaches to? The third pic I believe may be 0850. The last pic is of DP0003 where the left foot rest tube can be seen. The tube in question on DP0003 could be in front of that concealed by the steering wheel in the picture.
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The tube on Glickenhaus DP0003 I now believe is unique to it and possibly the other Piper P4 chassis. It is not part of P4 plans, and just another difference amongst many that we have now seen that strongly indicate that it is a replica, and certainly not 0846. The tubes we saw on the other chassis such as 0850, 0854 and 0858 are just footrest tubes imHo. DP0003 has a footrest tube plus this thick tube to the front of it.
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Ah yes,...this car suffers from "thick tube" syndrome, quite common in the mid to late 1960's, especially when you factor in the quality of the economically cost effective Czechoslovakian and Soviet steel that was ubiquitously used in Italy in the 1960's,.....it stands to reason.

 

So let me see if I have this straight...

Based on the photographs shown, most if not all of the P4's had a tube installed as or near the footrest by the factory and not by the original chassis builder as there is evidence that this tube was not on the chassis as delivered but it does show up on P4 cars in later pictures. And it is Steve's contention that this tube isn't in the P4 drawings since it was not on the chassis as delivered to the factory as shown in the picture he has of a "new" P4 chassis.

Also that the suspension mounts were not installed by the original chassis builders, but were installed by the factory upon receipt of the chassis...

That being the case and because cars were not all built at the same time there is a good possibility that there could be differences between individual cars in these areas.

Just as an example if, during the conversion of 0846 from a P3 to a P4, the tube in question was installed, with what was on hand and welded in to place for testing, it's very likely that as they finished the P4's at the factory they may have used different or a lighter tube to refine the design. Perfectly logical to see differences in that regard since the 0846 was a "mule" and was rushed to get to the testing in Daytona.

Moreover the factory was ordering the P4 frames without the suspension locating points installed. That being the case it is likely that the suspension locating points weren't locked in until they had done more testing, and that was done on 0846 prior to the Daytona test. The point being is that based on testing of 0846 or other cars they may well have changed or modified the suspension locating points on the last 3 cars and this could very well have been slightly different than on the "mule" 0846.

I am in perfect agreement that there are small differences between Jim's car and the later P4's, but if you look at how and where and when this was done, most likely at different times by different workers, it is not reasonable to expect that all of these cars would look exactly alike, and it's more likely that there could or would be small differences.

I am more specifically troubled by the suspension mounting points that are different between photos of that are supposed to be 0846 at Daytona and the later pictures of Jim's car. There is no reason to change these and by all rights they should be the same now as then, so that is most certainly an issue.....

However.... 0846 was run by the factory for 5 more months after Daytona and wrecked onece and there well could have been changes to the suspension mounting points or they could have been redone, modified or replaced following the incident at the Targa, or the factory could have changed them to do a subtle change to the geometry sometime during that period. Or Piper, in his running of the car over the years could have found that lowering the upper control arm mount a half an inch would make the car handle a lot better and he could have changed it. My point being that just because it is different does not "prove" one way or the other that this is or is not 0846.

The problem we have is that we just don't know if the car was built this way originally, or if was modified by the factory or by Piper at some time later.

So the problem is none of this is as definitive as folks would like. Since 0846 was a "mule' you should expect that it would have had differences between it and P4. And this car has been around since sometime in the 70's and could have been modified or this is the way it could have been built. We just don't know.

I appreciate Steve's relentless pursuit of his position, but it isn't definitive. I'm not of one mind or the other. For a long time I was willing to take Jim's word that this was 0846, but Steve has uncovered some things that would make that more than a bit of a leap for me. But at the same time, having been on race teams back in those days and knowing how changes were more often than not made without drawings or documentation, it was a "get er done" environment and if you tell the fabricator to put in a tube he'll use what he's got at hand and get on with the show, so minor things like a tube diameter aren't definitive for me.

I trust Steve will keep looking at these differences in detail until he finds some more things that give us an answer. I most certainly don't have the time or inclination to pour over these old photos as he has done and try to find the fly specs in the pepper, so hats off to him for doing all this research.

 

0850, 0854 and 0858 have what looks like to me to be a tube to support the left footrest. Glickenhaus DP0003 also has a footrest tube but it has an extra tube in addition to this, which the other chassis do not have, which is the one in question.

The period pictures of 0846's front suspension mounts were taken at Le Mans, 1967, its last race after which it was definitively scrapped, not Daytona. It is unlikely that Piper would have changed these mounts, if indeed he had acquired the remains of the chassis.

 

My mistake.. and that is indeed telling as there is no real reason for those to be different unless Piper made the change, although as you noted I don't know if there is any reason for him to change them, but you can't entirely rule that out it certainly makes it harder to claim this is 0846.

 

The real 0846 had aluminium sheet riveted to one of the tubes in the front of the chassis. See pictures. Glickenhaus DP0003 shows no evidence of there having been anything riveted there but shows evidence of other rivet holes on other parts of the front of the chassis. Additional evidence that DP0003 is not 0846.
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Steve. In the photos of P4 chassis you posted earlier, I cannot see the rivet holes evident on DP0003. Do you have any other angles of the photos to see rivet holes on 0846 so we can compare placement/count?
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Look at this fabulous picture of 0846 at Le Mans 1967. I just edited my last post and added another picture. The picture in your post above is a P4 chassis that is being built and has not yet had anything attached to it so will not show any rivet holes. The pics I posted in my post above are of 0846 at Daytona and Le Mans 1967. The pics of Glickenhaus DP0003 are of when it was deriveted after Mr Glickenahus acquired it. If it was the real 0846 it would show rivet holes on the top of the tube at the front where the aluminium sheet was attached by rivets as shown in the pictures of 0846 from 1967. See also the first picture in my post 9127 on this page where you can see the aluminium reattached to DP003 at the front.
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There is a big difference which is that DP0003 contains nothing from 0846.

 

IMHO DP003 is not built on any chassis remains of #0846. Lovely #0846 replica but the chassis is so different in so many ways that it simply can't be.

Great pity.

Just my opinion
Pete

 

The red herring was always the option of installing two different specification engines, and that was the basis of Jims belief originally from what I can gather that the chassis may have been the remnants of 0846.

Once confirmation was made via MF that it was not how the work would have been done under his regime then the rest of the potential links fell away as just pure coincidences.

It was always a very very tenuous hope at best that David Piper did not realise that actual option was available in the chassis he sold as 0003.

 

It was actually David Piper that installed the option to fit another engine by adapting the existing and primary mountings which were for a P3 type engine, which were built using the P4 configuration of tubes as per P4 plans but using the coordinates to fit P3 type protruding lug engines such as 412P and 312 F1 24V and then using the bolt on adaptors to fit a 312 F1 36 valve flush mount engine, which looks similar to a P4 engine. The 312 F1 36 valve engine is the one in the car now. Mr Glickenhaus's statement that David Piper didn't know/realise what he had is absolutely preposterous.

 

I guess if any of us had purchased the car the secret hope would have been to have discovered a potential diamond in the rough and pursued that potential to some degree.

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First I want to say I appreciate your well written argument, and that you are providing the "defense" (I don't mean this in a derogatory way) because it gives the party more ways to try to prove one way or the other.

At this point there is so much wrong with jims car the burden of proof would be on him at this point. It would have to be documented. I don't care what certification comes out... the metal is the metal.


The rivet holes missing in the front... the entire back half. The sketchy sketchy history. Its just a bridge too far. It is a cool car. but 0846 it is not (in my opinion)

(I feel i have to take credit YA ME! ok thats enough! for the front end discussion)

 

I don't disagree with any of this, but sometimes folks on here point to one thing and say "Ah Ha!!" this is a definitive thing and therefore it can or can't be 0846. Steve has done that few times himself and we all need to look at all of this in an objective manner. There can be plenty of explanations for why some items on these cars can and probably did differ as they lived out their racing lives.

Arguing about the back half of the car is moot because there were and are so many misconceptions about who did what and when. The back half of the car does appear to be built to P4 plans, but there well could have been subtle differences between 0846 and the other cars being that it was built at a different time.

The front half, on the other hand, has areas where there should be evidence of it being 0846 and some things, like the front suspension mounting points, the steering rack mounts, and the lack of rivet holes in the upper cross member holding the rack are all very troubling. There is no reason that this cross member should have been removed/replaced if this was indeed the remains of 0846. Now if Piper came out and said "yes I changed this out after such and such incident with the car where that piece was damaged" then that would be a different story, but that cross member is not something that you'd change unless there was a heap of damage to the front of the chassis and so far as we know that is not the case. For that matter the top front cross member could have been changed out due to corrosion (doubtful) when the chassis was restored, or it could have been changed out when the frame was "built" or rebuilt in Italy before Piper got it. One would have to look at the chassis very carefully to try to determine what is "real" or not, and that's going to be very difficult at this point. The more I see the less of 0846 this appears to be, that is for sure.

Also different are the front lower nose mounts, but those could well have been changed/modified when the new body was put on so it is hard to make that a definitive item.

I trust Jim will see all of this and look at what else he has and determine if he finds that if he believes this is still the remains of 0846, or not. As we know he bought the Ford GT that was supposed to be the LeMans winner (and paid the LeMans winner price) and when he figured out that it was not he didn't hesitate to set the story straight, so I'm sure he will look at all of this and figure out what correct.

 

Agreed on a large part of this.

I was in the trusting Jim G camp (against my internal pessimism of everything) and of the... well... its up to someone to prove its not 0846. Now I personally have become around to... I think there has been enough argument with photographic evidence that the burden of proof falls on Jim now. Honestly, not even ferrari saying so at this point would prove it to me. If Ferrari did say it was and said because this this this and this... and supported their stance... than I would accept it. A blanket certification would not convince me...Actually it would just infuriate me. (as much as something that has nothing to do with me, or my family could)

I think thats my "revalation" that I would like other to agree with... Not that it is definitively NOT 0846. Just that it is more than likely not... and that the 0846 camp would need to provide the EVIDENCE that it is. Again the burden of proof is to prove that it is... not that it isn't. The shoe is now on the other foot

 

Im not sure why he approached it differently buying 0846,,,,,,,,,,,Those mistakes sting but are often well learned lessons .

Too many yes men around him to benefit?

Maybe piper has some excellent selling skills?

 

He has stated many times he'd have bought it anyway.

 

There was no mistake whatsoever made when Mr Glickenhaus bought DP0003. DP0003 is what David Piper described it as and that is what Mr Glickenhaus agreed to buy and bought.

 

Agreed. Jim acknowledged it was purchased with full disclosure from David Piper that it was a "replica" so there wasn't any salesmanship or underhandedness in the transaction. Considering the disclosures I'm confident he paid "replica" money too. That's very different from paying for a car that was supposed to be something more than it actually was as was the case with the Ford GT.

I suspect a couple of minor bits from 0846 were found on this car that led Jim to believe it could in fact be the original car. After all, there's a limited pool of parts from the P3/4 cars and it stands to reason Piper would have had access to all sorts of spares from Ferrari, or even purchased extra things he came across elsewhere for his race cars. And as anyone would in that position of discovering such parts, he perused lead with hopes he purchased a very valuable and relevant car. Of course the more information and detailed comparison between period photos of 0846 and DP0003 that comes out, factored with the "replica" provenance, the less likely that seems to be the missing Le Mans car.

Truth be told it's still a wonderful machine in every aspect. I look at it more of a factory approved continuation than a replica - like Shelby had done. In it's own right it's an exceptional Ferrari. But, it's pretty clear it isn't 0846.

 

Thanks . merstheman, muirasv , jam1 ........Just to clarify my thoughts I think that Jim should of done his due diligence to establish more credibility after the Ford Gt incident.


Before making a claim such as he has about 0846 be 100 percent certain before disclosing too an open audience too critique

 

Piper has confirmed this to you has he?

 

Well it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to work that out now does it when you consider that the 312 F1 36v is the engine he sold the car to Mr Glickenhaus with and it's accepted by all that he had a P3 type protruding lug engine in it before. NB the photograph he gave to Nathan.