My (Bob) Norwood Experience

Unfortunately, it's not that simple and as I warned at the outset it's a long saga. And if you will be a little patient, you will see that your "B if you're honest" is far from true. And how do you know that he does not have a mechanic's lien (he does not but I never said that).

 

Chapter 3: Wheels Don't Fit

Despite the absence of the entire rear suspension, Norwood and his team continued work shooting for an end May completion date. I attach some photos to liven up what is otherwise a rather grim tale. By now the motor was pretty much installed, the custom exhausts made, the custom oil cooler installed, and all the plumbing was in place. When I inquired as to whether I could expect to pick the car up toward the end of May to coincide with a trip to the "Metroplex" area (that's Dallas/Forth Worth and surrounding for you non-Texans), Big Red told me the car was not quite done, they were just waiting for the rear suspension parts to show up from Ferrparts. (We had to procure an entire rear suspension including brakes, shocks, springs, torsion bar etc etc. as the incomplete suspension that came loose with the car was not compatible with the 355 subframe that was now securely bolted into place in the car.)

While the photos and text messages were now few and far between, the next round of invoices showed up around the middle of May, including several thousand dollars of parts, a meaty chunk of labor, and a bill from his partner Tim for making spacers/adapters for the front wheels (wider bodywork requires a wider track). Taken together these invoices required another $15K from my side which I wired without complaint bringing the total paid to $30K, $5K more than estimated. Fair enough, I figured, if we were almost done I was not going to have a fit about a $5K overrun.

Looking at the labor invoice it is plain that all of the work done to date was within the narrow confines of the original estimate. If there were any deviations, it was not due to the scope of the work, but rather to the fact that Norwood was either overconfident or negligent in inspecting the parts that came with the car (the suspension issue) or had failed to think through how the motor would install (the fuel tank modifications). This snafu was not for lack of time to plan ahead, he had the car for over two months before we started work. And I think he reworked and billed me three or four separate times for the estimates. Also I was a little taken aback that Norwood had gone out on a limb and made front adapters/spacers (at substantially more than what he estimated) given that my go ahead (in the "Rules of the Road" email was limited to getting the engine in and hooked up; and that, on the occasion we had lunch when I visited his shop to view the progress, we pretty much concluded that the rear wheels were not going to fit and that we should start thinking about plan B. I had sent him some calculations based on the track of a 355, the track of the 288, and the width of the rims we had that pretty much proved the wheels would be 4" too wide for the bodywork, without the necessary adapters needed to deal with the bolt pattern mismatch.

Also looking a little more closely at the invoices, I noticed that the fuel tanks which had been modified, welded, painted and pressure tested prior to the $10K payment, were now getting another round of welding. Hmmm.

And since Aaron keeps bringing up the doors, I note now for the first time a line item "welding doors". Not sure what that was but there it is. That had not registered with me prior.

I also found it strange that I was billed piecemeal for some of the rear suspension parts with an April 28 date, whereas these finally showed up on May 19 when Bob emailed me to tell me that the rear suspension had arrived, and that it all "fits perfectly". (Not so fast there, "Shortcut" Bob.) I was expecting a flat $2500 charge for the entire rear suspension as we had previously agreed. More to come on that. When the suspension was installed, (no surprise to me) the rear wheels protruded several inches from the bodywork, without the adapters necessary to deal with the bolt pattern; and when I visited the shop a few days later, I found out that only part of the rear suspension had showed up (Bob used a lot of sailor words when the subject of Ferrparts came up). Anyway, enough of it was there (including the 355 rear brakes, keep that in mind for future discussion) to know that we had to get some different wheels.

Of course I am not faulting Bob for the fact that the rear wheels did not fit. We all knew that was unlikely from the getgo. And none of us could figure out how the "gent" that sold me the car managed to take the photos that Aaron kindly dug up, with the wheels all prettily mounted on the car and flush with the bodywork. But that's an entirely separate matter that I am presently dealing with.

When I visited the shop to discuss the wheel question, which was around the time I arranged to wire the $15K, I asked him what it was going to take to finish the job. Another $5K, I was told. I documented that fact in a follow-up email I sent him a few days later. The $35K total was now something I was going to have to get used to. Well, $40K if you include wheels and tyres. Make that $42.5K if you include some parts that I had already purchased, eg front bumper lights, front wheel wells, some interior knobs and switches, some interior trim, windshield wiper arms and associated hardware etc etc.

I did have a minor bone to pick with Bob: he had made adapters for the front wheels, beyond the scope of authorized work at that point, and in full knowledge that the wheels that came with the car were probably not going to fit. When I confronted him with this, he told me the problem was the rear wheels, not the front wheels. That might be true if Speedline Mistral wheels in 11" or 12" width with the correct backspace and Ferrari bolt pattern were available, but they are not. Decidedly not. He knows that.

Based on his commitment to finish up for "another $5K" I bit my tongue and left the team to get on with it. Little did I know at the time that his $5K completion estimate was low. Very low. In fact almost missing a zero.

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Yes I bought the car from ExcelsiorZ and since then a couple of Fchat members have related bad experiences they have had with the guy. Seems like he has more than one unhappy customer. I had no idea who he was, on Ebay you just see a handle, and in any case the name would have meant nothing to me at the time. He made a number of written assurances about the car before I bought it, including that the wheels would not stick out! The wheels were touted as a major part of the deal. Very rare and all that. I have never met him but I will, soon. I will tell you a story that has nothing to do with Norwood though. After I bought the car and wired the money, EZ emailed me and asked me to pretend that the transaction never happened, as he did not want to pay Ebay their $900 commission. He said he listed the car by mistake in the Parts category, but he meant to list it in the Cars category where the commission is only $99. Then when I got further into a dispute with him, he said that I bought a collection of parts, not a car, and that should have been obvious to me because it was listed under Parts on Ebay. Top that Bill Clinton.

(FWIW there is some recourse through Ebay for automobiles, that does not extend to other stuff. And never, ever pay for anything on Ebay by wire or money order, use only PAYPAL otherwise Ebay will hang you out to dry if there is a problem.)

Yes, I was nervous about the whole thing coming together, mainly the motor fitting in lengthways, but I talked to Carl at Black Horse before I bought the car and he told me it would fit with some mods to the fuel tanks and some work on the gauges; the seller assured me in writing that the engine would fit "perfectly" (it did, with a little help from a hammer), that the wheels would not stick out (they did), that a bunch of parts I could not see in the photos that I specifically listed "were there" (they were not), that "all the major parts were there" (they were not). Now I don't normally go through life fact-checking everything that someone is willing to commit to in writing. For me, a written commitment is enough. And in many cases, an oral commitment is enough as well, if it comes from someone who is an attorney, or a renowned professional in his field with a reputation to uphold. I have to say, after this experience, I will be doing a little more double-checking than I have in the past though.

Back to Norwood: regarding new tubs, in order to use those wheels, we would have had to take 4" out of the outer tubs (the backspace was good, but they stuck out 3", and those wheels need adapters, so allowing 1" for those plus 3" to get the wheels flush makes 4"). Not enough "dish" for that. We also considered redrilling the 355 hubs to sidestep the adapters but 355 hubs are kinda skinny and Bob did not think that wise either. Fortunately I found a set of (more modern) Speedline wheels from a 348 on Ebay, happened to be an Fchatter from Canada (very nice guy), bought them and they fit up flush. Bob said, after they fit up the new wheels, that that was the right decision. Not wild about the polished/chrome look but they solved the problem and they match the tailpipes. The rears are 11" vs the 14.5" Mistral wheels so 3.5" narrower. As best I can tell the Mistral wheels that came with the car might work on a 288 tribute if the original 308 chassis/suspension is intact (my chassis had been cut out before I got the car) as it's narrower than a 355 subframe setup; or on an F40 look-a-like esp one that uses 5x120 hubs (corvette, BMW and some others). The F40 used 14" rears and these are 14.5". But try as we might, we could not use them. So I put them on fleabay along with the loose 308 rear suspension bits that came with the car hoping to recoup some of my unexpected costs.

 

Chapter 4: The Wheels Come Off.

Well not literally, but figuratively. After the long-awaited suspension parts showed up and we got the wheels sorted, the project slowed to a crawl. For while the hubs, brakes and A arms had arrived, the half shafts and some necessary hardware had not. Also we were waiting for valve cover gaskets. So not much more was done to the car, which was set aside while Bob and his guys worked on some other stuff. In my mind, we were close to done, so I was thinking about driving the car back to my ranch (that was almost a year ago!). And here I am going to cut Bob a little bit of slack. I asked him to check the front hubs for grease and check the front brakes, as I did not want to rear-end someone on I20 on the way home. This was not strictly in the scope of work as originally envisioned, but it wasn't a huge job either. They found one of the bearing races had actually snapped in two, so it turned out to be a good call. He showed me the broken parts when I next showed up.

Around the same time, I believe it was on the same visit, I asked Norwood what we were going to do about the front brakes. The rotors looked very worn to me. He offered up a set of used but good 308 brakes from his pile at a good price and assured me that the balance would be OK when I brought that subject up. (I know a little about cars but Bob has forgotten more than I know, so I deferred to him.) The day AFTER they put the 355 rear brakes on the car, they replaced the front OEM brakes with another set of 308 brakes. Now I put the word “AFTER” in capitals because when it later became apparent that we had way too much rear bias, Bob defended his decision by stating (on the infamous day I showed up with the cashier's check), that they put the 308 brakes on the car BEFORE the 355 brakes showed up, and believe it or not he said he had NO IDEA 355 brakes were SO BIG!!

Somewhere in this interval, Bob called me to tell me that the brake failure sensing valve on the car was missing. Presumably it had been missing all along but nobody noticed as it was not listed in the estimates. Anyway, Bob informed me it had no purpose other than to turn on a dash light, and at $900, he recommended leaving it out. So that's what we did.

One could say none of this brake stuff was in the scope of the work, but on the other hand the estimate incorrectly assumed that the stock 308 corners (with brakes) were going on the car and that was Norwood's oversight. It should have been obvious to him that the 308 corners that came with the car were not going to work with the 355 motor/subframe that also came with the car. As explained in Chapter 3, we were forced, by the motor/subframe, to go to 355 rear corners and that in turn called for a bigger set of front brakes. So one could also say the extra cost to revisit the front brakes should be on Bob.

I think the total impact to labor of the “scope creep” was a K at most, a rounding error in the scheme of things. There was also an incremental parts cost (buying a set of used 308 front rotors/calipers), but as you will see the parts bill is not central to the dispute. Either way, he had to install and hook up a set of rear brakes as part of installing the suspension. To be generous, I can understand that part of the overrun had to do with switching out the front brakes as well. If the front brakes worked right, I would probably not be mentioning the subject. Fact is though, not only is there excessive rear bias, but neither set of brakes works due to another oversight on the part of Bob: you see, Bob thought he could drive the stock booster (which he replaced in an effort to get the car to brake) off engine vacuum; and the 355 motor doesn't pull enough vacuum for this purpose. That is why (I later learned) Ferrari used Teves brakes on the early 355s, and then added a mechanical vacuum pump with conventional brakes on the later cars. So there isn't enough vacuum to stop the car, especially in situations where repeated braking is called for. Like driving home on I20 at 4pm, for example.

But I am getting ahead of myself. For the big news in Chapter 4, is that a matter of weeks after Bob assured me $35K would be the final number, he sent me an invoice for a further $10K bringing the cumulative number to $40K. Ouch. I was not expecting that, as there wasn't much progress in that same period, after the brakes were done, due to parts shortages.

I started digging through the detail to try to figure out what on earth was going on in Rockwall. I found some disquieting things. For one thing, Bob was invoicing me piecemeal for the “entire” 355 rear suspension that he had promised we could get for $2500, and when I added up all the pieces I got a figure close to $4K. For another, there was a line item “wheel houses” 2 ea for $4K. This was twice the estimate for those same parts, a non-OEM version that another one of Bob's close circle supplied. And dumb me, when I saw the estimate I thought $1K for a couple of pieces of fiberglass was stiff! (I had supplied the front wheel well liners (found some on Ebay, the stock parts work in front), so these charges were for the 2 rear “wheel houses”.) This 2x surprise came on top of a 3x hit for front wheel adapters. On a lesser scale, an oil tank cap that I was verbally quoted “a buck and a half” for, was invoiced at $214. There were also more charges for cutting and welding the gas tanks, something we had done twice already as best I could tell. And I started to see a pattern in the labor charges of repeated line items “RJ” “Heater” x hours. Adding up all the “Heater” hours, by the end of the project I arrived at a figure of 60 hours when all was said and done. That would make this the world's most expensive heater.

By this point in the project, I began to feel I was being duped, as in deliberately. Deja Vu. That flock of sheep out there had been sheared not once but twice to provide all the wool. There was altogether too much reneging going on, not enough traction on the project, the invoices stood at $15K over the original estimate and $5K over the very recent “**** happens” figure, and the motor was not even running yet. I sent Bob a note stating that I was not happy with the situation, that he should figure out what was going on, but regardless I paid him another $5K “in good faith” while we figured the situation out. I thought I heard that Ferrparts was holding up some parts due to an outstanding invoice with Norwood, so I sent him the money and told him to pay Ferrparts so we could keep going. At this point, in late June 2017, I was into the car $85K, $35K with Bob and $50K in the car. Make that north of $90K including the wheels and tires I had to buy, plus a bunch of other parts that we needed because the seller had been less than straightforward about what was there and what was not. Plus Bob's invoices said I owed him $5K more, with work ongoing.

So things got queasy in late June and came to a head in early July. And the resolution of that crisis, while welcome at the time, turned out to be the genesis of the real battle.

(I am out of the USA for a couple weeks starting tomorrow, in a place where I can't give any more time to this story, so it will have to marinate til I get back).