Obviously, you care enough to step up and make a big bold statement about it. Seems like you may have gotten your feelings hurt.
Sorry Phil, but I respectfully disagree. Whithout wanting to start a controversy...please be reminded I have both GTB and GTS, together for eight years now; and I don't intend to sell one or the other (facts of life may intervene, of course); they serve a completly different purpose, but the GTB is indeed the better car. The GTS chassis is nothing more than a GTB chassis with one additional tube in each door sill, and that's all, period. To say that "the GTS has been designed with its own bespoke chassis" is really a bit of stretch. An additional tube in each door sill, in my book, doesn't qualify as "designed with a bespoke chassis"... Rgds
I'm sorry, Phil: You are wrong. Ferrari was a very small carmaker and couldn't afford another chassis just for the GTS. They didn't even do a new one for the GTO, as it just was a modded 308 one. 308 GTS is just a GTB cut and with some more steel in the door sills. The weight difference between the GTB and GTS is just 10-15 kg and this is the evidence of what I'm saying. Gilles Villeneuve GTS was a prototype and even hadn't the reinforced sills: it was just a cut GTB. 308 GT4 crankcase lasted until 430 on all 8 cylinders Ferrari from 1973 to 2005, 360 included! Ok, Ferrari is a legend, but this are the facts. ciao Alberto
stumbled on this interesting thread late. i agree the a gts isnt designed with a bespoke chassis but ifs far from "one additional tube in each door sill" period. I reckon its safe to say somewhere in between. in addition to the door sills reinforcements, the gts has better engineered bulkhead, its triangulated with thicker members on 2 separate planes while the gtb are just members right angles on a grid that can act like hinges under load. This triangulated architecture were found on the gto and f40 though the detailing may be different. strangely enough the earlier Dino coupes had it as well at least in one plane. the base of the B-pillars on the gts which are gusseted extend up to the roll hoop. gtb B-pillar structure ends at the glass, above this is thin sheet metal that only serves for flanges for the door seal b-pillar garnish and 3/4 glass mount. the base of this critical member has no gussets cross-car on the gtb. the absence of the longitudinal roof cant rail members are so significant that the chassis rigidly gts is nowhere near that of the original coupe even with a long list of reinforcements as many have notice. up front i believe the there are additional members spanning between the suspension and the door post for triangulation. this is a know weak area in the 308 chassis in both coupe and the targa. there is significant scuttle shake on the gts, one can image without this reinforcement the windshield will pop out during torsion load...lol ? odd that this thread is call "spyder". GTB = berlinetta, GTS = spyder, though not the convertible we were accustom to before and after the 70's. perhaps these modified cars should be called cabriolet as other have mentioned? best
The chassis for the GTS model is not identical to the GTB model. The GTS chassis was never used for the GTB model. The GTS chassis uses slightly larger sized tubing in places, along with other modifications to increase the rigidity of the chassis, to counter the removal of the roof section of the car. In one or both of these two books:"A collectors guide - FERRARI - Dino 246, 308 and 328" by Alan Henry and/or: "The complete guide to - FERRARI - 308 - 328 - MONDIAL" by Wallace A. Wyss, there is a period picture of 308 GTB and GTS chassis' stacked outside the back of the Ferrari factory, and you can clearly see that they are not exactly the same (If I recall correctly, the description of the photograph actually mentions something about noting the larger tubing, and extra strengthening used for the GTS chassis) Because the GTS chassis is slightly more than an identical, but beefed up GTB chassis, and because it is only used for the GTS model, it is most definitely a bespoke chassis.
phil bespoke... i guess by definition you may be correct even though 3/4's it is still a gtb. i was just trying imply that is quite a bit more then just adding two members to convert it into a gts.
i dont recall if the 308 was built at the pininfarina plant. it isnt a unibody but body on frame construction. pininfarina designed it but thats about it on the 308s when it came to production i reckon. i believe the 308 was built at maranello as well as a chassis designed by ferrari . raw 308 bodies werent trucked to ferrari waiting for the mechanical to be fitted like some of the bertone cars of that era.
mike here is a list of cars built at Grugliasco Pininfarina plant. you will see the 308s are absent. surprisingly the handful of 037 lancia and testarossa was built there. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pininfarina#Grugliasco_factory
I’m surprised too, at least we all know it’s assembled in Maranello, but we are talking about who designed the GTS and the GTB, I don’t think it’s Ferrari.
Mike we speaking of the chassis rather than body or design 308 gts is a reinforced variant of a gtb that is much more than just a brace or two. But I would consider them in the same brethren To suggest a 288 gto chassis is just a modify 308 chassis is plain silly. It may have started that way but you tell me what part of the 288 chassis or frame is interchangeable with the 308 outside of perhaps the door structures? 348, 355, 360 engine blocks are the same as 308 gt4’s? Well that’s certainly news to me!
308 bodies were built by Scaglietti in Modena. Both vetros and steel. They were also painted there until 1978 when the paint shop at Maranello was opened. 308 bodies were 100% trucked the short distance from Modena to Maranello either painted before mid-78 and unpainted after mid-78 All 308 chassis were made by Vaccari & Bosi just outside Modena. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
david, yes thank you, thats how i vaguely recall as well. locally built near modena or bologna the pininfarina plant meanwhile was hours away in near torino at Gurliasaco. i used to work in torino
yes david thats what i vaguely recall as well. the pininfarina plant was hours away in near torino at Gurliasaco here is a pic of a 400 chassis being constructed a vaccari before being shipped out to gurliasaco pininfarina then back again according to the captions, some cool pics of 328s bodys being fabricated at maranello
But it is nevertheless true: all along the V8s from the 308GT4 to the 360 included, it is the same engine block, although many other things are different, of course. This is why some modified 308 engines can accept a 360 crank without too many modifications. The 430 engine, one the other hand, is a brand new one. Rgds
lots of alternative facts being tossed around here... perhaps better to rely on legends? so you are saying because you can swap cranks they are the same block? sounds like your never touched a wrench in your life. just kidding of course ! try telling that to 348 owner that wants 5v heads or a 308 2v block that wants to run 4v heads. all 4 blocks have different oil and water journals from the block as i recall. you will see it will need extensive modification making it not worth while. they might share the same crank journals and are close visually but they are hardly the same... if they were the identical you would have seen upteen 2v converted already into a 4v. https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/are-308-2v-blocks-and-308-4v-blocks-interchangeable.121202/
Dimensionally, it is the same block; the heads, of course, as we all know, are different. The factory has said time and again that the block introduced with the 308GT4 has remained the basis of all the V8s up to the 360. These engine share a common basis, it's the same family. A new generation of V8s has appeared only with the 430. The factory has always been short of cash; whatever they could re-use, they did. The rods were the same for almost all engines during the sixties and seventies; the liners and pistons also: the V8s has the liners and pistons, and rods of the 365 "Daytona", except eight instead of twelve, of course: this is why its capacity is 2926cm3, not something close to 3.000. Nothing defines better Ferrari in the seventies and eighties than "continuous evolution". Just as I do also consider that the chassis of the 246, the one from the 308 GT4, the one from the 308 and the one from the 328 is a serie of variations on the same basis. One tube here and there, 20 cm less here and there does certainly not make a revolution; let's stop kidding ourselves. The first truly different chassis is the one of the 348. In fact, as considering the family of chassis, to my eyes the only difference worth mentioning in the serie is the one that is almost always forgotten: the different anchoring angle of the suspension pylons of the "serie 2" 328s...and the different A-arms giving a larger wheeltrack, a slightly shorter wheelbase, antidive and antisquat. Rgds
All based on the same motor. Same crankshaft bearing sizes, same bore spacing, same head stud location and spacing. Changes made for different cam drives, deck height to accommodate different strokes, dry sump pump design changes and different piston cooling methods. Zero question they are all the same engine family.
So it has the crankshaft bearing sizes, same bore spacing, same head stud location and spacing... no arguing there but they are different to one another are they not? they are based on the same family for sure to minimize the tooling changes but they are changed and some significantly never the less to make one impossible to swap without extensive modification. they may use a vast portion original casting externally with altered cores, plugs, bosses, machining are etc meant for a different application. if they were the same why cant you just swap a 2v block to any other 4v, 348 or 355 motor? i trust you would know more about this in detail than most of us. which brings us back to the previous topic, can you put a 308 gtb chassis into a gts and would it be the same even with the two extra tubes ? can you swap out a early block with a later block? its no in both cases and why? because they are different in-spite belonging to the same family and share the same architecture.
Yes in both cases; taking two contemporary cars, the chassis of the GTB and the GTS is the same, except one tube here and there. My '89 GTS and GTB left the production chain at an interval of five weeks; the chassis is almost identical, and you could easily put the body of one onto the chassis of the other. Remember the case of the so called "Vetroresina GTS prototype" discussed here a year ago and how difficult the identification was, because without knowing in which guise it left the factory, there was no clue about its identity from the chassis. Except that it didn't have the extra tube in the sills...but Villeneuve's GTS did not, either. As for engine, there are known cases, admittedly not many, of carbed cars fitted QVs engines, QVs fitted with 328 engines, etc... Rgds
Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Are the 288 GTO also based on the same motor?
