Mystery respray on '95 456

Off-topic,but aren't the wheels 550 ones?

 

What gray is that, CDF? Sounds kind of doubtful someone would bother to paint her and replace the interior. Do you have the build sheet for her?

Just looked her up in Matthias Urban's book and it says she is CDF with black interior.

 

I've seen an amazing amount of these over the years that have had complete interior changes early in their lives. My guess is that the person who could afford a quarter mil car in late 90's/early 00's didn't have a big issue paying $20K(my guess) to change interior color. Usually it's a more interesting change like going to red, blue, or green inside. Exterior color swaps are pretty common on any car, and not overly expensive in comparison.

Good luck with auction. It looks like it moved up fairly decently early on considering repaint, prior tree damage, etc. I think it will do well. Everything happens in last hour of auction so will likely go up much more from here.

 

@cooke how does one access that factory database? I just picked up a Monaco Blue with Blue interior 456 GT and I would like to access that information! @tazandjan how does one look up a 456 for production numbers. I have been searching to understand (if I can) how many Monaco blue 1995 GTs were built.... Thanks!

 

Lance- No clue on how many in Monaco Blue, but one of our FChatters has started counting them including color, so maybe he can help. Ferrari did not publish that data like Chevy did for the Corvettes.

Darren- I would want to look at a build sheet to confirm that info. Your local dealer may be able to pull one for you from MODIS. Makes no sense to change everything on a 456. Matthias gets his info from widely varying sources, and it is not always perfect, but useful.

 

Lance,
In the 456M registry, I don't have any cars specifically in Blue Monaco. I can't answer the question for the earlier 456 as my registry isn't near as complete there. Perhaps killer58 has some data on this. It really can't be very many.

 

Thank you all!

 

Darren, unfortunately, I don't have info on your car. One the one hand, after all this time there are quite a few in the databases that have had color changes, so I wouldn't be surprised if what you listed on BaT is accurate. On the other hand, the Ferrari records for these cars are not infallible, particularly with respect to MyFerrari. As Taz said, I'd tend to side with the build sheet. Whatever colors it started with, from the pictures in your listing, I'm about 90% certain your car has been both resprayed and had the interior redone. For one, the seats on both the 456 and the 456M were embossed on the headrests and not the seat back. Unless it was kept hermetically sealed since new, both interior and exterior seem far too nice to be original. In fact, off the assembly line, the original interior lines were not as sharp and smooth as your car. And the grain of the rear seat pleats doesn't look like the type of leather they used. As for the exterior, a close examination of the rear quarter window seals will tell you for sure.

Lance, I have 10 cars listed as "blue" but lacking detail of which particular shade. Like Eric, I have very scant info on individual non-M cars. However, TdF was the most common blue, Pozzi being a distant second. All other blue shades had no more than 2 or 3 of each.

 

Thank you Killer58! One question... is there a build sheet somewhere in the vehicle stuffed under a seat or would that be a document that the original owner threw away?

 

Oh my heavens, if there were only "secret stash" build sheets!!! It would be no secret in this community, that''s for sure.
This uncertainty of how many of what model were built, how many of what colors, options, etc is all part of the mystique of the brand and carefully nurtured and promoted by Ferrari. It is part of what keeps us all collecting data to make up our registers, exchanging ownership information, etc. All this is part of the ride.

 

One of the nice (?) things about Ferraris, a lot of things happen than make no sense. Sounds like your 456 fits into that category.

Good news is that CDF is a great paint color that has not been standard since the early 90s. Marcel Massini shows it as a standard color in 1994.

 

Non-standard indeed. Although there were a few 456’s done in CdF, only 2 M’s were. My favorite color, if your car were an M, I’d buy you dinner when I came to pick it up.....

 

Darren,

Some further thoughts on the 456 and your car in particular:

All but a few suffer from leather shrinkage of the dash, rear shelf, and headliner. Seat bolsters wear quickly due to their geometry.
To cure sticky switches, the interior is frequently removed.
So it's rare in the second-hand market to find one that has never had interior work done.

The rear bumpers are known to crack near the mounting points and are a common respray item. Same goes for the chin spoiler and headlight covers.
As you state, your car is missing all the normal door tags and color sticker
Repaints, mods, and customizations, while somewhat controversial, are fairly common in the Ferrari world. Particularly in the second-hand market
There is even a well-known shop in LA that for about $8000 will recess fenders to make aftermarket fender shields look original

Throughout the model run, these cars were very expensive and very rare. There are only about 700 GTs here in the US.
So if you wanted one in a specific color combo, a color change may have been the best, if not only, option. And not a big step if it needed other cosmetic work.

After looking at the pictures of your car again, I am now 99% certain it has been resprayed and the interior redone.
It certainly appears to have been high-quality work. As long as it wasn't done to repair an accident or collision damage, I say it's a positive attribute.

 

I will say--it looks FANTASTIC in the dark grey over black. MUCH better than black on tan. However, understand about the resale and the complexities of full color change. Interesting someone went through all that work. I wonder if it was done early in the car's life? (like they couldn't get grey on black and bought whatever one they could get then changed it).

I always liked the non-M 456s better because I love the Daytona-esque hood vents. Not sure why they got rid of those.

 

I have an M and I agree with you about the hood vents. It is pure speculation on my part but I guess the reason they disappeared for the M version was that model update included the change to a full CF hood. That front shell part, the hood, must have been quite a difficult manufacturing transition as it was to that point by far the largest CF part they had done. I suspect that the additional geometry of the hood vents just made a difficult task that much harder and got dropped to solve early CF manufacturing issues. Don't know that for a fact but it does seem suspiciously correlated.

 

Interesting. I didn't know the M hood was cf. Frankly, I'd rather have the vents...but that is a very plausible explanation for it. Not unlike the deletion of first the fuel door, then later even the character lines in the Delorean hoods. Look at the early 81 cars--lines and the fuel door flap. Then later 81-82 no fuel door flap, but still has the character lines. By 1983 the hoods were just completely flat. Story was that the stainless steel error rate out of the die was pretty high with details that small. I'm sure Ferrari considered a similar situation with having the CF hood and the vents. Who knows.

 

And they, for sure, aren't telling. According to them, all the changes were meant as aero improvements. I'm not convinced since they lost the vents and fixed the undertray wing in the rear. 456's had that actuate at speed....456M's its fixed in place....more likely a cost reduction by eliminating the actuation system.

 

Possibly a reliability improvement, too, if they had too many warranty claims against the spoiler.

 

The M hood was cheaper to manufacture without the scoops.

And BTW, the two hoods are completely interchangeable. The only difference being the non-Ms were not available with fender shields.