Yellow 1977 308 GTB on CraigsList, $13.5K

Could it be this one?
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/05/earlyshow/main706202.shtml

 

Looks a small fire..............that made national news!!!!

 

$5,000 to $7,000 to get back to running?? He must have inhaled too many fumes when it went up!! There's at least that much in just body work alone I'd guess. Not to mention it's been sitting in this condition for two years. It's going to take a pile of money to get that car back in good shape.

 

If I remember correctly it had just gotten new paint right before the fire. Too bad the money wasn't spent on the filler neck hose instead.

Mostly new rubber and electrical in the engine bay for starters. No telling how the carbs faired. Possibly 400.00 for distributor caps. The back window is gone+gasket. I'm curious about the condition of the rear hatch. It looked like he had it closed during fueling so could have taken some serious heat for a while. If the fire department tried to pry it open like they normally do then the hatch is junk.

The list just keeps going. I figure 10k minimum to start, not including paint. Maybe 15 to 18k including T-belts, bearings and cam seals if there aren't any surprises..

 

It's a 1977? Is it fiberglass?

 

Doubtful as there doesn't appear to be line at the top of the "A' pillar and most glass cars were '75 and '76. Only a few made it to the '77 model year.

 

Too bad the money wasn't spent on insurance!

 

You might be surprised what insurance does not cover. I had an engine fire once, and insurance did not cover that sort of damage.

 

Any bets on how long it's going to take this guy to sell this at that price??? I would pay 5k for it because you will have to dump at least 10k into it or more to get it running aging at least thats what i think

 

It is not just the price, as much as the work involved to bring it back. It rightly scares people off. Unfortunately it probably has more value if parted out....a sad end for any Ferrari.

 

yeah but it's not as bad as what Eddie Griffin did to that Ferrari Enzo a while back now thats a sad end to any Ferrari is letting Eddie Griffin Drive your Ferrari

 

Bartmondial and I went out to look at this car today. The bottom line is that there is EXTENSIVE damage -- unfortunately not just from the fire, but from the corrosive properties of the fire extinguishing material.

The decklid is warped from the heat, the rear window is broken, the carbs/linkage are totally frozen from corrosion (and probably cannot be rebuilt). Every rubber hose is melted, which means that corrosive material got on the valves and cams!!! (it looks nasty in there.) The clutch is certainly hosed, as are all the external bearings. Now the bad news (as if it wasn't bad enough---) the rear driver's side suspension is all bad and needs to be replaced: the spring is warped from the heat, the A-arms are rusted to the point of being unsafe... and there are even some frame tubes that have also been compromised from rust.

Bret and I both looked at the damage and came individually to a near identical conclusion: just in parts alone and doing everything ourselves, it would easily take around $15,000 MINIMUM. Outsourcing paint and body, a near necessity these days, could easily make this prohibitively expensive, even if the car was free to acquire. I explained that another big issue was that many of the destroyed parts are not reproduced or commonly available from the usual places. (This is a '77 GTB.) So any buyer would have to expect spending serious time going outside the usual GT Car Parts type sources to find replacements of many of the little (and major) things.

The owner (who is actually half owner with his father...they were both there) wants $11K -- more than twice what I would ever offer. I hate to see any Ferrari get parted out, but I feel that this might be the car's only reasonable future. Tragically, many of the car's most needed parts are ruined.

As for why no insurance: the car had just been repainted and received a new interior. The owners had not put on full coverage, because it really hadn't been driven at all while in the shop. Unfortunately, nobody ever mentioned to them that 3X8s are notorious for leaking fuel lines. And I think they got charged way too much for the quality of paint and interior. There was a ton of filler on the top, and the interior didn't appear to be the same type of OEM spec leather (even the pattern seemed a little off.)

Although, since there was no insurance claim, the title is clear.
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Ok tell me if I'm wrong but wouldn't a smart person put full coverage on a car like this no matter if your restoring it or using it as a every day driver what a dumb ass....

 

Yeah... I sent him an email day one asking him to contact me if he wanted to part it out.... I could use a couple parts.

 

Has the guy gotten back to you and if so what did he say??

 

They're waiting to see if anyone buys it as a whole before parting it out. They're thinking about parting it out, mostly because the father's brother has made quite a bit of money parting out a "late-60's V12 Ferrari sedan" (I figured out it was most likely a 365 2+2) so the guy could make a 250TR replica. (The car was a perfectly running/driving/good body car )

They've received over 30 calls, but Bartmondial and I were the only ones to go see it. Supposedly some guy from BC is coming down to look at it, but I'd be amazed if he bought it.

Don't expect really any parts from near the engine bay to be usable. I would also guess that they aren't going to part it out due to the time commitment required, and the guys hate talking to potential buyers, which is why they are having "a friend" help them. (The friend is a car salesman that works for the son, who is the fleet sales manager at a Bellevue car dealership -- so really he is more of the hired help.)

And yes, a good decision would have been to keep full insurance on it. They made a bad decision and are paying for it dearly.

 

Who has insurance that covers an engine fire, and is it a rider or a base policy? State Farm policies (in my experience) do not cover this and I'm wondering if others do. The argument used is this is a mechanical failure, and therefore outside the scope of the insurance.

 

I was having this discussion with my father, an attorney specializing in insurance defense (for about 45 years). His comment was that while it is possible that an insurance company could try to deny the claim, the claim would actually be held-up in court. (Hence why, in his opinion, initiatives like the one to award triple damages are very good ideas to keep the insurance companies honest.)

Since the car was parked and being fueled, it would be considered a part of a valid comprehensive claim.

While it is not collision, rather comprehensive, this would not be any different than a claim because a wheel/stud broke (or tire failure) causing an accident. Insurance will not cover mechanical failure, such as gulping a valve or blowing a tranny, but it will cover losses caused by an incident where mechanical failure was a factor. For instance, the Ford Expeditions that spontaneously combusted because of the "always hot" cruise control switches were covered by comprehensive claims (as were the houses that went up in flames due to the fires.) It was mechanical failure, but not one known to the owners.

It would seem that the insurance company's only hope would be to prove that the owners of a Ferrari were not only aware of their fuel line was damaged, but also neglected to fix it.

 

Thanks for researching this car Sammy. It is valuable information for those that might get sucked into a "fixer-upper".

Your pictures and description show the car being worse than I thought. It's obvious it burned for a LONG time and the extinguishing chemicals guaranteed it a total loss. Too bad. So sad.

 

Bret and I were both thinking the same thing that all of you were: If it's too good to be true, it probably isn't true...but we had to see it with our own eyes.

If this was insured, it would be titled "SALVAGE"

 

$5K and you might be able to make some money parting it out. Anything more than that and it would be a wash or a loss I'd think. If the damage wasn't so extensive you could get some pretty good money for engine parts but it doesn't look like there's much that's useable back there! And it was foolish not to have insurance on it. With the minimal cost of my insurance I can't imagine letting it drop for any reason. I kept mine fully insured the whole 2 years I had it in pieces!

 

Very interesting. One incident I had was an alternator fire that caused minor engine damage (wires, hoses, vacuum, etc) and that damage was not covered. I assumed that the hood repaint was also not going to be covered, so I simply paid for it without asking further. I'm guessing that, following your explanation, the hood may have been covered, but the damage to the engine would not have been covered.