Sometimes, but you cannot state this generally. Actually Maranello Parts has the biggest stock of genuine NOS-parts. But beware of "Maranello Approved" reproductions made in the third world. Maranello Parts is closed for now. Heaven knows, when they will reopen. Best Regards from Germany Stay Healthy! Martin
Update on this. COVID 19 has put the project back quite a bit but just before our president closed the entire country down for 6 weeks the car was sent to the body shop and they were able to get some work done on it. Based on the pictures I have received so far things are looking quite positive, still a long way to go though. The wiring loom is also almost complete, this being made up in Italy. Engine is stripped and we are going through what will be needed there, hopefully not too much, the original valves will be replaced as taking a chance on old sodium valves isn't worth the risk in the long term.
Very long time since I have updated this thread but the combination of COVID 19 and the fact the car has been at the body shop for months meant there has not been a lot to report on. After months and months at the body shop, the body was collected last week. In my view a really good job was done. Some pictures. Now the decision as to what colour to spray it....effectively the car was painted two colours by the factory but its uncertain if its going to be painted either of those two colours. Meanwhile some of the engine parts have been sent for bead blasting and general cleaning up. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I've followed this thread from day one post #1, and I can honestly say you have come along way. The current stage this 308 is in looks 1000x better than what you started with. My hats off to you for taking on this project and continuing through all the world hurdles. Applause to you my friend! Stay focused and please keep the updates and pictures coming, it is such inspiration for all of us to see that not all cars are destined for the scrap yard.
Thanks so much, the above means a lot. The next stages are going to be the more exciting ones from my point of view, will be going to take a lot more pictures of the body which I will post up. Things which are incoming are a new wiring loom being made up in Italy. Upholstery will be coming from Luppi, as will carpets. Then it will be a case of going through the extensive list of parts which are needed, where possible the idea is to try and refinish parts here an re use if we can else it will be on to the mercy of "do I buy UK or do I buy US". With the Daytona many of the parts for that build came from the UK but I learnt that there are some excellent part suppliers in the US too.
Big difference with the way it looked before. This is a lucky car, as not many in this condition are found by someone who is willing to invest time and money that may not be recovered. Still a long way to go but can't wait to see it completed and running. As per where to order parts. Placing a US order is better/faster over the phone in most cases. Quality vary a lot on aftermarket parts but prices not so much. Good luck and keep us posted.
Very nice.. This is a good car, dry sump, carbed..NON CAT....looking forward to the results. Odd the confusion of the "build info" but the conventional wisdom has always been "Build Sheets" were discarded after the Daytonas... Our cars do have "Factory Data" but there's a large gap as you know from paper technology and the digital age and it's usually not a highly paid employee doing the data input off the hard cards... There's no way a "Respray to red" would have dropped the doors IMO and painted those hinge pads, although a few painters do like to shoot the doors of the 308 lying flat....the body guys found no black s they took down the paint for welding??? Now, a caution and use my old #22641 as an example. Years of a bare metal resto, and it bid to $92K "No sale" on BAT. So there's a limit to what you spend, to stay within the cars value. But only if you ever plan to sell!!
I will second Ferrari Classic Parts for NOS.....Ferrari Factory sent them ALL the "leftover bits" of say pre 1984 cars years ago. It's now all stacked in UK! In the USA we have enough examples the breakers turn up parts often enough.. Our sponsor Ricambi USA also uses Factory or in many cases Hill Engineering improved design components. I would also second your statement not many trim shops can get Ferrari interiors "exactly right".. My 1977 308GTB has the solid black seats and the vinyl accent strips are matched black as well. Good news abouit the heads coming off...often they just "don't"....
Looking forward to the next update, please keep the detailed pictures coming, including the wiring loom and Luppi interior. As FYI, I own s/n 30693, it's a very similar, but a 1980 German delivery Dry Sump (wish it was a factory non-AC car like 34389) Understanding that the original color issue has been discussed extensively, it's a small, but the photo of the inside of the drivers door shows a pulley for the window lift cable that has red overspray on it, another likely indicator that red paint followed the black. Looking forward to whatever color you choose... Based on the rotisserie pictures, it looks like you're going to install the rear air foil/spoiler(?) I personally I like it!
Its been a long time since I have updated this. In short we have found a body shop to do the body prep and spray work, there is a lot of body prep needed, door gaps etc. The engine has been blue printed and is at the engineers for a full assessment of what we need there in terms of parts. Suspension parts have been ordered. In the meantime the 308 has acquired a slightly younger brother in the form of a stick shift 355 spider. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Jacques- Excellent, I've been seriously keeping an eye open for 34389 updates, keep them coming... looks like good progress. Congrats on the RHD 355 manual, perfect for SA. v/r Paul
As an aside...this Frenchman here always find the use of the (French) word "rôtisserie" on your side of the Atlantic strange...As already written: In French, a "rôtisserie" is a specific kind of restaurant where you eat roasted meat (to roast = rôtir in French). The device onto which you put the meat and that turns it slowly above the fire is "une rôtissoire"... Rgds
Just caught this thread, and I'm so glad to see this car being restored, rather than instantly becoming a: "parts car", as so many in this condition have over the years (I appreciate that for many, many years there was just no alternative, because no one, not even Ferrari themselves, bothered to manufacture replacement parts and panels - Thankfully, that has changed a great deal today! ) With the RHD to LHD order: As other's have said, I can't see Ferrari "back in the day" going to the trouble of stripping the car right back, modifying the shell/chassis completely, cutting out all the RHD sections/pieces, and fitting LHD sections/pieces (let's not forget, these weren't high end, limited edition cars back then, these were Ferrari's "bottom of the rung" production cars). I could see them possibly taking a brand new, unstamped chassis/shell intended to be a "follow on" LHD injection model, fitting the carb engine and mechanicals to it, and stamping it with the number originally issued to the RHD car - Far less work, for the same result. That might even explain the red/black paint colour mystery - The original RHD car might have been ordered as black paint/beige interior, but when the order was changed to LHD, the colour was also changed to red paint/black interior? - Just a thought. As with the RHD to LHD conversion, I just can't see Ferrari "back in the day", going to the trouble of stripping the black paint out of every nook and cranny on the car, back to primer/bare metal, leaving no trace at all under the red paint - Not on a "bottom of the rung" production model. The "post-production" description is a bit of a curiosity. Were there 5 additional carb cars that were built after the injection car production had started? (due to delayed orders possibly) - If so, are there any injection cars with VIN numbers lower than the 5 "post production"carb cars? Or is this a case of Ferrari checking their records more accurately, and discovering that they'd actually made 5 more cars than they thought they had? (and no injection cars have a VIN number lower than the carb cars) This car is obviously going to look fantastic whatever car it ends being, and with whatever colour the interior is - It's a super cool restoration! Playing Devil's advocate, my one worry would be: The car gets finished in black paint and beige leather, goes in for a Ferrari Classiche, and Ferrari say: "Sorry, but the car should be red paint, with a black interior!" (The sad part being, with Ferrari, that could actually happen! )
Well, please be remembered that no carbed GTB ever received a full 17-digit VIN, EXCEPT the last batch of 12 or so Right Hand Drive GTB intended for the UK. If that car was originally intended to be a RHD, and for the UK, wouldn't it be logic for the chassis bar in the engine compartment to be stamped with a full 17 digit VIN? (I know that Maranello and logic do not always fit...) As for the sequence of order of the chassis numbers - we should not use the word "VIN" for the last five carbed GTB, as they don't have a "VIN", which has 17 digits, only a five position chassis number... Yes, they are quite a number of 2-valve injected cars before these five last carbed cars (and all two-valve injected cars have a true 17 digit VIN) so with a lower chassis number than those, but that is nothing surprising: remember for instance that the 328 and 348 were produced together from March to September 1989 and so that a number of 348s have a lower chassis number / VIN than the last 328s. Rgds
Lets just say that original factory records in Italian record the car as being RHD....which is extremely odd but I do agree with your theory of another shell possibly being used, however the strange thing was the car spent considerable weeks at the factory before being dispatched, I will look at this time line and again and type it up here as some might find this interesting. In terms of colour, this is one of much debate, its between black and red but the decision has not yet been made yet, there is still time as there is some body finishing to do still. Yes, my understanding was there were five post production cars but not sure as to why, I am still trying to find out who the first owner in South Africa was, this might take a while as finding any records from way back then is very difficult indeed. Haha yes, anything can happen with the Classiche department but prior experience suggests the other challenge is taking pictures that are to their liking....
There has also been some work on the engine parts. What we started off with did not look great but internally there does not appear to be any issue, we may bore the block depending on what the engineers say but overall the condition internally is what one would expect of an engine with 70k k'ms. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I'm nitpicking here, I know, but I don't think it would be right to speak about "five post-production" cars. These are not "post production", these are the last five of the carbed 308 GTB production run, which stops at #34503. The production run of the carbed 308 GTBs was never "stopped, then restarted", which the term "post-production" would imply: simply, as the production of the 2-valve injected cars started to gain momentum, the last carbed cars were few and far between these, and found their place at random in the middle of the 2-valve injected, just as the last 328s did in the middle of the 348s production run; that's all, and standard for Ferrari at the time. What is right is that it has been some confusion for years at which serial number the 308 GTB production did actually end. For years, the production of the carbed GTBs was supposed to have stopped with #34329, a number that was, for instance, published on the Ferrari Owner's site for the 30th anniversary of the 308 GTB. But some already available sources already stated at the time that production stopped in fact with #34349... ...and then, someone discovered a bulletin from Ferrari technical assistance saying that there were still five other carbed GTBs produced after #34349: #34377, #34379, #34389, #34465 and #34503 Ferrari used only odd chassis number at the time, so you will notice that 34377 is only separated from 34349 (= the beforehand supposed "end of production") by fourteen cars, about three days of production...nothing like "post-production" here. Considering the intervals (remember: only odd chassis numbers), 34329, 34349, 34377, 34379, 34389 are fairly tightly grouped. Only 34465 (38 cars after '389) and 503 are a bit more separated from the rest. But again, nothing like "post-production" here: only confusion about which were actually the last cars produced. Rgds
I agree but is interesting is Cavallino still does not seem to recognize these last 5 cars, its chassis register cutting off at 34349. As ever with Ferrari it would seem to be as you say more a record issues than post production per se, I guess people tend to look at these last 5 differently because for so long everyone thought 34349 was in fact the last GTB made.
Meanwhile most historians know, that the 34349-thing is BS, stubbornly copied from one BS-source to the next, over the decades. Some time later someone created another BS. The term "post-production". Best from Germany Martin #34379
Hi Martin, Completly off topic I know, but guess what was my present this spring during the lock-down (again?) and no, it is not the same mother than last year (she had been sterilised); that one is completly wild, I cannot even touch her... Rgds Image Unavailable, Please Login
A small update on this project, the parts list for the engine is lying on my desk and its a long one indeed. The advice I need is where is the best place to shop for engine parts, there are the obvious ones in the UK but I am open to exploring other options. I just want to get an idea of pricing from a few suppliers. In terms of the interior the decision has been taken to go with Luppi, not a very cheap option! The idea here is to try and restore the car to a high standard. The new wiring loom arrived from Italy a few weeks back, the body is being worked on at the moment and the project is gathering pace, despite yet another local lock down slowing things down a bit. The colour, well that is another issue but the most intriguing issue....according to the factory the car was right hand drive, we have checked and re checked this and this is what they are coming back with, the car is most definitely LHD....which I think gives some further evidence about a change in shell on the line at some point. I wish more could be found out about this but we are running into brick walls trying to find out more information.
The RHD/LHD situation is seriously weird - Even by Ferrari standards! A post-factory swap would show clear signs of a conversion having been carried out. Not the simple stuff like the front lid, wipers, or even centre console that can be easily swapped out (saying that, most converted cars still have their original front lids, wipers and centre consoles - giving away the fact that they are converted cars) , I mean things like the the hood release latches which should be on the driver's side of the car (so left hand side A & B posts for a LHD car, and right hand side A & B posts for a RHD car). Post-factory RHD to LHD or LHD to RHD conversions from what I've seen, never bother to swap the latch positions over, it's just too much work, for no real gain. Are your hood latches on the drivers side? - Or on the passenger's side? Digging deeper, I would also expect to see signs of the steering assembly and pedal assembly having been previously fitted to what is now the passenger's side of the car. I would expect a factory swap from RHD to LHD on the other hand (for whatever reason), to have been done with a brand new LHD chassis/body, and show no signs of the car ever being a RHD car My one concern, with Ferrari being so convinced that the car should be RHD, would be that something serious happened to the original RHD car at sometime, and the identity of the RHD car was (illegally) transferred over to a LHD car. Again, the whole RHD/LHD situation is very weird!
I have both L and R HD cars and it seems the shifter is placed differently on each...or is it just the console is moved away from the drivers seat? I haven’t measured the shifter position. Seems like it needs to stay put to meet the gearbox in the same place for either car. The bonnet latches would be a really tough thing to “redo” in a side swap fro R to L HD. This would include the welded tubes that the release wires run through. If those are in the left, I’d say your car was always LHD regardless of what Ferrari says. Then you e either had an covert chassis number swap or Ferrari is mistaken.
Did your car have the original single exhaust? I ask because I sourced my nearly new single tip from SA where it had been removed at a low mileage point, presumably swapped to a dual system. Maybe from your car?
