328 GTB in Blu Chiaro

Hi guys, spent a few hours reading through archived posts in search of an answer to the following question but haven't been able to find any:

How many 328 GTBs were delivered in Blu Chiaro? Is there any way to find out how many cars were built in the respective colours?

Thanks in advance for any takers.

Cheers,
Chris

 

Chris,

I am probably not the one with the most extensive information about this, as my sample of cars is not as extensive as some others;
But nevertheless, just for a start, hoping that someone more knowledgeable than I am will chime in...
I would say "very few", and by this I mean: by any means, less than twenty, among the 1344 "B" build; perhaps even less than ten. A rare sight indeed.

Best,

 

thanks Nerofer, interesting estimate. Saw that there was only one in the US registry in this forum (although met blue could be another blue as well). If you take 150 US delivered Bs and apply the ratio to the rest, the number would be under 20 indeed...

 

Very few indeed. There is one for sale in Switzerland. Beautiful color.

http://www.autoscout24.ch/Search/Detail.aspx?lng=de&nav=7&vehtyp=10&SearchType=AS24&make=12900&allmakes=AS24&typename=328&index=4&vehid=53395

 

There would be probably a few more GTB in "Blu Medio Met" than in "Blu Chiaro".
I actually know, and have seen, more than one GTB's in "Blue Medio Met" in France.
But let's face it: that is nevertheless still rare: I would say we are in the 30-35 cars ballpark for GTB in "Blu Medio Met".

The color is easy to distinguish from "Blu Chiaro": "Blu Medio Met" is less blue, as it contains some grey. In France, some people call it "Bleu pétrole", what you would translate as "Oil blue" in English.

The real headache is to distinguish "Blu Chiaro" from "Blu Sera"; very difficult on pictures/photos; easier when you have two cars side-by-side.

I have a soft spot for "Prugna" with "Crema" interior...

 

I have been watching for US cars for many years and never found a blue one. Where did you see this?

Dave

 

Furmano has a GTB registry of US imports in this forum (sorry, I'm too dumb to link it) and lists 61177 metB/T from 1986 - I assumed from one of the responses in that thread that this was refering to blue and not black. As mentioned in my reply to Nerofer and his interesting response, it's unclear what blue this is, chiaro, sera or media...

I have actually never seen a media blu 328 B whereas I have seen a few media blu 308s.

Chris

ps. prugna is very nice, unfortunately never seen one in person, but a couple of funny posts in this forum as well

 

I have a 328 GTS in Blu Medio, and a source at Ferrari confirmed their records show only 6 Blu Medio 328 GTS cars built through the entire production -- one to the US (mine.) I find it hard to believe that the lower production GTBs would net more Blu Medio cars than GTS.

Without seeing the blues side-by-side, it is near impossible to tell them apart, especially if there's been a repaint with modern materials. Most of the blue cars you see are Blu Sera, but Chiaro seems to be near in production. I've been to Concorso Italiano in Monterey, Italian shows in the Seattle area (where there are and have always been many 3X8s and F-cars of all types), and to shows in Canada, Houston... and have never seen another Blu Medio car of any model, but have seen plenty of Chiaro and Sera cars. (Still low in number compared to Rosso.)

As Rifledriver has explained in the past, nobody really knows how many were made in each color. Ferrari/FNA didn't know in the past, but with the for-profit Classiche program, they now magically seem to have statistics. Given this, all stats (including the 6 Blu Medio GTSs) need to be taken with a grain of salt.

 

Cauley Ferrari has a blue 328 in their showroom. You can see it in the background of some of their inventory photos. Unfortunately I don't have more details on the car.

http://www.cauleyferrari.com/showroom/ZFF67NFA9B0176245.aspx

 

That appears to be a Blu Chiaro GTS

 

i seem to have a blu medio gtb in my garage. it's a wonderful color especially paired with the blue interior.

 

You rang?

Actually, if you look at the latest registry, linked below, that car is listed as metNero/Beige. I believe the owner posts here every now and then.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/showthread.php?t=312511&page=4

76493 is listed as a BluChia/Crema. I believe this is the only original blue US 328 GTB made.

-F

 

Interesting. Thanks for shedding some light on the differences.

I think Ferrari makes more variations of Blue than any other color. Must be trying to tell us something.

 

The owner or general manager had a blu sera GTS I tried to buy it back in 2005 but he wanted it for his collection. Maybe that's his car (?)

It was a convex wheel car but otherwise one of the nicest 308/328s I'd ever seen.

 

Hi Chris,
I think that Furmano's GTB registry actually came from Dave as is the one who has passed it on to each of us GTB owners. Furman can confirm...

 

thanks, didn't mean to claim credit for Furmano or Dave, I'm just generally grateful for this interesting info - and as it turns out, I misread the metb as blue and not black anyway...

wow, so only one blue GTB in the US, in blu chia...(apart from the medios)

 

1,200+ 328 GTBs stayed in Europe, IIRC.

If you want a California-legal one with the US equipment, slim pickings other than red.

 

Chris,

I think I would be able to find a picture of a "Blu medio met" GTB for you before the end of the day, and post a link here...

I find this discussion very interesting; so I have dug into my archives yesterday night.
If that could be useful, these are the figures I have for the three "blues" we usually accept as proposed among offical colors, excluding Azzuro: that is "Blu Chiaro", "Blu Sera" and "Blu Medio Met".
I have the colors for about 1200 cars, all of these with convex wheels; as my two cars have convex wheels, and I am too lazy to collect too many information, I took note of only the colors of the convex wheels cars.

1200 would be about one sixth of the total production of the 328, so it could be considered as more or less significant enough to extrapolate (?) by multiplying the figures below by six; that should give us a general idea of the numbers during the whole 328 production, let's say a ballpark, even if we know that tastes, and colors ordered do evolve as the years pass by (for instance, there seems to be more yellow cars at the end of the production than at the beginning...)

So, among those 1200 convex wheels cars, I have five "B" in the three blues (again, excluding Azzuro), and twenty-five "GTS".
Again, a "caveat" here: I don't know if the colors stated for each cars are exact, because, as already discussed, the blues are indeed difficult to identify; and I know of some owners who say that their car is "Blu Scuro", which I don't have as an official color for the 328...so I don't want to try to distingish between the three blues.

That would give us about 30 "B" and 150 "S" in Blu Chiaro / Blu Sera / Blu Medio Met in the whole 328 production?

This is the best I can do; if somebody knows better, I would be delighted to know.

Happy to discuss,

Best

 

An example of a "B" in blue (note that it is not a convex wheel car): a french market GTB (plates are french, old standard discarded since 2009) that have been listed as for sale for quite sometime in Belgium.
It is depicted as "Blu Scuro"; the interior is Red, leather and carpets.

http://www.finecars.cc/typo3temp/GB/e2b9d6b1bc.jpg

 

And finally a link to another french GTB, captured in the streets.

See how the tone of the color change with the lighting; but as seen from the front, I would say it is "Blu Medio Met" indeed...

Hope the link works...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/telkine/4957195650/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/telkine/4957195182/in/photostream/

 

And, for Sammy, a Blu Medio Met 328 GTS with convex wheels, that was for sale in September 2010 in Germany; interior was Beige leather ("Tan") with black carpets.
The car seems to be of the swiss market type, i.e, with cats.

Sammy, I really do believe there are more than six GTS in "Blu Medio Met"...
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Here are some pics from the us version 1987 sales brochure. The rest of the cars in the brochure including the b are all red.
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Actually, the registry I posted on this site originated from Larry O'Rourke's 328 GTB registry. Brain Crall added some cars. I'll take credit for the registry posted here because, well, I posted it and have been maintaining it ever since.

Just to be clear, based on the information I have, I see only one blue US 328 GTB. There were no US 328 GTB in media Blu. If anyone has information to the contrary please post it so I can update the Registry.

-F