328's ONLY!!! 328 REGISTER UPDATE - 12/03

1988.5 S/N 77564 (US)
GTS
Red/Black
Portland, ME

 

Here is another one for you....

1987 (s/n 69139) US
red / tan
Beverly, MA

 

Prugna in a GTB is pretty striking as well...my favorite color combo(of modern colors) is Prugna with Crema interior; very classy(IMO, of course ). Hardtop really cleans up the lines, too...

 

Okay, I did it again...

Augustine Staino
1987 328 GTS
#68235
Red/Tan
16,800 miles (not for long!)

I'm the second owner and the car is completely stock down to the original Alpine AM/FM/Cassette (I know they didn't come with radios but you know what I mean). Just picked it up last night!

 

1988.5 328 GTS
Red/Black
September 1988
78791
23,000 miles
Sparta NJ

 

I certainly hope so! MARK

 

71687 - GTS - Red/Black - Ton Visser - Lanaken, Belgium

...Ton Visser has sold this car.

MARK

 

It was brought to my attention that www.Ferrari328.com was offline due to a DNS problem. I never noticed because I use the IP address to get to it. It should start resolving again shortly. As far as I know, all entries in this thread are on the online registry at Ferrari328.com.

If you have questions send me a PM.

Thanks
T

 

This unit now owned by:

WES RIST
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

 

fyi, per this 328 on ebay, note that 79663 is
December 1988 production(see door sill plate photo),
so you might wanna update your notes on
the start of USA 1989 production a bit,
at the bottom or your serial number listing/entry.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4543015224&category=6212

 

hi there

here's our car's details

1) Year and VIN
1988 78043

2) GTB or GTS
GTS

3) Interior / Exterior Colors
black leather, red carpet, red paint

4) Location
Auckland, New Zealand

5) I'll use your FChat user name unless you specify otherwise
knowazark

6) Production date (on US cars only in driver’s door jam)
not a US car .. so don't have this

Cheers,

Steve & Ade

 

Not quite...true, a car with a manufacturing date/tag of 1988
-may- have been titled in
1989 in the U.S., due to lag time between manufacture and
actual sale date/licensing/dealer-buyer intention/etc.

Somewhere out there in automag land is an
interesting article on 'model years', originally
brought up around 1967, when the U.S. first
implemented smog rules. Enzo replied to the
Feds that Ferrari does -not- designate model years
as in the U.S., but refers to date of manufacture,
as Ferrari is such a small volume manufacturer that
Ferrari does not switch models by year, but by
actual changes in the design of a model, and
therefore, any 'year' applicable to a Ferrari would
be based on when the car was made, which is
referenced by documents and the label inside the
door.

Minor points, but applicable here.

What you would -not- expect to see in Ferrariland
within the U.S. would be a car manufactured in
November of a year, sold in December of the
same year, but titled as a model year +1...

Translation, Ferraris model years in the U.S.
should be viewed as you described for Europe...

Now, this doesn't mean some cars were incorrectly
titled as 1989 cars, cuz of errors in paperwork,
or the dealer wishing to title 'em as such.

For purposes of the ABS stuff I posted, I was
going by the door jam manufacturing date and
not what might or might not end up on some
paperwork down at the DMV...

Btw, there -is- an interesting exception to this
process, participated in by Ferrari NA back in
the 1970's. The 308GT4 was produced for a couple
of years before the 308GTB came out, and as
this was the only car Ferrari was bringing into the
U.S., and there was a gas crisis going on at the
time, Ferrari ended up making basically the entire
run of GT4's all at once. Well, these babies sold
slowly, and ended up being warehoused for several
years till they sold...this was also the main reason
they were rebadged from 'Dino' to 'Ferrari',
had the roofs chopped for moonroofs, two-tone
paint applied, etc, etc, etc.
In the U.S., the GT4's were 'described' as model
years up through 1979, even though the serial
numbers on these babies only went up to 15,000+.
Interesting that the 308GTB/S numbers for
'model year' 1979 went up to just over 30,000...

So, another example of how Ferrari fudged things
to get the product ou the door...

 

I wonder--is it possible that the 308GT4s were serial numbered in the Dino 246 series? And that the 308 GTB/S cars were numbered in the Ferrari series along with the 12-cylinder cars? That might accound for the big discrepancy in the SNs.

Cheers, Mark

 

From what I've read, that's precisely what occured.

 

Dunno, i suppose that's a possibility. The Alan Henry book(p. 127) shows broad serials for all of these models, but doesn't indicate a split between Dino vs. Ferrari.
Most of my old FML's and Ferrari books/mags are boxed up in the garage, so i don't have easy access to trivia stuff such as this; would be nice to get some clarification from someone out there...

The biz about the 308GT4 inventory buildup/storage has been written about mutiple times, so i'm pretty sure that's correct...

Kinda got off track/topic on this GT4 thing...my original long-winded post above is, i think, still correct, in that -most- people determine 'model year' by the manufacturing date listed on the plaque on the door jam.

 

US Ferraris (including all US 328s) do indeed have designated model years. These form part of the VIN code (see Edvar van Daalen's site at www.red-headed.com for an explanation of Ferrari VIN numbers). The model year is not part of the VIN for European cars and there is no model year concept in Europe. So, for example, a 1989 model year 328 GTS in the US may have been manufactured in, say, October 1988. In Europe when the year of a car is referred to it is usually the year of first registration, or sometimes the year of manufacture.

308 GT4s all have even serial numbers and continued on from the Dino number range, so a 308 GTB and 308 GT4 produced simultaneously would have quite different serials. Ferrari allocated odd numbers only to road-going (as opposed to race cars) Ferraris upto serial number 75000 and both odd and even numbers thereafter. Almost all Dinos (206, 246 and 308 GT4s, including the later Ferrari badged ones) carry even serial numbers.

Jonathan

 

Jtremlett, I stand corrected...appears you're correct(!)

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&rd=1&item=4543015224&category=6212

While this 328 i referenced earlier has a manufacturing date of Dec 1988, the VIN listed seems to be U.S., 1989...if memory serves, the 'K' in the VIN is in the position(10) designating model year, and 'J' would be for 1988, 'K' for 1989.

So, wrong on a bunch of serial points here...
But, on the original subject i posted on, dealing with ABS, i still think there were some ABS models brought into the U.S. during 1988; how many, i don't know; how many were labelled as '88 vs. '89, i have no clue...

 

Steve Alhgrim once told me that ABS brakes were one of the very few changes that Ferrari ever made that conincided precisely with a model year (this applies to US cars only). Steve was a partner in the ATlanta dealership FAF at the time. Later became Ferrari of Atlanta. It was a simple thing to change the model year letter in the VIN to coincide with the ABS. In the US we do refer to the model year as indicated by the VIN regardless of when the car was actually manufactured. 89 model year for US cars started around VIN#78800. I would be interested to know the earliest VIN# of a Euro car with ABS which was supposed to optional there before it was made standard equipment.

308GT4's were serialed as Dino's, hence the even numbers. Ferrari road cars were odd number only until VIN#75000 when they began using both.

Dave

 

Dunno if this helps....

I've got 328 #79393 (which is an ABS car). As far as I can tell it was manufactured in around Oct/Nov 88 but first registered here in the UK in Mid Jan 89. In the UK its referred to as an '89 car.

I.

 

67989 - GTS - Yellow/Black - VS - Bellbrook, OH

I sold my 328 [above] - so the update should read:

67989 - GTS - Yellow/Black - Lissa Spaulding - Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Production date - Nov. 1986

Now - time to shop for it's replacement!!!

 

Iain,
I have the litter mate to your car #79392, a US GTB! I guess they were separated at birth! I have a record of an 89 US GTB #78881. Latest 88 I have is 78714, so ABS was introduced in the US between those 2 numbers. Looking for an earlier Euro car.

Dave

 

1987 GTS
VIN Serial # 68673
Red/Tan
Syracuse, New York
Bob Pakan
Production date: December 1987