Daytona question re: production run changes

Generally speaking, while quite simple and rather superficial your example questions won't even scratch the surface.

I've been researching, studying & documeting details on number of Daytonas while working on and restoring them for more than few years now and I'm still learning new details about them almost daily, even discovering manufacturing defects & discrepancies no one has bothered to document or notice before.
And I don't think I've scratched the surface yet, so no easy or simple answers.

If seriously interested in educating yourself, get all the books and magazines regarding the subject, read them, but with caution.
Perhaps as much as 50% of published info on Daytona seem to have and/or perpetuate inaccuracies, even factory manuals appear to offer surprising amounts of severe discrepancies.

 

here's a photo of an early plexi car with what appears to be a wood wheel that has been covered in leather.
Factory or not, I have no idea. 2 owner car, same owner last 40+ years which I know doesn't mean much regards originality.
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My take on these questions:-
Plexi cars came with both wood and leather Momo wheels, it could have been customer choice, but both were fitted to plexi cars, some leather wheels have now been changed on the early cars in the misbelief that they only had wooden wheels. [ I have seen this done].

Plexi cars no head rests
Pop up cars had head rest, I am fairly sure all the USA cars had head rests along with all the other changes to suit the market.

Ferrari Chat is a much better way to get an answer to a particular question than any book I have found.

Re the switch Spyder question.
Spyder's came with 3 from the factory, as they had no heated rear window, sometimes a extra switch was added by the dealer for fog lights, radio aerial etc.
Hope this helps.

 

Would anyone care to differentiate 365 GTB/4 from 365GTB/4A? Thanks to all.

 

Dave,

While I can appreciate your enthusiasm and interest, I can't really recommend any book over another since they all seem have (from my point of view) their own "issues" and that's why I said study them all for basic information.
After that start collecting/recording your personal observations and perhaps years from now you might agree with my assessment "more you learn, less you know" ;-)

Perhaps my "problem" with most books and interweb forum contributions is that I have years and decades of first hand, in-depth experience (for better or worse) with these and other vintage cars and often shudder for the amount of inaccurate information being shared/perpetuated by many whom appear to have very little, if any.
This I imagine is also why, in general, many with real experience and knowledge stay away from all of this.
Besides, why would they share their hard earned experience for free ?
Do architects, doctors or lawyers share theirs freely on public forums ?

IMO, bottom line: Daytona was in production for about four and half years and not only impacted by variety of destination requirements (i.e. RH drive, etc) along with newly evolving US government mandates and numerous parts and component updates due to lack of availability or technical issues discovered during production run, etc. commonly plaguing all car manufacturers.
And yes, with so many examples having received "personalizations", multiple "restorations" & "updates" over the past 4+ decades doesn't help either.

Or perhaps I'm just making all this way too complicated. 🙄
So if you ever figure it all out, I'll be first in line to buy the book.

 

Best to do a search.
Its been asked many times.
Marcel gave the best explanations I have seen.

 

Thanks, will do.

 

Head restraints were mandatory on all vehicles sold in the U.S. after 1 January 1969. Typically in those days if the car cleared port of entry before that date they didn't have to have headrests, but after that date they did. Bottom line is that headrests were implemented in the 1969 model year, but early cars that were imported before January 1st didn't have to have them.

Pop up headlights were later and were also a response to U.S. safety regulations and were a 1971 model year change. Again, early 71 model year cars could have been plexi, but after January 1 all were mandated to be pop up models.

So, to be correct, all pop up cars for the U.S. market would have had headrests as delivered. Cars delivered to Europe weren't covered by MVSS and were different and it would depend on where the car was destined to be delivered determined how it was configured.

 

There were no plexi-nose US spec cars, isn't that correct?

 

I seem to recall that this is correct. In the US all cars had to have "sealed beam" headlights and that didn't change until the mid-80's or later. The Plexiglas nose wouldn't have passed US headlight rules at the time.

A bit foggy since it was almost 50 years ago, but if I remember correctly there was a short time where the Daytona couldn't pass emissions and there was a piece in Car and Driver that made a parody of that with a guy dressed up as a gladiator and a cop, and pointing to the fuel filler and asking if he was hiding cyclamates (which had recently been outlawed in the USA) in there... Either that or they were making fun of the differences between US spec and European spec cars... Anyway that had to be in the very late 1960's like around 1969 or thereabouts....

 

It was the January 1970 issue. Chinetti and Bill Harrah both had plexiglass cars early on; Harrah's was tested by Road and Track with the famous Dean Batchelor photo of the dash showing an indicated 170+ mph. I have both issues around here somewhere.

 

I believe that the no-plexi for US cars was not about the sealed beam headlights but that the MVSS did not allow covers over the headlights. Yes, sealed beams were required but that was a separate regulation.

 

Well, even back then and without photoshop, that would've been easy enough to fake, if needed.
Even easier than actually driving at that speed. ;-)

 

Timo: It was real, I have spoken with Dean about the drive. They did it early in the morning outside of Reno. He said the Daytona was the most stable car he had ever driven at high speeds (and Dean had driven very fast before). He told me the whole process went so smoothly that they almost could not believe it themselves.

 

Dyke, I didn't really doubt that. Merely a tongue-in-cheek suggestion, as I've "driven/run" several cars or just their speedometers to upper ends of their scale spectrums without moving an inch, either on chassis dyno, jack stands or on the lift (even photographed some such events). The latter two I don't really recommend doing unless absolutely necessary and access to dyno is not an option.
OTOH, never to quite 170mph, but I've driven several Daytonas @ about 140-150mph on public roads, none felt nowhere near their limits or unstable.

 

I have driven Daytonas at 140-150 at sustained speeds, the car is magnificent. Brakes are nowhere vs. modern standards but what a thoroughbred.

 

IIRC correctly When Paul Frere did his road test of the Daytona the first press car he tried had a fuel starvation issue at around 160mph, so Ferrari gave him another car which Frere described as dirty and unprepared with 26,000 km (or miles?) on the clock. It was that car that he hit 174mph on his own timing device on an open Italian Autostrada.

The road test is reprinted in Doug Nye's Ferrari Daytona book.

 

Well, Daytona brakes were probably the best of any road car at the time.
How many other late 60's road cars featured dual circuit, 4-piston caliper, 4 wheel ventilated disc brakes ?

Comparatively, just yesterday I offered a client (Daytona owner) a chance to drive a concourse quality, fully restored, thoroughly sorted and essentially ready for any long distance (1000+ mile) trip 1957 DeSoto Adventurer Convertible in my care.
One thing I made sure he understood is that its OEM brakes, while way better sorted than in most same era Chrysler Corp. cars today and originally claimed having been "better design" (but proven not) than in most other cars at the time, they are nowhere near what he's accustomed to in Daytona. He agreed, but appeared surprised how well behaving and confidence inspiring the car felt overall.