Did early 512TR's say Testarossa on the engine cover?

testarossa on the lid on early 512 TR is original.

Painted engine covers are not original, only on 512 M.

 

I had a similar question back in this thread.

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/boxers-tr-m/446136-anyone-know-who-owns-512-tr.html

 

Blk 94
Red 92
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I heard 1992 cars only had it

 

Mine is a 92 and has the testarossa badge

 

Just to reaffirm what has been said, only 1992 cars had the script on the engine hood. In addition the '92s also should have the plate shown below on the inside of trunk lid (in the center) not sure what it means but it disappeared with the script on the '93s forward. Also all 512TRs had black center sections in the engine hood, the 512M has that area painted body color. It would be interesting to know why Ferrari called these cars(my title and MSO shows the model as a 512TR not a testarossa) 512TRs but have this script and plate that say testarossa
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The engine cover color is a black satin, not full gloss.

 

Mine is a 92 and dont have the badge,i´ve Heard that it was only the first of the 92:s that had it.Would be intressting to know how many had the badge....

 

here we go again....
mine is a 92 and it has the testarossa badge and body colored engine cover, and the side shields.
all of which the dealer told me were on the car originally. he could not confirm if they came from the factory like that, but says they did not do any of these things themselves. so either these were factory options, or somewhere between the factory and the first owner, somebody other than the dealer made these changes.

all of which tells me that you could get the factory to do them prior delivery.

 

92 and no badge!

 

According to the factory all cars had the Testarossa script until assembly #11516.

The car was originally called Testarossa. All early factory publications, parts books etc referred to the car as Testarossa only. It was decided by them very late that the car needed a different identity to establish it as a different car and not just a face lift of the original. It never really worked and was one of the reasons for the poor sales. Ferrari told us before the cars were even released that they had mad a big mistake by not performing a complete redesign. We had clients routinely ask us why they should trade "up" for the same car. Many asked to just have the new motor installed in the old car. It was an uphill battle to convince people it really was a different car.

 

Mine is oem full gloss Timothy

I agree fully with Brian: its one big Testarossa family ! So on my ('92) glossy cover was also the family name badge: testarossa

 

All you have to do is drive the car and there is no doubt it is a different car.

Mine is a 92 and it has the Testarossa badge.

 

Imagine if they painted the valve covers black on the TR

It would have been called a ________

 

Interesting…so correct me if I'm wrong.

So it seems only about the first third of production had the Testarossa badge, while the final two thirds of production did not.

Basically all of them had the painted black section on the engine cover, although it seems it might have possibly been an option to get that painted body color?

The air deflector in the side intakes was always painted black, and if it is painted body color it must have been done after the fact, correct?

 

I have a family friend who was a salesman at a Ferrari dealership in the 80s and 90s, and much of what you said he has also mentioned.

He said many were happy the car still looked like the previous car (Testarossa), but didn't quite understand how it could be so different yet look so similar. He used to always say the best remedy to this was a test drive, as everybody who test drove the car immediately said what a huge difference it was from the previous car (Testarossa).

I think as mentioned before, Ferrari just added that small badge there for a while to tie the car into the "family". Plus, let's remember that all of the engines always had the red covers and are technically all "Testarossa" engines. The 512 TR name was just an evolution I think...

 

As long as we are talking minor changes to the 512 TR
What does your engine latch box look like
Open or covered?
Dont think this was mentioned before
This is the 94' latch box
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And this is the 92'
Which do you have
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I am assuming both your cars are Euro production so it is kind of hard to tell what year the car was produced. If I understand correctly the year of a Euro car is figured based on when it was first registered. In the US the 10th digit in the serial number discloses the model year(gov't regulation) ie; N is for 1992, P is for 1993. Your serial no. has a zero as the tenth digit no matter what year the car is. The only way to tell when a Euro Ferrari would have been produced would be to know the sequence of serial numbers for that model for a particular years production or maybe like the US there is a plate that tells you when the was produced. The '92 512 SN in the US range from around 87440 to around 93240, mainly what that means is that those SNs met all the US regulations in place at that time and were classified as '92 models if they were built after June of 1992 they would be 1993 512s. My 512TR has a build date of October 1991 and is No. 91741 but it has an N for the 10th digit, any car built after, IIRC, June of certain year has to assigned the following year as its production year so my car is a '92 and my title shows that to be the year of the car. Whew...sorry for that long explanation my point is that maybe your serial nos. are greater than 932.. would have been register in your country in 1992 and they were just past the time Ferrari dropped the badge. I would assume that if your cars were in the US they would be titled/registered as 1993 models that thought is based on our regulations here.
Since most 512TRs were built in '91 and '92 a larger number of these cars would have the script on the engine cover

 

yep here we go again. We had this discussion a while back and my intention at that time was not to ruffle your feathers as I have always thought highly of your posts and knowledge on the subjects discussed, but what I have found in my research on the 512TR doesn't show any information that the factory offered these as choices/option. I'm not saying you are 100 percent wrong maybe 95 percent, hahaha, the factory always did different things over the years that know one could verify and weren't normal for a particular model.
Anyway just some food for thought and questions: the earlier fender badges that the factory used on cars like the GTO and F40 were metal and enamel and fit into a recess in the fender, same process as used on the newer cars also. The fender badges and different fenders for all these cars show in their related parts books. I don't see anything in the 512 book about a fender badge or a different fender showing a recess.
Are yours enamel and recessed into the fender? I would say if they are those thicker plastic type and there is no recess in the fender than someone other than factory installed them.
Same for the body color on the engine cover I can't any info that showed they offered this. The design idea didn't exist yet Ferrari didn't start doing it until '95 on the 512M. My thoughts on this are related to what I saw happen with the 348; the first 4 years of production saw the lower valance panels painted black by the factory in contrast to the body color, as soon as the '93s came out with those lower panels painted body color a lot of guys were copying the idea on to their '89s, 90s etc. Maybe the prior owner did these changes before the dealer you bought it from sold the car to you?

 

frankly i dont know. the dealer in question is the main dealer in rome, and i spoke to him about this years ago ( i have owned this car since 2000). the first owner was not a ferrari guy, and hardly drove the car, and left it mostly at the dealer's garage (they house cars for most ferrari owners in rome since it is so difficult to park there). he said he did not offer the repainting or the badges, but did not think the previous owner had had anything done to the car since he received it. so it is a bit of a mystery. subsequently, i have seen plenty of 512tr's with both the same thick plastic badges, and the body colored engine covers, such that i think these options were offered somewhere along the line. i think it is unlikely that dozens, if not hundreds, of people all had access to the same thick plastic stickers and had the idea to paint their covers.

however, at this stage i also dont even care anymore. i prefer my car with those things, and i am glad it has them.

thanks for the serial number info. need to check mine. have the feeling it is an early 92 production.

 

Thanks Ross for your responce back on this. What is good about conversations like this is that we have a great central source/archive like Fchat to keep track of information about our cars for ourselves and others to use.

 

And of course Welcome to Red Headed as our central dataset !