Last I heard, Art Z's car was in Italy (somewhere, presumeably at the factory which produced the tub) being repaired. "It WILL ride again" has been attributed to Art. I sure hope so. Best! Ben.
as do I. we all make mistakes , hopefully they can have the car back to pristine shape so that we (as well as Art!) can enjoy it. ernie
I got a chance to meet Mr. Z at the Greenwich Concours- extremely nice and outgoing guy- we probably spoke for 10-15 minutes on the condition of the F50GT alone. Don't quote me (or him for that matter)- but it seemed like the Porsche factory driver was going too fast on cold tires and lost control- he said race cars were meant to be crashed and fixed so as of late May, the car was in Italy being completely rebuilt.
What about chassis 003, in the past thread someone says that Art Zafiropoulos owns 2 of the 3 F50 GT. Who know something about this affirmation ? And chassis 002 is still in Japan it's sure. But, I never see a pic of s/n 003, anyone ??? And if 001 is going to be rebuilt in Italy, with which parts ? And at the factory or other coachbuilder ? And what about the other chassis 004, 005, they really exist ? Because if they exist, Ferrari don't have to produce one.
"Because if they exist, Ferrari don't have to produce one." They don't exist. They were ordered destroyed via a legal situation.
Art Zafiropulo owns chassis no 001 (the one currently undergoing repairs). Search the old board for details on what exactly happened. Chassis no 002 is still in Japan, Forza no 48 (October issue) has a tiny pic of it in action. Owner is Okamoto I believe. Chassis no 003 used to belong to Jim Spiro, but he sold it along with his regular F50. Now he owns the very cool and very historic Ferrari 330 TRI LM last seen on the French Quarter Concorso. Supposedly it's his daily driver too! As for the rest of the chassis, people keep saying that they had to destroy it because of legal reasons. I wish someone would explain to us all the reason why it had to end that way.
There are people on this board that know the exact specifics, but I'm pretty sure it's governed by a non-disclosure agreement. All very hush hush.
found on google this link...with some nice pics of the F50GT http://www.highresautoimages.com/ferrari/f50gt.html enjoy (I did...)
Thanks for posting that site, ForzaFerrari. It's a pretty cool site in general. Great for desktop wallpaper
Look here! New pics of a F50 GT located in Australia. http://speed.*************/Board?viewThread=true&fID=8&tID=89361&bottom=0 http://speed.*************/Board?viewThread=true&fID=8&tID=89361&bottom=15
OK, so I'm thinking, jack up the ride height 2" in front, and 3" in rear (to only 4 and 5" respectively...) and toss on a dealer plate. Muwaahahahahha. Best! Ben.
the one thing that bothers me slightly about the GT's are the lack of the Scuderia shield on the side. they look all business though.
I see this car almost daily. AFAIK the owner has only driven it once at Phillip Island race track. One day it's for sale...then it isn't. Who knows.
If you're going to post the links to Doug Hayashi's (an F chatter, I believe) F50 GT1 videos, you might as well post the link to the page that goes with it. http://www.pulpracing.com/fontana_ferrari.htm WARNING: You can easily get sucked into reading the other 90+ chapters of his motoring adventures, so don't start reading late at night. http://www.pulpracing.com/stories.htm
The reason for them being ordered destroyed is only half the story...I know some of it but not enough to post confidently! The other part of the story is "Were they really destroyed.......?" The answer to that is very foggy indeed.
The F50 GT1 is to date my all time favorite Ferrari. The line of the car are better than the street going F50's. In particular I like the rear end of the car way better. I don't like the high F40 style wing that the road car has. The flat end with the racing wing does the F50 justice. Along with the flared front fenders and, splitter on the front airdam. It is a shame they were never raced. Because they were built to beat the McLaren F1. But to my knowledge Ferrari didn't race them because Toyota and Nissan weren't following the FIA rules at the time. The rules said something to the extent of that GT cars had to have road going versions. I think it was something like 25 cars. Hence the name F50 "GT1". McLaren, Porsche, and Mercedes all had road going versions of the car that they raced at LeMans. McLaren had the F1 GTR, Porsche the 911 GT1, and Mercedes the CLK GTR. Neither of the Japanese maunufactures had any road going versions of the car. The Japanese race cars were full blown prototypes, and were allowed to race. So Ferrari decided not to race, because the rules weren't being followed, or up held. Then they also threw in the buyers clause, that the owners could not race the cars. Then this is were they had the remaining tubs destroyed. But this is only from what I remember. However, all maunfactures keep the original blue prints and molds of all the cars they have made. So this is how the F50 GT1 that got smashed is gonna be able to be fixxed.
From this year's Pebble Beach Concours d'Elegance. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
