Gear Shift Display Box

A hobby of mine is poking around on eBay for Ferrari parts that I may want to put in my office and use as paper weights, decorations, etc. One day I ran across a complete gear shift assembly from a 456. I didn't know what I was going to do with it, but I've always loved the classic Ferrari shift gate and aluminum shift knob so I had to have it.

After a while I got the idea to make a display with the gear shift assembly. The idea was to create something that I could put in a man cave or finished garage. One requirement was that one could "shift" through the "gears" of the assembly. So, I designed a display box and contacted a local plastics fabrication company. Below is the result. I think it turned out pretty good. I've even been threatening my wife that it will be the table centerpiece at this year's Thanksgiving.

Anyone do anything similar with a Ferrari part? If so, please post your projects!
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There are several gear shift assemblies for sale right now on eBay. For example, there's another 456/550 assembly just like mine for sale:

Ferrari Shifter Gearbox Control 550 456M 456 GT Case Housing Lever Assembly | eBay

I can give you my display box design instructions, which are complete with drawings and dimensions. All you'd need to do is take the assembly and instructions to a plastics fabricator. This assembly does not include the shift gate or shift knob though, so you'd need to source them separately.

 

That's one reason I made this. Feels like I'm preserving a piece of automotive history.

 

You mean take a commission to help you build one of these? If so, note that I didn't build mine, I only designed it. I'm happy to give you my design drawings/instructions. You can take them along with a gear shift assembly to your local plastics fabrication shop (like I did) and have them build it for you. Alternatively, you can use my local shop (Custom Plastics in Atlanta) as they already have experience building one. They took a while but did a great job.

Like I said above, there are several other gear shift assemblies on eBay right now. I'm tempted to do another one for the 308, a dream car of mine since I was a kid.

 

Sure. I'll send them out when I get back to my office computer.

 

True, the gate and knob can be pricey on their own, and the prices tend to reflect the desirability of the car that they were taken from. For example, I'm sure a full F40 gear shift assembly would be pretty costly. I got lucky and got the entire assembly off eBay for around $700.

The plastics place I used is Custom Plastics. Link is below (no affiliation). Tell 'em Dave sent you.

Custom Plastics

I painted the housing myself with spray paint I got from Home Depot.

Custom Plastics specializes in acrylics so that is what they have lying around. I wanted the base to be black laminated wood, but they only had acrylic there. What we decided to do was make the base out of acrylic and laminate it with black plastic, which I also got from Home Depot. The extensive use of the acrylic turned out to be a good thing because the display case is now heavy and you can shift gears without the case moving all over the place.

I'm not sure what they'd charge others, but I paid around $750.

Edit: I have attached the plans for the display box I provided to Custom Plastics. Hopefully they are accessible to all who want to see them. This is the revised version of the plans with deletions in strike-through and additions underlined.
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LOL, I can't think of a better compliment!