GTO Clarification Thread

Obvious to whom it may appear. For me it is a great mystery why a serial number that was created in April 1962 at latest, was not delivered to a customer until 7 months later.

I am not saying 3673 raced at Nürburgring, but I still smell a rat.

Best wishes, Kare

 

It is a tempting thought that Pf might have refused to work on a used chassis in order to keep their reputation intact. I am not aware of a single case, where they worked on a used chassis, these were always sent to other coachbuilders. Best wishes, Kare

 

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Interesting!! So what took you so long?? I have only been around for 7? years and will look forward to any and all input you would like to share tongascrew

 

3765 LM: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5QDoBB9xSo[/ame]


4561 SA and 4219 GT: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBB4qnmGrJk&feature=related[/ame]


4561 SA again: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qALCkCqHNNQ[/ame]

4725 SA: [ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YiVfvy3sVlQ&feature=related[/ame]

 

Thanks a lot to El Wayne for starting this really interesting thread!

 

Do you can share images of the 3673 with its original SWB body? Would love to see some period images with this unique 400 SA.

 

By the way...

Just find this article about 3675 SA from Cavallino:

http://www.cavallino.com/3765article.html

 

No rats !!!! As per records at Ferrari. 3673 was a SA chassis that was a special order. with the SWB body. You are looking for things that are not there. Just a simple special order that probably took longer to build because of the special body. It is still the same today. If you order a special car it takes longer to finish. no hiden agenda, just normal business practice. This car has been talked to death!
Jess and I inspected the car when Helpren owned it in the 70's ,while he was writting his book. . We had the build sheets and they matched the car. We inspected the car on a lift and it was a standard SA chassis and components. Nothing special. Why he put that question mark in his book I am not sure.
At the time, Ferrari was not as friendly with furnishing all the information. especially on the factory team race cars. They have now come forward and cleared it up.

Regards

 

Great thread, I had always read that there were 39 GTOs, 36 series 1 and 3 series 2. Thanks for the clarification.

 

Well, off course the SWB bodied 400SA matches the build sheets, that is the car that is described by those sheets! But still it will be extremely difficult to be sure if a car using that serial number existed before. It is like trying to see a black hole; a little tricky if it is not emitting light.

One should at all times remember that Ferrari archive is a technical archive, not a historical one. It served the purpose to describe cars as they existed at the time and if a car was torn down and rebuilt all over, the sheets were shredded and new ones put into archive replacing them.

What comes to the 4-litre LM Berlinetta (I refuse to call it a "330GTO") raced at Nürburgring, up to this point I've refused to pin-point a serial number, but am slowly turning to think it likely was 3765LM. The car seems to have gone through some changes between the races, but I fail to find absolute proof to show these were two different cars. When that happens, it starts to work as a substantial evidence of the opposite. Those who have been doing this sort of reserach for a long time, probably undestand what I mean. Let's take a closer look on the differences:

- Small air scoops on hood have been replaced (perspex instead of aluminum sheet).
- Tail lights have been raised on bosses - in LM it was required that the tail lights are visible from the side, so this is a well known Le Mans modification performed on several GTOs. At least 3387 was allowed to run with normal tail lights, though.
- Parking lights are located up on the fenders. This could be a change that was made with LM scutineering in mind. Several 250GTOs raced with nose mounted parking lights, but one should remember that 3765LM was not a standard GT, it was an experimantal car being entered in the prototype category and likely going to be more closely inspected. The French were also known to be "very French"; sometimes things would be looked at very perfunctorily - and sometimes the smallest details would be required to be exactly as defined by the rule book, so I can see why Ferrari might have wanted to play it safe.
- Rear view mirror has been replaced, which is pretty easy to understand.

The strongest evidence for these car to be one and the same, is in the proportions of the body and nose in particular. Early GTOs have individual noses, the nose seems not to have been built on a pattern but the grille, parking lights and aux. lights were carved into the nose panel by hand. As a result every early GTO looked individual to some extent.

On the Ring car and the LM-car the grouping of grille, aux. lights and brake ducts is exactly - that being to a millimeter! - the same. This would very unlikely be happening on two different cars and this is also why I am starting to believe the Ring car really was 3765LM.

But... going back to 3673SA: its early history still is a potential black hole. For me that is the likely reason for that question mark!

Best wishes, Kare

 

You seem to be assuming that the build sheets stand on there own. The factory records include the customer order papers , and documents outlining all work done on the car including service work when the car came back to Ferrari for service. If the engine was modified or replaced or even when the serial number was changed. It is the records. When build sheets were changed, they do not destroy the original one, the add the changed pages to the original.
I have personally seen the original records on 3673 and 3765. Every thing is there. Nothing unusual.

Regards

 

Yes it is!

 

Many good things come as a result of Ferrari organizing their documents but in many cases some of the documents seem to be missing. Miss one page of foglios or miss one round of musical chairs of renumbering and you'll never be able to figure out what really happened! There is proof that they missed many!

And when cars or components were scrapped they sure did shread foglios. It was a business, anything worth zero was taken out with the trash, this is essential for understanding what remains!

Best wishes, Kare

 

Yeah if you want to study something simple and easily explained maybe the study of the Higgs - Bosun particle would have less complexity than the study of Italian Carnet changes et al............. Good posting Kare.

Tim

 

In Mauro Forghieri's 2008 book, he refers to alarm bells ringing
after Mairesse crashed a GTO on the autoroute. Was this not
the Nurburgring car?

 

Michael Sheehan's article "Ferrari's For Arts Sake" claims that 4219GT is the most original and therefore should be the most sough after. I owned 4757 GT from 1987 to 1988 and was dumb enough to sell it the month before the Commendatore died. Wish I could have afforded to have retained it.

 

4219GT: http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/detail/4219gt.250gto.htm

Others have said that 4293GT is the most sought after as it's totally original, never crashed and has a great race record. By coincidence it's pictured next to the car you previously owned in the above link.

4293GT: http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/detail/4293gt.250gto.htm

 

Sorry, in my old age I forgot the correct serial no of my car, which was 4757 GT. Reply has now been corrected, but thanks for the work in finding the two!

 

4757GT: http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/detail/4757gt.250gto.htm

Interesting history. It says in the above link that a 250GTE engine was installed. I wonder if the car now has its original engine?

 

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6UX3b6nvt3A[/ame]

Barchetta.cc info: http://www.barchetta.cc/english/all.ferraris/detail/3413gt.250gto.htm

 

Thank you kindly for that input!

 

Was it the FBI that sold the car to you? It is reported to have been in possession of Jacques Swaters in from 1987 to 1989. It would be great if you could shed some light on that interesting part of the car's history.


Onno

 

ClassicFerrari (together with Leon Cornell of Rhode Island), purchased 4757 GT from the Federal government for circa-$1.6 million. This is the GTO which the Feds seized from the late-Chris Murray.

Sometime thereafter, ClassicFerrari/Leon Cornell resold the car to Philippe Lancksweert/Jacques Swaters for circa-$2.9 million. The latter then resold the car to Fritz Kroymans.

 

How can 4219GT be the most original if it was repainted different colours twice?

4293GT is the one.

 

Which s/n is these?

http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m31o6zHkt91rq86z7o1_1280.jpg

http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m31oa2I0Ag1rq86z7o1_1280.jpg