Is it a 1971 or 1972?

March 1971 would make it a 1971 model year car.

My brother just bought 01464 that is a Dec 70-Jan71 production date car that has spent its whole life titled as a 1972. Further investigation has shown that it was first plated in April 1973 as a 72 model year car. We left the registration as a 72 as it is a neat footnote in the history of the car. Anyone knowledgable knows otherwise regardless of what the DMV says. I'm still learning so I'll let the real experts chime in on the differences.

 

What is the chassis number?

 

M-Series production 1970-71 was for S/N 01118 to 02130 (even numbers only). As a reference my 71 Dino, 01296 was built in Dec 1970. Yours is a '71.

Pietro

 

Congrats on the new car!

Pics?

 

Just looked at the ad pic from where you bought it; lovely, lovely Dino. And great history!

I'm sure you know, its history is here:

http://www.dinoregister.com/search.php

 

Is that a fire suppression system in the trunk?

 

Interesting. One of my Dinos, 04808, has an Oct. 1972 build tag, but Matthias told me that, based on the body number, it was probably manufactured in Dec. '72 or Jan. '73. It was first registered in April of 1974, as a 1972. I always thought it odd that it took so long to get on the road (I believe it arrived in the U.S. in mid-summer of '73, was purchased in the fall and delivered the following April). Apparently, cars spent more time in transit in those days than they do today. By comparison, today a new M-B or Porsche arrives in the U.S. about six weeks after manufacture. Fred

 

By boat, and it could sit on the docks for some time at either end, unless someone was stamping their foot and making a lot of noise.......

We had a load of Lambos dumped here in Houston in 1972 because the dealership in California had gone bankrupt........they were all liquidated here locally.....

 

Fred-

My Dino is 4894 and I believe it also has a build date tag of Oct 1972 (not positive since I am in the middle of restoration and parts are in boxes). That is 86 cars further on in production. Hard to believe that that many cars were made in a month- even harder to believe based upon the history of my car.

My paperwork shows that the first owner picked it up from the factory 18/5/73. So that would mean it sat at the factory for 7 or 8 months before it was sold. If Mathis is correct that it was really made in Jan or Feb (or even a month or so later based upon your number) it would seem more reasonable.

The original owner ordered his Dino from Luigi Chinetti for factory pick up in Jan 1973. He ordered a US version silver metallic Dino. His delivery paperwork from Chinetti is dated 5/9/73 so he expected to find that his silver Dino built and ready for him when he got to the factory the following week. When he got to the factory his silver car was not available because of a work strike. He picked this red one from the Dino's stored in the factory lot. It is hard for me believe that this had been sitting unsold for 7 to 8 months and his silver Dino that was ordered in Jan was not ready by May.

I bought my Dino from the original owner in December of 1974. Never thought I would own it so long that I would have to restore it--the East coast is hard on Dino's and drove it all the time. I remember on a December morning spinning it on an icy road and being stopped by a huge snow drift from the snow plow-lucky it was a sunny day and the snow was still soft and had not refrozen.

As a wordy aside---I have been plugging away at my restoration (reading fellow Dino owner's restoration stories gets me pumped back up- you guys are great!). The strip down and the forming and welding in new sheet metal went pretty fast. I have been restoring old Porsche's at my house for 40 years so I was well into this work before I decided to do the Dino. I have done all my past painting in my homemade booth and found in the last few years that the new paints need high flow or they solvent pop- at least PPG. I have a friend who owns a well equipped restoration shop with a great spray booth so I had the paint done at his shop. I used Global PPG because I like the shade of the Dino red it formulated. What has slowed me down is I just found out that the machine shop clearanced the new valve guides way too large (they had the 1-1.5 thou spec but ignored it) when I put it on my friends dyno to break it in. Great numbers but smoke that did not go away even with the BMW seals. The heads are now getting the guides done correctly and I may get the motor into the car by the end of summer.

I have been very impressed with this forum-so many of you guys get deep into the mechanical working of these Dino's and share what you know. It has been a pleasure lurking

 

Good to hear your story, Mark. Actually, since Dinos employed only even VINs, our cars are only 43 units apart. I would estimate that to be close to two weeks' worth of production. Matthias may have a more precise answer. I'd love to see some photos of your restoration in progress, or some pre-restoration photos. Good luck on your remaining engine work! Fred

 

that really depends on Mark`s body no.
maybe they left even the same week the production line in Maranello...
regards Matthias

 

look at the dot/emissions plate in the engine compartment. it will state the MODEL year. for example, my daytona was built dec 1970. dot tag states "this car conforms to model year 1970 specifications".
hope this helps.
ed

 

no, only the US-model

 

Fred-

Thanks for jogging my memory- I forgot that Dino's had even serial numbers. I have many pictures of pulling my car apart and many shots of welding up all of the rusty sheet metal. I only have hard copy photos of my car before I took it apart- I would have to scan them to send you before pictures.

While I was welding, I converted to Euro turn signals. Before I did it I looked at a Euro turn signal hole on a Euro Dino which was being tuned up at my friend's shop. My first thought was that the hole was very crude -hand bent up sheet metal flanges and all- and that I should be able to duplicate it no problem. Yeah- it took me three tries to make them look correct. My opinion of Italian workmanship went up that week--even though my left front fender is about 3/4" lower then my right front fender.

What pictures would you like to see- I can PM to you. I have included one of my car sitting in my tiny garage during reassembly. I had to put foam on the walls so the doors would not get chipped but one day as I was struggling to install the right side window my knee hit the door and at that moment the foam came off the wall- cheap duck tape. Nice first chip. I retired last year and moved to the mountains and have a large garage to finish the assembly.
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If you can register as a 71, do so as that is what it is. It being titled as a 72 isn't worth anything more or less. Most of the cars coming into the US are pretty much open for confusion.

Imagine back in the day, a "newer car" was worth more, hence the confusion. Now we are all into the history and we want to correct this error, it is now more important to be correct vs. what was convenient at the time.

I have been told the easiest way to get the title corrected is by a letter from Ferrari, good luck in that unless you pay for the classiche program.

I wouldn't worry too much about it unless it is easy to correct, in which case, I would do so if it was my car.

 

IMO, a little bit of lag was just a sign of the times, transportation, etc....my oldest is Nov 76 production and it was always titled as a 1977....

 

Exactly.....How better to help move an "OLD" car on a car dealers lot than to make it newer......

 

Mark, Thanks for the photo and the narrative. I see that you have headlight covers. I think that they add a special touch to any Dino. Hope that you'll soon be on the road again! Up in this part of the world, there's about two more months of fairly good weather before it's time to lock up the Dinos for the winter. The season goes by so quickly! Fred

 

Fred-

Thanks for the kind words- I am afraid this is a bit of a thread hi jack so I will keep it short---

I really debated about the turn signals and the headlight covers. I was very split with restoring it to the original US configuration or making it what I really wanted- a Euro look with covers. Since I have owned my Dino for so long and may not sell it for many years I just went for what I wanted.

Making the turn signal openings correct was much harder then I thought- my skill set is wanting. Even the headlight covers were much more futzy then I planned on. From the supplier they are way over-sized and in my opinion the curve had to be reshaped using a heat gun. I looked at many pictures and made brackets that would give the best support. If I was to do it again I might go for the brackets that attach to the headlight rim using a single bracket at the front of the cover.

The one debate I have not concluded is the satin black under body paint. I painted the sides along the crease which is wrong- it should be about 1/2" above the crease and stopped there. I used pin strip tape around the front trying to get a pleasing tape line shape but could never achieve one. So it sits without black under belly paint.

It is funny- never noticed how crude the black belly paint lines were during all of my years of ownership- then when I have to paint them I get real picky and am stalled on painting them.