known 308 GTB steel production numbers are wrong?

Interesting to be reminded that my ordinary old 308 is actually 1 of only about 3000... (Carbed GTS). The way 308s sometimes get talked about in Ferrari circles you'd think they were on par with a Camry. Think I'll go and give my old girl a hug!

 

Alberto,

Trouble is that FACTORY FIGURES for carbed GTBs given to the press are 2.185 steel and 808 vetros....(total 2.993)
You can find these, for each year of production, in Dirk-Michael Conradt's book (in German) for instance.
It wouldn't be the first time that we find a contradiction...

Rgds

 

No, certainly not yet: those in the book are from the factory also...
This simply means we have two different sets of figure allegedly coming from the factory, that's all.

Now we have to cross-check the reference for all the datas, for instance take the known production figures for the total of all Ferraris manufactured by each year, and see how these are adding by different models, and if we find the total year by year again.

Are we always must remain very cautious: are we sure that those figures you find in the period press are indeed production figures, or sales figures, which would not be the same thing, for instance? What about LHD and RHD cars? etc...

I have found all along the year that production figures given by the factory in books and admitted as reliable are indeed usually reliable in the end...
So unless proven wrong, I tend to accept these ase closest to the truth.

 

Well, I have tried to cross-check quickly the two different set of figures and it is indeed quite puzzling...
For instance, if we take the year 1978, the total number of Ferrari produced are usually given as 1939; your table says 1898.

If we take the original figures given for instance by the book I was quoting, we arrive at 1711 308 (GTBs + GTS) manufactured for 1978.

1939 minus 1711 would be 228 for all other models, which does not match with the table which gives 340 (BB + 400)
1898 minus 1711 would be 187 for all other models, which does not match at all...

So you might indeed be right here, Alberto, regarding the carbed GTBs...except that there is another important factor to be cleared, that is the question of the 308 GT4 production numbers:
We know that they were legally considered as "Dinos" until 1980, proof is that when the 17 position VIN system was created, Ferrari asked for a different VIN for Dinos than for Ferraris: the one for "Dinos" begins by "ZDF", then one for Ferraris is (of course) "ZFF".
How are they considered by the factory? Reported in the total Ferrari production, or reported separately?

But then, the table coming from the magazine in your post doesn't add as for the carbed GTSs numbers: 1060 + 1250 + 885 is 3195.
But we know that some GTSs were built and delivered already in 1977 (figures known until now is 508).
So: either there were no GTSs built/delivered in 1977...or there were more GTS built than we believed (= at least 3700) or the table in your message is wrong on GTSs...and some of these might actuallt be GTBs!

And we must be cautious between production figures versus sales figures...

But it is worth giving a try: so I will do a set of cross-checking with different sources and see what I can find. I shall report later, probably tomorrow.

Rgds

 

Yes, but along the years, there are official publications from Ferrari giving other numbers as well...and all are "official".
This is where the problem is, as when you cross-check and make totals, numbers do not match...

Rgds

 

Well, looking for/digging into "the Truth" is always exiting. But should the numbers ever be, for 100% shure, disclosed it kills a bit of the mistique now, or won't it ?

The number of cars still in existance however I would really find exiting. Of course numerous times more difficult to find out than the number of cars produced.

However, I wonder if there are mathematical approaches to this, I mean statistics regarding the relation between "super/exotic" cars produced, and the amount of cars that still are around. Statistics that could/would also apply to Ferrari's. I would lóve to have a somewhat accurate estimate of Vetro cars that are still among us, for obvious reasons..

 

Based on the fact, that the official site doesn't even mention our late carb cars in their chassis no. range, my confidence to all things regarding documentation, coming from the factory, is limited.

Best Regards
Martin

 

Thank you for digging in again to try to bring better clarity to the production numbers. Many of us would find them very interesting.

For an automobile manufacturer, there is very little business justification to be concerned about the past – only the future – and most manufacturers leave the documentation to amateur historians. Ferrari Corporation is lucky to have an intensive base of Tifosi who have documented better than most.

I can’t help but wonder if Ferrari has a huge stack of paper index cards, one for each Serial Number, showing the construction prescription for that particular car. Sadly, they would be on the paper from the 1970s, which is highly acidic (“non-archival&#8221 and slowly turning to powder (books from 1650 are in fine shape; books from 1950 are in bad shape). If my imagining is true, I sure wish Ferrari would hire an inexpensive summer intern to scan and post all of those file cards to make those records permanent. … I am dreaming.

 

There is no "if" here: Ferrari has indeed an index card for each car produced; these are on cardboard paper and include all data pertaining to each car as produced. To this day, these are not scanned but kept in boxes, akin to shoe boxes. After 1984/85, datas are electronically stored.

Rgds

 

Try telling that to Jaguar, Aston Martin & Porsche. I think high end manufacturers are extracting worthwhile business value from various aspects of their back catalogue. Ferrari included. They know their tatty index cards are priceless, not worthless.

 

My car has assembly number 3. After learning that there is an assembly number in the first place, I got exited and tried to get all the info regarding my car. I tried to get that info directly from Ferrari, got "stone-walled" and was sent to an official dealer for any info. The dealer got stone-walled too (though impossible for me to check how much effort they put into my request), just info regarding "matching numbers" for engine and gearbox, and original body- and interior colors. I tried again at the dealer, and after some time got a reply Ferrari had no further info regarding #19055.

So the fact Ferrari does have all the info regarding a certain car confuses me. Confirming they had the requested info regarding my car, at a certain fee/price would have made sense to me. Denying they have any other info doesn't...

 

I would agree with your recap, and it's "easy" as everything from 1975 thru 1977 is ALL GTB production.

I always felt the 'glass number was maybe a little low, I have seen a 900 something published, for 1975 thru 1977.

The other thing I believe, is that Ferrari well knew the upcoming standards for the USA, and "held" as many slots open, for "1977" cars as they could possibly make. I owned #20405 which was a 1976 steel US car, so that has to be one of the first. But my point is the 1977 USA GTBS may be an odd number, when placed against the calendar...

Great thread Albert, in any event a 1977 GTB is not a large production car.

 

Alberto,

I have taken the book and cross-checked the datas by model, by year, compared the total known production of all cars, substracted 308, etc. It gives also year by year production for 208 and 308 GT4s.
Everything matches within the table, everything falls right in place, and it gives indeed a total of around 2900 carbed GTBs, glass and steel.
The tables you are posting in your first post are NOT those from the book, by the way: the one giving production by year is completly off with the ones in the book, which, for GTBs only, glass and steel, says:
1975: 26 / 1976: 644 / 1977: 963 / 1978: 415 / 1979: 417 / 1980: 432, all carbed cars.
GTSs are given as:
1977: 106 / 1978: 884 / 1979: 1029 / 1980: 1200.
So, for carbed GTB AND GTS (excluding GT4s) production was, according to the book:
1977: 1069 / 1978: 1299 / 1979: 1446 / 1980: 1632.
I Will post the table from the book tomorrow, can't do it now from my cell.

Rgds

 

Here are the factory production figures quoted by Dirk-Michael Conradt in his book from 1990.
You will note a few interesting facts:
- They are completely different from those quoted in the table shown by Alberto in attachement (2); that one says for instance 690 steel GTBs in 1978 and 1979, which is obviously completly wrong; I don’t know were those figure came from.
- They do match almost number by number the figures quoted by Alberto from the italian magazine, which are sales figures not production figures, which explains the slight discrepancies (magazine says 391 GTBs in 78, production given by the book is 415; magazine 439 for 1979, book 417)
- When the total of all V8 produced in one year is deducted from the total Ferraris of all type built that year, the result is absolutely coherent with the production figures of the V12 cars (400 + BB) (and do indeed match those figures given by the same magazine)
- There are some important variation year on year by models, we can see that as the GTS production numbers were growing the other models were diminishing.
but from one year to the other, the TOTAL number of V8 cars built shows a steady and regular incrementation.

1975 : GTB : 26
1976 : GTB : 644 / 308GT4 : 439 / 208GT4 : 193. Total V8 cars produced in 1976 : 1276
1977: GTB : 963 / GTS: 106 / 308GT4 : 320 / 208GT4 : 84. Total V8 cars produced in 1977: 1473
1978: GTB : 415 / GTS : 884 / 308GT4 : 267 / 208 GT4 : 24. Total V8 cars produced in 1978 : 1590
1979: GTB : 417 / GTS : 1029 / 308GT4 : 326 / 208 GT4 : 47. Total V8 cars produced in 1979 : 1819
1980: GTB : 432 / GTS : 1200 / 308 GT4 : 112 / 208GT4 : 23. Total Carbed V8 cars produced in 1980: 1767 (to which the first batch of injected cars should be added to have the total V8 production of 1980)

Now, trying to cross match those figures:
Official Ferrari production for 1978 is “about 1939 cars”; substracting the total of V8 cars built in 1978 (1590) leaves us with 351, which matches very well the number of 340 400 and BB sold that year as given by the Italian magazine quoted by Alberto
For 1979, official production is 2221 cars; substracting the V8 cars produced leaves us with 402, which again matches very well the number 413 quoted by the magazine.

I found no reason whatsoever to doubt that those figures, as quoted by Dirk-Michael Conradt in his book, are indeed the real production data, take or leave half a dozen cars here or there. And therefore I state that I do believe that the total number of 308 GTBs build is indeed about 2950, glass and steel included.

Rgds

 

Well, Yes or No...

Not to nitpick again, BUT it is unfortunately not so easy...

Are we sure that the engine numbers were 100% coherent with the chassis numbers? That is, regularly increasing when the chassis numbers were increasing?
Or, on the contrary, with slight variation? (The subject of engine numbers meeting the chassis numbers is not fully coherent with the 328s for instance: see the "hole" between engine #3300 and engine #10400)

Are we therefore sure that the last carbed euro 308 (drysump) does indeed necessarly have the highest engine number of all the dry sump cars? Or one of the highest? Who has the highest known engine #?

It would be interesting to have the number of US cars for 1976 (total production 644) and 1977 (total production 963).
Assuming 150 wet sump vetroresinas (100 to 105 US cars, and about 45 australians) then "about 30%" of steel 308s as US cars which would be 650 cars, that would be "about 800" wet sump cars.
Added to your 1700 dry sumps, we would be at "about 2500"; close enough, but we would need to know the figures for Australian RHD steel cars (wet sump).

But we have for the time being "at least 2500"....

Rgds

 

Indeed Alberto, and there are a few questions that remains in the dark for me, at least as for today; among which:

Were some 308 GTB specifically built for Japan? I have a Ferrari technical service bulletin that states some spring rates specifically for Japan ("Giappone") which would tend to point that way, but if this is indeed the case, were these cars dry sump or wet sump? And then: how many of these?

On the same topic, we know that US GTBs and Australian GTBs were wet sump, but: were other wet sump cars built for some markets? (for instance, Japan, as said above, but there might be others...)

As I said at the begining, we must always cross-check the datas...and as for 308 GTB carbed cars, the two crucial years for production seem to be 1976 with 644 cars, and 1977 with 963...after this, the GTS production really took off.

(P.S: 1980 could be another topic in its own right: the production figures for the last part of the year, after the change from carbed cars to injected cars, are really difficult to match...)

Rgds