The car is a Ferrari 275 GTB, and the young man with his arms folded, is P.L.Ferrari, with a friend of his looking on, along with co directors of Maranello Concessionaires, taken a few years ago now.
Here's a few more pic's of the GTE being restored at the moment. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Not knock it ... as I have always said, anything can be restored even an unloved by 90% of the so called Ferrari enthusiasts 250 GT/E. Maybe the frame is from some cr@p @rse poorly made replica and it is being returned to it's correct form? It though could be a case of it's easier to replace than repair the panels ... which is a bit of a shame. But it still has made me very happy to see . Pete
What Mike has done to this car is truly amazing in his small workshop by himself [in between fishing trips]. This car started life as a GTE and will now due to Mikes efforts last for many years to come. I have seen cars with bits welded in the panels and filler everywhere and you can guarantee that within a few years the rust will be back [at least in the UK you can, with our weather], in fact i have owned several of these bodged cars and i know from hard experience, to find someone with Mikes professionalism, dedication and skill is a great great bonus. As for the serial number, i am sorry i don't know as it's not my car, but i can tell you it is being rebuilt on behalf of one of the UK's most respected Ferrari Dealers.[ the same company that Tim commisioned to rebuild his car] Hi Kare, I think that front wing looks like a genuine Ferrari replacement one to me, as my rear clip came in that dirty looking color, but I'm no expert. I don't know what the car was like when it came to Mike, as the first i saw of it was on the jig starting to be repaired, similar to mine is now. Grant
That floor is rotted quite exatly as high as the double floor panels go. The problem usually is that the lower floor is formed like a tub and once water gets in, it stays there until the floor is completely gone. If the lower floor boards are replaced without taking the whole structure open, it is impossible to make it tight, and soon it will be falling apart all over again. Would also love to know the s/n - all I can say is that this is a RHD car and it is not one of the earliest cars as there is a bracket for power window motor inside that passenger door. Love to see it being born again!
Mike sent me this the other day with his views, and a few more pic's. The door was acid dipped, to remove rust before priming. Ref; 250 GTE. The car had all the floor cut away before it arrived with me for renovation. So it was either rebuild or scrap. This model is only now becoming a "classic" and worth spending the time repairing so was an interesting project that appealed to me, just as with the case with Grants car. This model is now quite rare as a lot of them had the body work removed so that replica 250gto's could be built on the shortened chassis. I saw one of these shortened chassis on a car I had to inspect in Seattle along with the FBI and the British police (bit of a problem with the chassis number), the oval tubes had been butted up after being shortened and welded together without any support, this is in the center of the car, and to make matters worse the "welded join" had been ground down to mask its existence. That is a "REPLICA" so please don't put what I do in the same ball park as greedy individuals out to con people out of money with dangerous practices!!! When some one suggests I am building a "REPLICA" they should just ponder on my problem a while, if I do not replace the metal that is rotten how is the car going to pass the Ministry of transports safety test, this car was laying outside for a number of years with a large hole in the roof, and because I know the measurements of the panels I am able to build them to the same spec as original. I was supplied with two original front wings, an original roof panel, and one original right hand sill, that was after a world search for parts by my good friends at Maranello Concessionaires parts department. If you are thinking that any car that has had new panels fitted is not original then consider the hundreds of Ferrari's that I have repaired/rebuilt since the 1960's along with my son Paul, and later the team at M C ltd body repair center. I always considered that having the blessing of Ferrari with the methods we used to re-build the cars was good enough for me, and they still give me all the assistance I require. Yours sincerely Mike. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
I hope he didn't think we are making fun of the project. It is wonderful that one of these cars is going through such a labour intensive restoration! Would it be possible to obtain the serial number??? I am quite sure this one hasn't been seen around for a while! If he would need any help in form of proper photos of body structure, the interior of my car is out and I would be more than happy to take photos!!! Best wishes, Kare
Don't worry Kare. Mike is just passionate about Ferrari and wanted just to get his view across and it is not aimed at any one specifically. Thanks for the offer of info on the car, i am sure Mike will be in touch if necessary. When i reread the e-mail i realized i had made a mistake and it was the whole car that was acid dipped not just the door, might be something to consider for my car?? Here's a few more scary pic's of my car, the first shows the rear bulk head that was replaced with steel for extra strength during the conversion and had not been welded to the car at the bottom and was covered up with sealer. The second shows the brown rust that came out of one of the fuel lines and the other two lines were the same, they will be replace with galvanized pipe. The others are just general pic's for your delight. Grant Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Mikes post is exactly my view on these replicas and it is great to see somebody who REALLY knows what he is talking about confirming that these replicas are thrown together money making rubbish ... simply wasting real cars! Again give Mike a hug for saving this GTE, and your car ofcourse . Regarding chassis number of the GTE, with owners permission I am sure it would help somebody complete a list of GTE's somewhere, and heck it is going to be the best GTE in the world very soon. Pete
I thought there were enough spare 250GTE bodies available due to all the conversions, yet Mike choose to build new, interesting.
Pardon my ignorance, but what is the photo of the pipe with the pile of dust at the end? And Mike, I agree with the previous posters; the comment about a replica was humorous. So many of us GTE owners have dealt for so long with our cars being viewed as just donors for the creation of "cooler" fake cars that even joking of a replica GTE makes us happy. We are all glad that you are taking the time in properly restoring the car in the way that it deserves. Give us more photos! We truly appreciate what you are doing and need the info to help us make our restorations better...
Good news. The first piece of new steel has been added this week, now all we need is to find an original Spyder to look at to confirm the front inner wing shape. Grant Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
Hi John Most of the rusty bits will be replaced by Mike, so there is not much point sandblasting them. The main tubes are fine. I am considering have the car, acid dipped to remove the rust when Mike has finished and they electrically charge the car and prime it so the primer even gets inside the tubes where possible. I will seek advice from Mike on this process. Grant
My preferred approach as well. I'd rather have all the reconstruction work completed and then clean/prime the chassis as a whole. There's an alkaline-imersion process facility here in town, but the neareast place to have an "E-coat" applied is up near Detroit (1-1/2 hours to the north). Definately worth the effort, for the sake of longevity/peace of mind
I wouldn't dip any old car myself. Heard horror stories about acid getting inside chassis rails and eventually eating the strength out of the car ... Plus if there are any alloy spaces hidden inside (like 105 series Alfa chassis) good buy alloy. I prefer to sandblast first so that everything is nice and clean and easy to weld to. Could stand fixing it all up and getting it blasted afterwards to find more problems ... but each to their own. Pete
Here's is the latest pic's. with the first one showing the sill and cross members, all up graded to the correct specification. [compare this to the pic. above]. The reason the rusty parts were left in place was to give Mike a datum to work from, he cannot remove every thing all at once and hope to replace it with 100% accuracy any other way. When he has finished, the structural rigidity will be hugely improved, as it was, when i pushed the car hard around a bend, the tires rubbed on the inner body work, that's how bad it was, and now looking at all the evidence of the state of the chassis and the poor strengthening work carried out when the car was converted you can now see why. Grant Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
The car is coming along nicely. I went up to take a look again this week, Just a word of caution for Daytona owners, when Mike removed the jacking point bracket, there was a hole in the chassis outrigger it sat on, it could not be seen and the metal had become very thin!!! watch out for this. The jigsaw of information is now nearly complete with the position of the larger Spyder A posts being established with the help of Neil Bruce. Neil sent me some information with a couple of pic's of the Daytona being made at the factory along with some observations he made. I did not attach much relevance to this info and inadvertently forwarded it to Mike with the hi res. photos. According to Mike it was one of those eureka moments as soon as he read the text. He got very excited explaining this to his wife who looked at him in the way only a wife can with the "yes Dear, very nice" comment. Here's a pic of the jacking point. Grant Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks for the kind comments guys. This pic came through today and shows the A post has been removed, and a temporary plate in position to hold everything in the right plane ready to receive the new upgrade A posts. Image Unavailable, Please Login
