U.S. Federalized or Euro original

Not over looked if its well judged. It either needs to look like a federalized version or its original configuration. Several countries banned eared knock offs. It was not US only. Look at the parts book.

If I am reading the codes correctly Austria, Germany, France, Denmark, Belgium, and Luxembourg did not allow knock offs when the BBi was made.

I kind of doubt the door plates would be deducted. I wouldn't. They may prevent me from voting it for best flat 12 but I would not deduct for them.

 

A great question that should be answered by someone currently selected to be a BB/BBI head judge in the upcoming FCA RA event. There are FCA online examples within the Preservation class, but they are not series specific, as the BB/BBI series was gray market import with numerious variations.

When I partipated in these events in 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 2009 and 2013 with my BBI, Dick Fritz (Ameritech) was the head judge of the BB/BBI series during those years. He is in my opinon the most knowledgable of the variations of how importers fitted the BB/BBI.

 

There is no one currently selected. My other half is chief judge and it will be some time before that happens.
Besides, he or she would be prohibited from advising. We have a strict rule against prejudging. I am not prejudging because it is almost certain I will not be judging BBs.

 

Having no one selected is a scary thought as these were not an FNA standard USA series and if the FCA is attempting to judge the series as such, many conflicts can arise.
Regarding the BBI parts book for example, it indicates the zippered cavalino leather pouch for the tool kit is interior color...... Not so fast, mine is black and I have it in writing from Marenelo Customer Care that it was supplied in black.

BB/BBI's as any other gray market cars have to be judged differently by very knowlegable people that know all the in's and out's of the series. These are not the run of the mill FNA standard fitted.

 

Its not still 2005. We in fact do have several very able judges several of which are long time multiple BB owners but thank you for your concern.

I worked with Dick for years at FCA and Cavallino both. He and I were on the IAC/PFA board together. He was not CCJ of the BB class each and every year. A few times he and I both were in that class, sometimes neither. We get put where there is the greatest need for the cars in our area of expertise. Like I, Dick has a good number of cars he is very well versed on. Those decisions are not made until the list of cars attending is finalized, never has been otherwise. Not by Ed, Chris or now Leslie. The massive number of early cars attending pretty much means Dick if he even attends will be judging one of those classes. But like I said, that will not be known for a while yet.

 

They were very invasive and the hardest to reverse but it was a usable, reliable car in federalized form. Most others were performed with the specific intent of reversal as soon as the car was tested and were often very jury rigged.

 

if i ever bother to show my BBi again, i would hope that Dick Fritz be the judge since he is the one who federalized mine (and graciously spoke to me about it and sent me a copy of all the records from Amerispec)! (despite my car having returned to europe where i bought it. )
the funny thing about those federalized cars is that they are all different as well, with my own bias that those done by Amerispec are the best since they are the least intrusive and kept the cars looking almost completely euro stock (how they did that is a mystery best left unresearched ).

 

separate question on this subject..... exhausts.

i have seen at least 3 different variants that all claim to be stock.
i have spoken to my tech, who has also seen multiples variants.
did ferrari just throw on what they had at that moment in the construction process, or was it a buyer's option? or was it a first destination requirement?

 

The dealer I worked at during BBi production won an award from Ferrari for selling more new BBis than any dealer world wide.I have only seen one factory exhaust configuration.

 

ok. were you also federalizing these at your dealership ? how did you go about doing that - can you describe the alterations for bumpers lights etc

 

No. We subbed it out.

 

Didn't Amerispec install those ugly flat DOT bumpers?

 

The bumpers were one of the items I was talking about when I said invasive. They were far from attractive and considerable work to reverse.
Not sure on your description though because there were several solutions used by various shops that could fit that description.

 

my car was homologated by Amerispec and Mr Fritz kindly sent me all the documentation.
i enjoyed this description - thank you.
the second owner of my car imported it back to italy and reversed almost all the federalization changes - only the steal door bars remain - along with the attestation taped in the driver's door jam.
but that was made possible because Amerispec was the least invasive and damaging of the homologations companies - some of them were real pirates/butchers.

 

I guess whoever said that about the speedometers never looked in a parts book. https://www.ferrariparts.co.uk/part/search?SearchText=117914

 

Yes, I sent mine to G&K in '85. The Dot work seemed visibly cleaner than Amerispec. I DID NOT want those bumpers on my car.

 

You are really fortunate to have that paperwork. A good paper trail is unusual with gray market cars.

You are also very fortunate to be second owner. Original owners typically take good care of their cars. Gray market cars in general and Ferraris of that period so often went through flippers who drove them like they stole them.

 

Any idea what those door beams weight?

On my car the difficult to reverse part is the side marker lights in the clam. Otherwise besides side markers and door beams its back to factory.