I saw an unusual 400i in Romania the other day. Apparently ex-Boris Becker. Does anyone know the story behind it and the name of the colour? Image Unavailable, Please Login
Boris was released from prison yesterday, and deported from the UK. Maybe he’ll go to Romania and try and get his car back!
The colour certainly does not match the factory records, but It's definitively a nice colour combo with the upsholtery. We know that "usually" factory colour is the one with the highest potential for capital appreciacion. This does not mean, that factory colour is the "right" colour. Depending on the history of the car, a different colour can have some value: without its distinctive black paint and bright orange edging the Lincoln Futura would have long been forgotten... Schlumpf was a maniac that had all his collection repainted, who would dare to respray any of his Bugatti Royale so as to match the factory colour? If Boris Becker himself had ordered the car to be repainted this way, would reverting it to factory colour give it anymore value? Worst case, the car's market value is $5k lower, but who cares? Some of us do prefer to drive the car with a colour they like.
The rule of thumb a car broker told me about incorrect paint vs value was deduct the cost of a repaint from the market value. The fact the hood grill is also painted is a bit of a kick to the groin.
I think you mean the front bumper--never understood why people do that. But this being a series II, the hood grille is always body color.
I did mean the hood grill, didn't know a series 2 had that body colour - Im not a fan. Knew the bumpers were supposed to be black but thats easy to correct and part of a repaint. I think they do that in an attempt to modernize the look like the 412 or how the 328 got body colour bumpers to give it an update.
Could also be a repair: back then they would not hesitate to use what was in the shelves and put 412 parts on a 400. My father's 365 ended up with 4 taillights and regular leather in the dashboard... To tell the truth, it was in 1988, 365 spare parts were probably getting low? Seems to me the 412 bumper are fiberglass, whereas the earlier ones are foamy. Not sure the foamy can be painted without tons of plasticiser that would make the colour odd. So they have probably changed the bumpers, not just painted them.
Then your serie 1 is "incorrect". Mine was a later serie 1 from december 1981 , still with the foamy bumpers. This being said the fiberglass bumper can easily be painted with a paint that replicates the rubbery coating of the earlier bumpers. These are definitively the one I would use in my car as the foam can shrink and the internal frame does rust. Not sure why they used this technique as all the other Ferraris of that era were using more durable material. BB 365 for instance has black bumpers and spoilers, but this was paint over ABS/fiberglass (?) rather than foam.
I could be mistaken, they look like fiberglass on the outside but whatever they are I have no reason to believe they are not original to the car. If they're anything like a euro 308 bumper then they are composite but foam isn't the word I would use. A few years ago I bumped into a generator I had in my garage, misjudged the distance and felt the car stop. It put a small mark on the bumper that I would expect to see on something made of fiberglass.
When I was researching repair methods for my own bumper repair, and trying to establish the manufacturing process and the materials used, the only reference I came across which seemed to fit the bill was the attached PDF file. The attached picture shows the bumper repair in progress. The bumper skin was badly cracked in several places and the edges of the cracks had curled outwards by 1 to 2mm. I cut back the skin to remove the protrusions, undercut the foam and filled the resulting depressions with polyurethane epoxy adhesive. The adhesive was sanded down after curing and the resulting repair after painting is undetectable. That was about 2 years ago. Image Unavailable, Please Login
