Was this Novitec twin supercharged 360 converted back to normal?

I found a 2004 360 spider not far from me in Florida that I am planning on taking a look at. I talked to the owner and got the basic scoop and everything seems fine. Not sure if the owner is on fchat. It is a pretty stock car with a factory racing exhaust (nice), a few other exhaust related mods, and carbon air boxes. Everything else about the car looks stock in the pics on cargurus.

But here is the mysterious thing: I googled the VIN and a several year old web site came up showing that this VIN was actually a Novitec twin supercharged 360. The Novitec car has many differences to how the car looks today: different bumpers, interior carbon fiber, no interior door grabs, and most importantly major changes in the engine bay.

But there are many things that do look the same: red/tan, shields, tan Daytona seats, black top, and same wheels, and of course the same VIN. The last clue that these might be the same car is that both cars have the child warning sticker still visible below the passenger air bag. Most people remove this sticker so strange that both these cars have it.

Current owner doesn't know anything about the potential Novitec history.

I don't think there have been too many Novitec twin supercharged 360 made so I was hoping someone out there knows about this.

Was it converted back to a normal car (engine mods removed, bumpers replaced, interior restored to factory spec)?

On the one hand I think the Novitec VIN could just be a typo on the web site, but the similarities make me think it could be the same car.

I won't pursue the car if the motor was once running 600+hp.

http://www.2040-cars.com/Ferrari/360/no-reserve-novitec-twin-superchargers-red-f1-spider-upgrades-164-598-607hp-146063/

https://www.cargurus.com/Cars/inventorylisting/mySavedListings.action#listing=211678132

 

I never even looked at other cars on the 2040 site and I see what you mean about cheap prices and scam look and feel. They might be scraping content from eBay and we are seeing the bid as it was when scraped. But there is nothing that can be done with the cars on their site. No links,to bid on or buy car. I guess they are populating the site with car ads as a way of getting search engines to land and see their other ads for local repair shops. Lame!

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will ignore the strange 2040 site and take a look at the Florida car.

 

I was an idiot for giving any credence to some random web site I never heard of before.

I better get off the internet before I send my social security number to my long lost cousin, the Nigerian prince.

 

I spent 3 hours with this car Sunday and I finally have proof that these are the same 2 cars. This Novitec conversion was restored back to normal!

But it wasn't really my inspection that led me to this conclusion. It was the following Youtube video that shows the Novitec door data plate at 5:21 and the VIN and build date match the car I looked at.


What I don't know is if the original motor was swapped out and back in or was it upgraded with superchargers and then restored to normal. I do know the original engine number (from the books with the car) but I don't know the engine number of the actual engine in the car right now.

It boggles my mind that everything was restored back to normal: engine, bumpers, upper and lower air intakes behind door, tons of interior carbon fiber, speaker box removed, original radio restored, steering wheel, etc.

The only thing that I can see that is still Novitec are the pedals and the kickplate in the passenger footwell (as pointed out by HH11).