What is the future for TR owners financially?

Welcome!

Others will chime in, but realistically there are LOTS of TRs out there.........keep driving!

I have early 308s and if the demand is there they'll make the parts......

 

Exactly, if there is demand they will make the parts. If history is any guide and you did not like the old prices you really will not like the new prices.

Think about it. None of those parts are made in house. They are all contracted out. They were originally made under a large contract to make all the original cars plus some for spares. Now 20 years later they will go back to the company and place a small order for parts. Even without Ferrari's large markup it will cost a great deal more just to make them.


When it comes to fixing Ferrari's with Ferrari parts the costs do nothing but go up as the cars get older. Just because the car has depreciated does not mean it will be less costly to maintain. The only way to beat that is the use of generic parts where possible and when it comes to transmissions that is usually not possible.

 

Realistically, here is what will happen over the next 20 years if Testarossa drivetrains keep blowing:

1) Ferr-Chev conversions . Not kidding either, someone will do it. Then we will all scream about the loss of sanctitiy, and cry over the inhumanity of it.

2) A machine shop will pop up somehwere, that can make the parts at a semi-reasonable price. Why someone can't copy sand-cast the internals out of a high strenght alloy, I have no idea. Right now not enough market.

3) Someone will find a way to adapt the gears from another car, to the testarossa trans. They might need grinding, milling, lathing, etc, but it can likely be done.

4) Folks will start hanging their testarossa on the wall, and making coffee tables from the drivetrain...

When some of the famous ferraris from the 50's and 60's pooped out, folks but in GM parts...anything to keep it going...

And of course as working examples are dwindling, nice cars will go up in value .

 

At first I thought this was kind of a lame post. Then I realized the genius of it. How long before someone realizes that you can swap out Pantera drive trains in blown TR's? There are several other rear engined applications of American V-8's as well. Why not the TR? Seems natural, although is sacreligious to me.

 

Or, you can take a northstar v8 FWD car, and re-engineer it to run backwards .

 

Never fit. Way too long.

American drive trains were put in many of the front engine cars in the past because they would fit and rather easily. It was done in some cases due to the expense of fixing a broken 12 but it was also done very often for the same reason engine swaps are done now...Power, lots of it and cheap. The cars were worth very little and no one thought they would ever be worth anything.

 

If it is that bad then maybe you need to sell the car and buy something more affordable.

 

An unpleasant fact of life for all owners of Ferraris that have modern electronics and 4 or 5 valves per cylinder is that they will be expensive beasts to maintain. There are a lot of black boxes to go bad and valve jobs are incredibly expensive. A T/R has 48 valves, an F355 40 valves, etc.

 

Speaking of sacrilege, how about a Porsche G50 'box?

 

Not familar with which the G50 box is but I have rebuilt enough blown up Porsche transmissions to know they dont take big torque loads well. In general TR boxes only break when they get beat on. Porsche boxes don't take to that any better, it's just no big deal because they are very cheap to fix. Adapt those parts to a TR and I could have it blown apart before the end of the driveway.


Someone said it in one of the 355 threads, these are big boy cars. If writing a $10k check scares you, get something else.

I just wrote one for a couple of grand for the back glass and I was glad to be able to find one.

 

I still want to know how people are driving these cars to blow up this stuff.

Maybe people need to think ferrari, not firebird when it comes to driving habbits.

 

I agree.

 

see, i told you guys the older carbs cars will be scarce and go up in value. its not easy to fix these computer cars with fuel injection with home tools/skills ........


................ running away ............................











there will be many years of TRs on the roads. they made enough of them.

 

ITS ONLY GOINING TO GET WORST... UNLESS PARTS A REBUILDABLE. SINCE NEW PARTS ARE GONE AWAY WITH.. FINDING USED PARTS CAN ALSO CAUSE HEADACHES IN THE FUTURE. LETS SEE WHAT HAPPENS. FERRARI PARTS ARE EXPENSIVE..

 

I pray that day will not happen to me. Have you tried those guys who work on Porsche trans? There's several specialists who make customed gears etc. I'm sure they can do something. BTW, when you mean blown, it's not the case that cracked right?