Wire wheels on a 246 Dino

Ahhh Ok...

Wire wheels were never factory installed. They had too much good taste for that.

I have beautiful Borranis on my other Ferraris. I don't have them on the Dino because I always thought they would look like **** on a Dino. The pictures on this thread prove my point.

 

Ok. Make your points, leave the personal attacks at home, this is the Dino section, not the NYTS section, or the P&R forum. If you can't make your points rationally, without personal insults, you'll spend some time in the cooler.

I see no evidence that these were Ferrari Factory supplied. Additions to Ferraris of this era were often made by non factory suppliers, radios come to mind immediately.

Not ludicrous at all. Non factory (dealer) installed items on these cars included Ferrari Badges, Cavallinos, etc. all of these will cost you posts at concours as they are considered non-factory. I guarantee you that a GTS with wire wheels is going to get the full deduction for non factory wheels at ANY Ferrari Concours.

Just going to remind you again, personal insults have no place in this forum. Be civil, or be gone.

Dave M

 

Not so fast. How do we reconcile the car in post #34?

 

Okay so what about the car in the pic in post #34? I'm not even trying to be difficult on this. Do we supose that the owner engraved the knock offs himself? How and why do those knock offs even exist? Again, they are not 206/246L knock offs. I think they are strong evidence that the factory was behind wires on at least some 246s. By the way, I have seen other cars like it as I said earlier. 410SA's car may be a little tougher to argue that the wires are "original" because I hear you about dealer vs. factory installed with the badges etc. You are right that the dealers took some liberties with these cars. The factory did not want (at least originally) the car badged as a Ferrari granted but do we have any evidence that the factory emphatically did not want wires placed on a 246? I see none yet. In fact, I think we have evidence to support the fact that they were behind at least some cars having wires (post #34). With any other car, if that is the way it was purchased new or could have been purchased new from the dealer, I would consider it original. With the Dino and the emblem issue, it is a little fuzzier but didn't the factory send the dealers instructions (towards the end of production) showing how to add Ferrari badging to a 246? I know they did for a GT4 for sure but I thought there was a document from the factory instructing dealers that they could add the Ferrari emblem above the Dino emblem on the nose... I am unsure on that one but I seem to remember that it was condoned by the factory and I seem to remember seeing an instruction sheet for doing the emblem addition. They used to add the emblem above the Dino emblem on the nose and it looked awful but I seem to remember that it was with factory approval in the later stages. Anyway, regardless of that I still consider 410SA's car to be original. Whether it is "original" or not may be up for debate but whether it looks great or not is not up for debate because it does. Anyway, I think 410SA would have a strong case not to lose points - the wheels on his car appear to be the Ferrari-supplied wires and knock offs of the era.

 

That's not a car, it's an abomination. So much about it is wrong, fake, and plain ugly that I wouldn't use it as a basis for anything, and certainly not to make a point about originality! ROFLMAO!

 

Tom S has already explained that he sold them to the guy a number of years ago, Adapter style knock offs with Borrani wheels.

And yes, I suppose he could have made the caps, or they may have been an aftermarket offering in the 70's from Borrani. I don't think anyone here has shown any evidence that they were a factory option, or a dealer installed option, although I can ask a couple guys who worked at Algar Ferrari at the time.

DM

 

I bet 410SA never knew his car was so controversial!

 

Actually, the knock offs in the photo on post #34 ARE knock offs from an "L" series Dino. The straight eared knock offs were used on the 206 and early 246 "L" series cars but by the time they got to my "L" series car (the 69th "L" series produced), they were using curved knock offs.

If somebody could post a period price list for Ferraris and accessories from 1972, that would be very enlightening. I have a 1965 Chinetti price list which shows available Ferraris, accessories and prices for that year and Borrani wheels are listed but that makes sense given the cars of the day.

Assembling a set wire wheels, hubs and knock offs to do this modification would have been easy in the 80s and 90s when parts were abundant. You could still probably do it if you had lots of time and money to pull them together. However, if you showed up at a Ferrari concours without proof that these knock offs were a factory/dealer option, you would most certainly lose points.

 

Julio, come on buddy wires look bonisima on a 246 just admit it! Anyway, these knock offs on the car in post #34 have been witnessed on other cars. It is irrefutable that these knock offs exist and that they differ from earlier Dino knock offs witnessed on the 206/246L cars. How is it that they have come to exist? DM has a good point that they may have been manufactured by Borrani or another third-party manufacturer at the time in anticipation of such demand. I am curious to know the answer. Personally, I am still inclined to think that the wheels you see on this car are original. Come on guys, whether you like the wires or not, is it really hard to believe that Ferrari would have offered the ability to buy a 246 with wire wheels? It seems very plausible to me. Ferraris at the time were so well known for Borrani wire wheels is it a stretch to think that Ferrari would have anticipated that some, even if a very few, would have wanted to purchase a 246 with Borranis? Is it that big of a stretch to think that Ferrari would have thought to accomodate this?

 

How many later "L" cars were there that would have had these knock offs? It is going to be a pretty small number... Also, if an owner was going to part with any parts on his car, the knock offs would have been toward the bottom of the list. I suppose a later 246L could have been wrecked and the knock offs could have been retrieved and later used for this wire wheel set up you see on the car in post #34 but that seems even less likely than the said wires on the car just being original. Again, is it really that hard to believe that Ferrari may have anticipated that some owners would want Borranis on a 246?

Also, the spokes on those knock offs are still symmetrical like earlier Dino knock offs vs. the winged kind.

 

There were about 300 "L" series Dinos with these later knock offs. You could also buy spares for many years from guys like Dennis McCann so it's a stretch to assume that an existing "L" series owner had to part with them to complete another car.

The knock offs in post #34 look the same as those in #40 and are the same as the ones on my car - I refer to them as curved because of their appearance. I think the pictures in #34 are a bit misleading because of the angle but they looked curved. The knock offs shown in post #23 (brochure photo) have straight ears as standard on 206/early 246 "L" and are rarer.

...Keith

 

The knock offs in #40 appear to be more concave in the middle portion where the engraving is. The ones on #34 appear to be more convex. Every original Dino knock off I have seen appears to be convex. The knock offs on #40 look like the standard winged knock offs. To me, #40 is probably not original or may be dealer added - they do not look like Dino knock offs.

 

Okay this is bugging me... I saw a picture of a 246L Dino with knock offs exactly like those on car #34 except they had winged spokes not symmetric spokes. It still had a convex middle part though.. The convex center seems to be consistent for Dino knock offs.

The car in post #34 is a 1974 car. I would be more doubtful about originality of the wire wheels if it was an earlier car as it would be easy to switch out the cromodoras for wires and use the original knock offs that came with the car. Even back then, I would have to imagine that these knock offs were hard to find. They could not have made very many. Something tells me they're pretty scarce. Anyway, if a person wanted to install wires on their Dino, they may have gone through the extreme trouble of hunting down some genuine Dino knock offs or they probably would have just installed the easier to find Ferrari or generic knock offs that were and still are everywhere. I stick to my guns that the car in post #34 probably came that way. It would have been a serious pain in the neck for that owner to track down those knock offs even back then.

 

See the attached photos of the "curved" Ferrari Dino knock offs. They come in two original flavors: early=straight ears, later=curved ears.
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

Fair enough. Look, the knock offs on the car in post #34 were put on in 1974 or later. I am just guessing but I would have to think that those knock offs would have been tough to find on a shelf by that time or at any time if ever. One could argue that the owner did indeed go on a hunt and found those knock offs but I would argue that it is easier to assume that they came with the car. I seriously doubt that Borrani made very many extras as the 206 and 246L were very low production runs. It is doubtful that Borrani made them for purchase or that any other manufacturer made them for purchase separately as there was really no market for them. It certainly would not have been a lucrative venture and seems unlikely. Therefore, I am still under the belief that the car in post #34 is original and is an example of a 246 with original wire wheels.

 

I think that the 206 Dino looks fine with wire wheels, but NOT the 308!

BTW, that's one hell of a garage you've got!

 

Man, you guys are real purists!

 

Have you ever had a car with knock offs? Seriously, you KNOCK THEM OFF with a big led hammer. And when some neanderthal can't find a lead hammer, they use a regular hammer! In time, they get beat to hell and you either fix, reengrave and replate them at great cost or you buy new ones. While it is safe to say that you couldn't buy a set of Dino knock offs at Schucks when you picked up a box of blue hand towels, rest assured there were spares to be had up through the 90s. I remember seeing a few sets at Dennis McCann's place when I was buying other spares to restore my "L" series car in '97 and Paul Gilpatrick bought a set from someone when he was restoring a Dino in 2000.

 

Lets not forget that the early Fiat Dino also had knock offs. I'm pretty sure they were the same as our beloved 246. And I'll bet they are tipo 42 as well. There were more knockoffs floating around then you think.

 

Good point. Well so maybe the owner of the car in post #34 tracked down some real ones after deciding he wanted to install wires?? I wish an old pic of Dinos with wire wheels would just surface already!!

 

They said Fiat on a black background right?

 

Not the ones I've seen. They were chrome knock offs and said Dino. This would be a good question for fellow poster Mikeyr. I think this is his site. http://www.dinospider.com/

 

I think they were replaced then but that would lend credibility to the opinion that the Dino ones were widely available...

 

parker839/ECPIII -

OK, by now we all know that you just love wire wheels on a 246. Fine.

Other than that, I am wondering what your point is? ONLY 15 of the 246 Dinos on the Dino Register are listed as having wire wheels. NOT A SINGLE ENTRY CLAIMS THAT THEY WERE FACTORY OPTIONS. Everyone agrees that knockoffs were on early Dinos, and that spares were readily available. There is contemporaneous dealer and factory written/photographic evidence of that. But, the fact remains, no one has produced evidence that wire wheels were a factory option. So, are you still arguing that wire wheels were an official "dealer installed option" (kind of like a radio and antenna) and/or an official "factory installed option?"

Either way, what is your evidence? A fleeting memory of a photo that you recall maybe having seen 15 or 20 years ago or maybe a 246 Dino that you saw at a drive-in 30 years ago with wire wheels?

In the end, this is kind of like getting into an argument with a 3 year old about whether or not there is a monster in the bedroom closet. You open the door, no monster. You close the door, and you are told "there is a monster in the closet." You open the door, no monster. You ask, "so, where's the monster?" You are told, "the monster's only there when you close the door, and the monster is gone when you open it and look inside. So, there is a monster in the closet when the door is closed."

By that logic, one gets lost pretty quickly.

I think maybe I'll drift over to the 308/328 section and start telling eveyone there that American Racing mags were offical factory options, and that Minilite mags were official dealer installed options. And then, I'll insist upon it for PAGE after PAGE, and then tell anyone who tries to respond in any kind of cogent fashion that I think American Racing mags look really cool, and that they all need to lay off their Ovaltine, Nestle's Quick, Kool Aid, or whatever.

Oh, and one more thing -

whatever.

Mark

 

Did I remember to say, whatever?

Whatever.