Who, What, Where, When?

[Ferrari Spider]

Absolutely, I remember reading about the Ferrari 158, F1 car driven by John Surtees, second year of running and was lagging behind the other F1 cars, he spoke with the old man, Enzo, his reply was he would turn to the F1 chassis once the road racing season had been completed.

[Fax]

Its interesting that for most of his life as a constructor, sports car racing was a higher priority than single seaters.
He considered Le Mans his private stomping ground, which explains Henry Ford's decision to hit him where it would really hurt...Le Mans!
Fax

[termietermite]

FS I have PMd you on this subject as Mr Termite has a few interesting things to add.

[Fax]

Okay, no secrets here! Fill the rest of us in...
If you can thicken the plot I'm sure we're all game.
Fax

[termietermite]

Okay, no secrets here! Fill the rest of us in...
If you can thicken the plot I'm sure we're all game.
Fax

I just can't figure out how to paste Mr Termite's e-mail onto the site, so have asked FS to do it for me! (Computer prat - that's me as well as being a ECA).  In fact I am in the middle of a heated discussion on this subject at this very minute!


Cracked it myself! See below.

[termietermite]

Having read the interesting discussion about the P4 Ferrari and its bona fides, passed to me by Termie Termite, I have a couple of things to add, which may help cheerfully thicken the fog and increase the uncertainty surrounding the illustrious David Piper and his cars of that period.

 

In 1997, at the Silverstone Ferrari gathering (we’d turned up in friend Paul’s Mondial), I asked the Piper mechanics about the P3 they had brought with them, and was told it was a P2/3. Not all Piper cars were green by then – the famous 250LM, seen racing by Termie Termite in her yoof, and by me at the 1967 Racing Car Show, was now red with a just a green stripe across the nose.

 

In 2006, at the LM Classic, I asked the 330 P3 mechanic in the Plateau 5 paddock about his car, and was told it was a P3 with P4 mods by the factory.

 

The Ferrari factory was good at retro-fitting new bits to their own and to other owners’ cars. Most of the 25 1970 512S coupes had new bodies and bits fitted in the close season, so that by 1971 Daytona, 512M was the “new” Ferrari. I don’t think there were any works entries that year, with privateers doing Maranello’s work for them – or not.

 

Website wspr-racing.com provides a wonderful amount of detail about Ferraris and most other cars – by chassis number. This lists only 4 chassis as having been 330P3, one of which, 0846, it says then won Daytona ’67 as a P4. 0844, on the other hand, became a 412P, a model whose similarity to 330P4 is astonishing – anyone know the true differences? Several 330P3 & 4 chassis are listed as having been owned by D Piper at some time, but he also owned a 330P2, which would seem prima facie to be the car I saw at Silverstone in ’97. Not so, says the wspr listing – they quote Piper as having picked up 365P #0824 in the early 90s and rebuilt it to later spec, and this was the car at Silverstone, says the site. I am fairly certain that 330P3 was the first appearance of the Drogo body, so a P or P2 would need a whole lot of bodywork to resemble the later model in P3 or P4 guise.

 

I am the first to recognise that websites like wspr-racing have no reason to stick to the facts – their input is personal and in this case, English is not the site-owner’s first language. It’s just that all this supports much of what has been said on this forum already. Make your own mind up!

 

Mister Termite

[Fax]

Some good stuff there...Thanks
A good friend of mine lived near the NART Shop in Conn.
here in the States and was a frequent visitor, and says much the same thing regarding Ferrari chassis.  Tracing their history is a nightmare because cars would be torn to bits, rebuilt as a completely new model using a old chassis numbers, etc, etc.
Said he used to walk around behind the shop and there would be stacks of bodywork laying around from 312's, 512's, etc.  Just sitting out in the elements, with no one to keep them from being walked off with.
Fax

[BigH]

It's not just Ferraris.
There's a chap I know who specialises in restoring Cobras, and once when I was rooting around his workshop spotted what look like two rusty old drainpipes. He reckoned this was the chassis to the first ever Cobra that raced, and had a few photos of it lying around.
I was back in there about a year later and he was putting the finishing touches to an incredible rebuild, the car looked absolutely flawless, except even the flaws were built in deliberately. He'd had the build, and presumably the car, authenticated by some of the original team members and was hoping to get an entry into the Goodwood Revival, and from there to a nice wealthy buyer. All from two corroded old pipes and a little bit of spaceframe.
It's made me look twice at some of the drainage arrangements on my house.
H

[Fax]

I've always heard the worst of all are Alfa racing cars.  Tracing chassis histories from Autodelta are supposed to be nearly impossible, have a better chance of tracing your family history back to the ice age.
Fax

[Rhino]

Max Mosely has set up a working party on historics and how to prove their originality, could be a good thing.
There was a road test article  on the sierra cossy that was the last 2 wheeled car to win a world championship rally. They were saying what a historic car it was even though it had been re shelled.
Probably had a new engine as well! I'm sure the number plate was original.

[termietermite]

I guess the question is, should we care that much?  At St Saturnin, I asked a guy if his GT40 was original.  It was but he proceeded to lecture me on the fact that even a number of replicas (with no parts in common with the originals) were still built with a great deal of care and attention to detail.  I guess a thing of beauty is always a thing of beauty, be it an original, a copy, or a bitsa.  If restrictions are brought in to limit the number of cars which truly qualify as historics, that will just reduce the numbers of these wonderful beasts which people race and bring to historic car meetings.  Will we be any better off as a result?

[Nordic]

The way I understand the new historic regs is that they are relaxing them bit to allow cars built later to compete.

The reason being that fewer owners are now prepared to risk there pride and joys, the risk a quite high as Adrian Newry found last weekend!. It seems that alot of owners of geniune cars also own copys and would rather race these.

There is also the problem that with a recent copy there is the chance to incorprate some modern thinking and materals into the car when its built. This could the render the original to slow.

All in all its a very tricky subject and one that is unlikey ever to find a complete soloution.

Getting back to David Piper and his 330P, here is a picture from 81 showing his car, red at the time (and only about 14 years old, a 956 from 83 is now almost twice the comparative age but still seems modern if you get my drift).

http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p10581932.html
http://rupert8766.fotopic.net/p10581933.html

[Nordic]

I have seen this on another site, so therefore cannot be sure its true but..........

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=4649333573#description

Seeing what vq has aquired on ebay, here is what maybe we should all have been bidding on instead.

The above was offered in June, The seller failed to spot that what he was selling was not a 1958 Devin, but a genuine Ferrari 340 America chassis, numbered 0202.

This possibility was spotted by only one person and a Ferrari chassis lost for 40 odd years has now resurfaced.

Today a complete 340 America Spider Vignale could be worth $ 2.0 M

Now all the new owner has to find is an engine, gearbox, wheels, body, and almost everything else, bar the chassis which you can see from the photos is not a large item and may have been modified to take various US V8's

Still at least it has a chassis number!