Ferraris I've Known: A Personal Selection

Ferraris I've Known

A Personal Selection

I figured it was time to get this out of the way before moving on in this blog. The sheer magic of the name “Ferrari” evokes such strong emotions, not always universally positive, that I think it will just be the 800 pound elephant in the room until I provide more detail than I have up to now. I will also provide photos where I can, though the quality will be compromised by most of them being “photos of photos” from my personal collection rather than stock shots pulled off the internet. I'll resort to that when I cannot locate or might not have personal photos of the specific car discussed.

It seems logical to start with my own car...the LeSancey grey 1963 250 2+2 I owned for a quarter century.

Understated Elegance and Power

Of course, when I started hanging around with the Bay Area chapter of the Ferrari Owners Club (FOC) and delusion-ally began to look for a car I wanted something “sexier...” who didn't? But even in those naive days before prices skyrocketed out of sight most of the cars were still out of reach for me. And I was being a snobbish “purist” and really only wanted a front engined V12 model. Had I been more knowledgable and better understood the company and its products, many more options were open to me in a price I could tolerate...the 308GT4-unloved because it was Bertone bodied rather then Pininfarina, the 308GTB and perhaps the S version as well...but these were V8s. They were also horribly expensive to maintain due to their transverse engines, but I didn't know that at the time. If I could accept a car that did not have a Prancing Horse nose badge there was also the swoopy 246GTB and S...but these had even two fewer cylinders than the 308s!

Within the 12 cylinder cars, other than the 250 and 330 2+2s, the only models which came close in price were the conservatively styled 250GT coupes...even the cabriolet soft top versions were out of reach. But though they were good cars, they were too understated even for me.

Early 1960s 3 liter coupe

I only recall looking at one other 2+2 before buying mine...and it was a cosmetic and mechanical “project” I was not comfortable taking on. I bought my car off an ad in the paper from a guy in Santa Rosa, who in retrospect was even more of a mechanical clod than I was...the third time I drove the car the engine blew up due to lack of oil, and I wound up taking a second loan on our house to fix a car...not something which endeared me to Sherri. It seems the guy changed the oil and somehow only got two quarts back in before being distracted...never finishing the job. When I asked why the pressure gauge showed zero he said “it always did that.” When Bill Morton drained the shrapnel out of the sump there was less than two quarts of the eight plus it holds. I'm surprised the engine lasted the 120 or so miles it did before it died.

When I finally got it back, some $8500 later, it was a joy to drive. Oh yeah, and while in Bill's shop someone jacked it up and stole the wheels off it...and Bill's insurance did not cover the theft-quite shocking for a high end repair shop. To this day I'm pretty sure it was an inside job by one of his staff. They gently lowered the car back down on blocks rather than dropping it on the ground. Considerate of them, no? And since these wheels would only fit certain other Ferrari models I suspect they had a buyer all lined up or perhaps used them on a car they were rebuilding to flip.

Oh yeah...one more. The judge who heard the case (had to be in Santa Rosa where I bought the car) knew the seller personally, did not recuse himself, and claimed that “you have to expect these kinds of problems when you buy exotic cars.” Right?

This post will not go into details about my car...that will come in another edition. But it was the first Ferrari I actually drove so it does belong in a blurb about my personally known cars.

The next one which pops into my head is John Lewis's 365GTB “Daytona.”

John Lewis's 365 GTB
AKA "The Beast"

No Ferrari in that era had a name, only a model designation, but some gained popular nicknames based on events of the day...in this case dominance by the marque at what was then called the “Continental” and is still run as it was then- a 24 hour endurance contest. The Daytona was also the last road car actually built to the specifications of “the Old Man,” Enzo Ferrari. It was his last “nose thumbing” exercise at US pollution and safety restrictions and an era beginning to reduce the sheer “beastliness” of performance cars, leading to today's wonderful machines which are so good it takes a real fool to get into trouble with them.

The 365 was the “world's fastest lumber truck.” I could barely turn the steering wheel if the car was standing still. (Power steering? Hah!). I had to be careful about the clutch as, when the release point was reached, if I did not keep enough pressure on the pedal, it could snap back hard enough to risk breaking my leg. I got it into a parking lot at Longs Drugs (now CVS) in San Carlos and had to wait for the car next to me to leave before I could back it out (the space had been empty when I parked). On an outing through the Santa Cruz mountains with the club I was covered in sweat and my arms ached by the end of the day.

What a gorgeous beast! It “woke up” at about 90. The steering got much more lively, the scream was cold and delicious, and it just flew. This was, after all, the car which Road and Track featured running through Nevada with a shot of Bill Harrah's hands on the wheel and the speedo crossing 175..the first road car to reach that. I don't think it is a car I'd like to live with...but what a joy it was to drive it.

I had the Daytona on that Santa Cruz outing because John was driving his “other Ferrari,” a yellow 275GTS, shown here on the track at Laguna. That's Sherri in the red helmet. Wouldn't ride with me, but would with John? WTF? But her logic was that with me, if something went wrong the kids would be orphans. Logical, but....

John's "Other Ferrari" at the time
In case one was in the shop?
Note the family resemblance to the Fiat 124 Spider

The 275 was another lovely street model. Like the 330 described next, it is refined and very easy to get along with. There was also a 330 variant which is even more rare. The only one I have personally seen was owned by Deanna Schworer.

Deanna was one of those mysterious and magical women...soft spoken and just sort of...special somehow. Smile like the Mona Lisa...like she knew something special and really important about living. I dunno, maybe she did. She wound up flying a rented plane into the side of a mountain in Oregon or Washington, killing herself at the age of 38 along with a local family of four up for a ride, while her 11 year old son sat behind waiting for her because there was no room for him in the plane.

Her husband Bill was at Laguna with their daughter that weekend. When we were at the funeral home all still in shock, Bill walked up and said something I will never forget and which has colored my life ever since.

“Why all the long faces? Am I mad at her for doing something stupid (getting into t blind canyon she could not climb out of)? Sure. Am I hurt about being left alone? You bet. But she was doing exactly what she wanted to do, and living as she wanted to live. We are here to celebrate her life. Let's go inside.” And we did just that.

Bill at one point had a 206SP Dino...the car which placed second in the Targa Florio in 1966 and was also a Road and Track cover car. He held an “unveiling” to show off the car one evening at his place...a unique one bedroom condo at Mariners Island, built sort of like a ship. Bill Morton was bummed out by the fact that, as I slid behind the wheel, the car fit me perfectly but he could not sit upright without tilting his head and could in no way get in wearing a helmet.

The Florio was a brutal race run over open roads in Sicily...though “roads” is being generous. These were closer to goat paths, with buildings built right to the edge of the pavement even outside the villages, and a course length of 40+ miles. To be successful you had to have a small, nimble, yet responsive car...monster horsepower and the attendant bulk that implied was a handicap. The 2 liter SP was perfect...but of course did not show well in US vintage racing, lumped in with other FIA championship cars. Bill's ego did not deal well with that. I'd have been ecstatic to take the car off his hands for a few quid.

Body by Drogo
 A Tiny Jewel

Bill Morton had two Ferraris...the road car was this silver 330GTC. (pic). This model has the reputation as the best all-around model built through the 1970s, though Ernie Mendicki thought it was the worst Ferrari he'd ever owned...and I would guess a dozen or more had passed through his hands. But I think his comments related more to a certain delicacy and “fussiness” to work on rather than the driving experience. Like my own 250 they are easy going, light on the clutch and steering, and don't tend to overheat in traffic.

John later had a 365GT 2+2 “Queen Mother.” This was a 4000 pound monster with a hood that seemed longer than most other cars. (pic). When driving it I was never quite sure where all of it was or was going. But in the hands of Gary Kuntz his silver one could be flung around Sears Point in ways that scared the bejeezus out of me...but maybe that was because I was still recovering from a serious racing incident and make a lousy passenger in the best of cases.

Sherri once drove John O'Boyle's blue 2+2 to Redwood City from one of the early Monterey events, though I don't recall why. I followed in the 250. When we got there I asked her how it went, and she mentioned a weird vibration when braking. We mentioned it to John, and when he checked he found a cracked front rotor. She was lucky it did not explode and send her crashing into someone.

Nah...the former doesn't explain it. I once rode around the same track with “Crazy Bob” Epstein in his 250LM...with exactly the same level of panic. But though Gary was aggressive as hell...Bob was truly crazy. The LM should have outhandled the big 2+2, but while I had confidence in Gary's control of the beast, Bob was never in control of anything, least of all his driving. 

Behind the wheel that nose looks a lot longer

David Love, on the other hand, was a delight to follow, learn from, or ride with. David had one of the nicest 250TR “Testa Rossa” models in the world...but then is there any such thing as a “bad” one? He was a smooth and polished driver, and was one of my first instructors when I got into vintage racing. After one “follow the leader” session he asked me if I had learned anything. Hell, I was mesmerized by the car, so I responded “Yeah, that bloody car is gorgeous.”

David never felt he was able to drive to the car's potential...a respectful and likely honest assessment. On another occasion I rode with him for several laps. As I got in and sat there, I pointed out to him that the bracket in the center of the windshield was so delicate and lovely it looked like jewelry. The I noticed that he had a brass coin slot from an old pinball machine fastened under the dash. In addition to the slot and “$.25,” molded into the metal was “Insert coin to begin game.” Indeed. 

David's 250TR on display at Sears a couple of years after he died
I still can hardly believe I rode in it

I'm sure I could dredge up more personal memories, and there are and will be others scattered through past and future blog posts, but this is a good place to rest. I got to experience Ferraris built in a special time, at a special time in my own life and that of the sport and hobby. I treasure every moment of that, and it was fun digging into my past to relate some of it here.

I couldn't resist putting this in.

Yes, it was silver...twice

A number of the shots of friends' cars was at Riverside Raceway in 1978...this was the trip related in an earlier post about closed roads, ridiculous speeds, and Steve Tillum's 275GTB/C Competitione. As a guest I could not drive in the event...but did so in the 2+2 twice afterwards. Hopefully I will remeber to do a full post about that trip and experience.

Bring 'Em back Alive Addendum

Bring 'Em back Alive

Addendum

Trying to debug the fuel injection system was an education. It gave me new respect for the engineers who figured this thing out and made it work. If a carburetor (particularly a Weber) is black magic, the Bosch D-Jetronic is sheer voodoo. And finding information about it and its foibles is like trying to figure out hieroglyphics prior to the discovery of the Rosetta Stone.

I was even past Llew's vast Porsche knowledge. Poking around the internet I finally found a couple of papers in places like the Rennlist Porsche forum which went into both theory and the practicality of diagnosis. These were quite helpful, but still lacked the full depth of a factory manual. But such did not exist, or at least I never found one...until after I had gotten the car to a pretty high state of functionality...the level it is at today with perhaps too much timing advance, too rich a mixture, and poor idle in hot weather.

Some time after this and long after the car was, to my satisfaction, “finished” (though I doubt there is any such state for a restored car), my friend Lee Cohee put me in touch with someone who claimed to have a full set of Bosch factory manuals for both the “D” system and the “L” used only on the 1.8 liter cars.

What? Nah...these are made out of unobtanium. And why would a Lotus mechanic have such a beast anyway? But Ken Gray did. He works for Dave Bean...owner of a source place for old Lotus cars and parts, former acquaintance through vintage racing, and local guru in nearby San Andreas. Seems Ken, at some point in his career, had thought he might like to be a specialist on cars using the system, so bought a full set of manuals. He not only loaned them to me, but allowed me to scan the sections applying to the Porsche versions. In doing so I was surprised to learn that the Jetronic was also used by VW, Volvo, Mercedes, and Ford. But I only copied the general material and those parts which applied to Porsche.

I figured others could benefit from this material, and though it took a lot of e mailing back and forth as Bosch tried to locate the actual ownership of the material within the corporation, gained permission to publish my scan on Rennlist and club sites. To my surprise and disappointment, to date I have only managed to get Rennlist to respond, though my post of the manuals there have been viewed almost 800 times to date. But at any rate this material was not available to me while I was trying to get the car to work better.

It was a long a difficult slog. I will print below all the items replaced on the car, and just a glance at the mechanical items will reveal how much of the FI system was worked with, and things still are not perfect. But the car finally was tuned well enough to be considered “complete,” at least mechanically. So off it went, leaving me yet again for a short time, for Charles to do the upholstery.

The result was fantastic...far beyond my wildest hopes. It really looked like it had just left the showroom. Though I had now spent more than twice what I had estimated on the car, I was still just short of being “under water” in terms of value, though I plan never to sell it. I was afraid to remove dash knobs as these are delicate and unavailable (except maybe from Bontempi), and Charles managed to finesse the new material around the controls without removing them...it looks absolutely perfect. As are the newly upholstered door panels, the driver seat cushion and bolster, and the new carpet. I did buy new plush floor mats to protect the latter as otherwise the lower driver position results in quick wear spots.

I ran into one scare after the upholstery was in. The car refused to go into gear and I thought we would have to rip up the center tunnel carpeting to fix the linkage. Fortunately only a set screw accessible from under the car had backed out of the shift rod. There is an indent in the rod so misalignment is impossible and it was an easy fix.

One problem that must be addressed is a leak from where the shift linkage enters the box. There would have been no way for Llew to know this was there as it was only when the car was driven a few times that it began to show up. The fix also appears to be fairly straightforward but at this point, recovering from back surgery, I am not yet able to confidently lie under the car to do so.

I documented all that was done to the car, and that list follows. With the exception of replacement items noted below, the car is entirely original as delivered from the factory.

Mechanical Work

• Custom 140# front springs
  
• Factory upgrade anti-roll bar
  
• New brake rotors
  
• New brake calipers from 2 liter model
  
• New master cylinder
  
• New brake lines
  
• New shift linkage
  
• New throttle cable
  
• New clutch cable
  
• Swapped out tail shifter transmission for side shifter, including new motor brace. The replacement was from a 914-6 and therefore has closer ratio gears than the stock unit. Stock the ratios are 3.09, 1.89, 1.26, .93, and .71. Therefore the “steps” between gears are 1.2, .63, .33, and .22. The new ratios are 3.09, 1.78, 1.22, .93, and .76. Thus the steps are 1.31, .56, .29, and .17, closer in all but between 1^st and 2^nd. The rear end ratio for both is 4.429. The smaller drops between the normal road gear plus the taller ratio in fifth should mean more punch in driving due to staying in the best torque spot of the revs when upshifting. Original tail shift transmission retained
  
• New engine fuel lines
  
• New ignition points and condensor
  
• New fuel pump
  
• New spark plugs and wires
  
• Optima gel cell battery
  
• New Yokahama Avid tires (?)
  
• New Bursch exhaust
  
• New clutch disk
  
• New pressure plate
  
• New Throwout bearing
  
• Refaced flywheel
  
• New fuel injectors
  
• New brake bias valve
  
• Replaced Auxiliary Air Valve
  
• Rebuilt Manifold Pressure Sensor (MPS)
  
• New vacuum lines
  
• New Throttle Position Switch (TPS)
  
• Rebuilt and re-curved distributor
  

Cosmetics

• Body stripped to bare metal
  
• Two stage paint in original factory color, including front and rear trunks
  
• Fiberglas front valance
  
• Removed “hockey puck” front fender lights
  
• New front fender to cowl inserts
  
• New correct Hella Euro turn signal lenses
  
• New door window “squeegee” weatherstripping
  
• New “on body” door weatherstripping using correct OEM German material
  
• New dash material using correct German “waffle weave” material-exact match to original
  
• New driver seat inserts using correct German “waffle weave” material-exact match to original
  
• New driver seat bolsters
  
• New interior carpeting
  
• New correct rear window to engine cover weatherstripping
  
• New front trunk weatherstripping using correct OEM German material
  
• New rear trunk lid bumpers
  
• Painted targa top
  
• Powder painted rocker panels
  
• New polished door sills
  
• Powder painted rear valance
  
• Coverlay dash cap (available but not installed)
  
• New foglight grills
  
• Powder painted intake manifold
  
• Powder painted engine shrouding
  
• Stripped, Rebuilt and powder coated NOS Pedrini wheels (6) as original options for car with new center caps
  

Refresh expenditures total $18,000 (estimate)

Pretty Much as It Looks Today
and as it did some 47 years ago

Bring 'Em Back Alive, Part II

Bring 'Em Back Alive, Part II

I guess it has to get worse before it gets batter

 This is the car sitting in Rob's yard in Minden after the soda-blasting paint removal. Just look at the ridiculous amount of bondo on this door.

Likely my handiwork
Would have been better to just leave the door dings as is

 Even at this point the car was starting to look better. Problem was, the car went over the mountain in November of 2013, and then just sat until Spring. I had somehow missed communication with Rob about the schedule, and he was fully booked over the entire winter.

Progress on the mechanicals also went slowly. When I first envisioned the project I thought it would take three months. But Llew was doing the work as a favor to me (and charging half what it would have cost with anyone else), and Rob was moonlighting and also charging me about half what anyone else would. It was hard to be patient, but I greatly appreciated their help.

Llew continued to accumulate parts and finished disassembling the engine to the level we had agreed. Air cooled motors require metal shrouding around the actual engine to retain and circulate the air. Llew removed all of this as well as the air intake manifold and the fuel injectors.

There are two ways to get fuel and air into an FI engine...the cheap way and the right way. The cheap way uses a “throttle body” which has a single injector which feeds into an air box containing a butterfly valve which in turn controls the amount of both air and fuel through a single manifold. Sort of like a carburetor system in many ways. The 914 is more sophisticated and uses the air box ONLY for that purpose...to feed air into a manifold. The fuel is shot into each cylinder through its own injector. The result is more efficient burning of the fuel, but much more complexity to control the timing and amount of fuel as the butterfly throttle is opened. Obviously there are also more parts than in a throttle body system, and greater cost. Not bad for a “budget” car.

In fact, the D-Jetronic system on the 1970 914 was the first mass market “electronic” FI system in the world, first used on a VW model a couple of years earlier. FI had been around for years, but previously had relied on complex mechanical systems. In theory an electronic system not only required many fewer parts, but offered the potential for much more precise control and reduced cost. But electronics were not fully up to the task (this was before the invention of integrated circuit “chips” as used in modern machinery and computers) and thus the system used discrete electrical part like resistors and transistors in a “bran” to control mechanical devices using barometric and vacuum pressures to move a number of valves to meter the correct amount of fuel and air for any given situation and altitude. Ingenious...and arcane.

Some of these devices, which lived bolted in various places in the engine compartment, stayed with the car, while others, attached to the motor itself, were part of Llew's disassembly work.

Llew also offered me a set of Pedrini alloy wheels for the car at a reasonable price. These were offered as options when the car was new, but were very rare. In fact, I had never seen a set before. The Riviera or Fuchs was the usual alloy you saw on the 914s. At first I was less than thrilled with the look, but it was too good a deal to pass up, and otherwise I would have had to find a stock wheel or fix my bent one, and still would have lacked the “hubcaps” which came with the car. I had scraped up one of the originals, so had long ago relegated them to a shelf rather than repairing or replacing them.

Llew also said it would be good to convert the car to the “side shift” linkage used on the six cylinder 914 as well as the later four cylinder cars. The 914 uses the same robust and costly transaxle as the contemporary 911. In that car the engine is behind the wheels, and the transaxle sits in front of the motor, so the shifter really goes straight down and into the box. However, in the 914 the engine is in front of the axle, putting the transaxle far back behind the shift lever. In the early 914s the shifter goes completely behind the whole assembly and enters from the rear, resulting in a long, vague reach and feel. The side shifter shortens the shift rod and connects to the box from the side, resulting in more precision and “feel” to shifts. Shifting the 914 is always a slow and gentle process and never has the precision of a 911, but the side shift is a big improvement over the original setup.

It is also a complex and expensive conversion, so much so that Llew offered to swap my box for one from a 914-6. In addition to the improved shifting the gearing is very slightly different, with a bit closer ratios. This was an attractive trade so I readily agreed. After the car was done Llew gave me back the tail shifter as he said that belonged with the car and he had sourced a different unit for the project for which he originally wanted mine. I tried to pay him to compensate for the “trade price” but he simply refused to accept anything. Tells you what kind of guy he is.

Even with the replacement box the conversion was not straightforward, requiring a different engine support as well as a different shift rod from the cockpit of the car. While this was going on Rob was having his own challenges.

It was after the end of the year before Rob could begin his work on the car. Once he started removing bondo he learned how much of a mess the repair from the 1972 accident really was. Of course I already knew that the rear end had been pulled out rather than replaced...the holes from the puller were obvious once we pulled off all the trim. But Rob determined that the fender was so stretched out it should have been replaced. I have no idea if the shop pulled a fast one on the insurance company or was in collusion with them to cheat me of an effective repair, but I suspect both...it was Florida after all. Stuff there just seems to happen with greater frequency than other places. This certainly explained why the rear trunk always leaked. The fender was a full ¼ inch lower than it should be, and the shop simply made up the gap..at least so it was not so obvious...with filler.

Rob worked miracles on that fender. In retrospect, once I knew what a treasure house of 914 stuff Rich Bontempi had I'm sure I could have bought a used fender from him and Rob would have had less work and with better results. But it was only after Rob's work was done and the car was back in California that Llew introduced me to Rich.

The rear of the car was so compromised that Rob had to “split the difference” in heights between the sides of the car, so if you know what to look for you can figure out that the “shut lines” of the rear trunk lid differ from side to side. But had I not said that only really knowledgable body and paint people would notice it.

There were a couple of other unexpected “gotchas” for Rob. The weatherstrip between the rear window and deck had hardened to the point it disintegrated as soon as it was touched, so the window was removed, I secured new material for the stripping, and the window was reinstalled. Many 914s suffered this problem, resulting in leaks through the rear window if not fixed.

There was only one place on the car which had a non-trivial rust problem not due to one of the two collisions in its past. There was a bit of rust at the lower corner of the driver's side of the windshield, just under the stainless trim. This trim is very difficult to remove as it is glued into the weatherstripping around the windscreen. The glass itself is no longer available...unless Bontempi might have it in his stash. And while the trim can be bought...the total price for the multiple pieces needed is breathtaking. So we decided to just try and treat the rust without removing the trim, and Rob's work at this point two years later is invisible and clean.

The other issue, the only rust-through unrelated to an accident, was a small place under the front trunk weatherstripping. Rob took care of this and, to help further protect what was a weakness, I later undercoated the wheel wells including this area on the insides of the front fenders. I could only get black undercoating, so simply painted it with “rattle can” white enamel. Though not an exact match to the car color, the match is so close and the area so masked by the wheels and suspension bits that I can't tell the difference.

Best I recall, the car finally came back home, but only for a short time, in the Spring of 2014. I was afraid of pulling a trailer across the mountain with the possible issue of snow, so Rob trailered it down for gas money. It was only here for a short time before it went back down to Cupertino to start the reassembly. But the new paint sure looked good...better than I expected and hoped. While I had it I reinstalled the bumpers and some other detail bits and took a photo so I had something to drool over while it was away again.

Just putting the light pods and bumpers on made it look "finished"

With the demands of his “real jobs” Llew was as frustrated as I was at the slow progress in getting the car back together. In fact, it was still not quite “finished” in terms of his work by the end of the year. I even wrote a whimsical little song ditty in December called “All I want for Christmas is my 914,” sung to the tune of “All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.”

There was little I could do to help during this period. I had cleaned up any parts we removed which were to be re-used, such as bumpers, bumper trim, turn signal “boxes,” door handles, and the like. When disassembling the car Llew had removed the “hockey puck” side marker lights, an ugly afterthought needed for the American market, but I wanted to retain the original Hella taillight assemblies even though one had a bit of “parking rash.” I also began accumulating other trim bits such as Euro-style front turn signal lenses, door surround and other weatherstripping, new door threshold plates, and new plastic foglight grills to replace my corroded metal ones. By now Llew had pointed me at Bontempi and I also started buying NOS rubber to replace the worn or torn stuff I knew could not be saved. This included original German material for the front trunk, but the weatherstripping for the rear, though original, was still in remarkably good shape and would be reused. I also cleaned up the rugs for both trunks. We had removed the fuel tank before it went to Rob's, and I painted that and had it ready to reinstall.

A couple of years earlier I had found an upholsterer near Jackson and given him a couple of small jobs that he did very well and at reasonable prices. Replacement seat cushions, door panels, dash material, and carpet kits I found could be bought commercially, but I asked Charles Christenson what he could do...he secured the right material for the door panels, and also sourced the OEM correct waffle weave material for the dash, seat cushion, and bolster. He did a great job on the door panels and the materials he used were the right ones for the early cars. A change had been made for later cars in both the “smooth” and “waffle weave” materials, and only the later stuff was being sold by the parts places. So I got the “right stuff” for a better price, and also retained more pieces original to the car. I also asked Charles about doing the rest of the interior, other than the bench seat, and his quoted price was so good that, even though I had not originally planned to go to this level on the car, I could not resist and told him to plan on the job when I got the car back.

When Llew started the car it was running really poorly. This was the first indication that those FI components left in the engine bay while the paint was stripped might be an issue.

It had also been hell to find new injectors for the four cylinders. The best he could find was two new and two used ones, even picking through Bontempi's hoard. It took Gary Hubback to figure out that the car was only running on two cylinders...and that the NOS FI trigger points obtained from Rich were defective. Unfortunately electronic stuff came without guarantee, so there went a couple of hundred dollars from my already badly blown budget.

I said earlier that the FI system was arcane...at least by later standards. Remember that in 1970 the integrated circuit had not been invented, so instead of chips determining the various factors needed to make the system work, it relied on a combination of discrete electronic parts like transistors and resistors, interacting with mechanical devices which were driven by things like the position of the throttle butterfly and the barometric air pressure. Brilliant, but tough to diagnose.

One of these devices was a second set of contact points, buried below the normal ignition points plate in the distributor. These triggered the fuel injectors, which fired in pairs. The duration of the firing pulse was then controlled by a control unit (ECU) based on those other inputs. Once the original and undamaged points were re-installed the car ran on all four cylinders, and Llew had completed his commitments to me. It came how for good in the Spring of 2105...two years from when we started the project.

Home for Good
But lots still to do

I spent the next bit of time hanging more trim and getting the lights working. I did not want to mess up the front trunk weatherstripping as that is glued in, so I asked Charles to do that work when I brought it to him for upholstery at a later date. But I did do things like replace the threshold plates and the clip on door surround weatherstripping.

Llew had sent the wheels out to be restored. They had cleaned up in spectacular fashion and with that I fell completely in love with them. I did have to replace the dented old center caps from yet another parts source Llew told me about, but could not find replacement mounting bolts. At some point I would like to have mine replated, as they are pretty worn and look shabby against the rest of the assembly.

Once they cleaned up I really liked them

My first tentative drive in the car was a revelation. I only went a few miles down Highway 88, and the feel quickly came back to me, but I had forgotten how light and responsive the steering was, or how throaty the exhaust of an air-cooled motor is, particularly through the deep baritone of the new Bursch muffler. I noticed intermittent vibration through the steering wheel at about 65mph but it was minor and, at that point, low down on my research list.

Of far more consequence was the stumbling, surging, and other indications of engine “unhappiness.” These continued to dog me for months as I learned more about the FI system and replaced one expensive component after another...the most costly being what is likely the last NOS throttle position sensor switch in the world...$400! Thanks, Rich.

Though the car runs well now, and the vibration has largely disappeared and was likely caused by either out-of-round tires or the poor centering ability of wheel bolt systems compared to studs, it still is running too rich and idles poorly in hot weather. I can live with these but would like to get this final fine tune corrected.

I'll end this long post here, and finish up my comments about the restoration in a short addendum to follow.

Bring 'Em Back Alive, Part I

Bring 'Em Back Alive, Part I

Over the years my participation in vintage racing satisfied much of my love of driving and sports cars. I had drifted away from motorcycles when I got into the sport, as I realized I was using the bike mainly for commuting, and Bay Area traffic was getting more aggressive and dangerous. I didn't think it was smart to have two risky hobbies.

Over time vintage racing changed, perhaps inevitably. I will write more about that in later posts, but increasingly I found myself just behind the car I could not quite catch and just ahead of the one who could not quite catch me. Since my budget and time limited me, for the most part, to the same three “home” tracks of Sears Point, the new SCCA course at Willows, and Laguna Seca, more and more I was just tooling around by myself, pretty much in my own state of zen. What I mean by that is that I did not track my lap times, but relied on my observations and perceptions to tell me how well I was taking any particular lap. It was fun...but had lost the edge of competition, and once the 914 deteriorated to be un-drivable, left me with only a few hours of enjoyable driving for many dozens working on the race car(s). My daily driver was my tow vehicle...first a relatively nimble small Toyota four cylinder pickup, and from late 1999 a Dodge 2500 which was over 20 feet long. Not exactly sporty.

From time to time the 914 would still enter my thoughts. Sherri and I more than once discussed getting rid of my hulk and buying a good quality survivor, which could be had for well under $10,000...more like half that. But something inside me made me shy away from taking that action. It was years later that I realized why I had not let go of “my” 914.

It started innocently enough. We were on a family gathering in Napa with Jason, Stephanie, and their son Jet. On the way to dinner one evening we passed a used car lot with a nice looking, several year old Miata sitting among the sedans, with a price under $8000. I realized that I could have a sports car and almost justify it on the basis of savings in gas over the 11mpg average of the truck. With modern conveniences like air conditioning the Miata was tempting.

The early ones were Lotus Elan lookalikes

I began poking around internet listings for these and found any number which seemed promising...mileage well under 100,000, perhaps seven or eight years old, and priced like the one on the lot in Napa. But I still held back from actually going to look at any of them.

It is unfair to dismiss the Miata as a “girl's car,” but I am far from the only one to do so. There is something almost dainty about it. But I think I was more turned off by their  popularity...there were literally thousands of them running around. Good for things like keeping parts prices down, but somehow I was left with my senses dulled by their ubiquity.

And then I saw one painted shocking pink! That did it. Miatas were out.

So I went back to looking at internet listings for 914s. These were not exactly growing on trees, though with a total production run in seven years of about 120,000 there were always a few dozen listed on various 914 club sites as well as places like “The Samba” and “Autoatlanta.” The former is a VW and Porsche forum and the latter is a Porsche parts house in Georgia.

I saw a few cars which looked interesting. I did not want to spend the premium the two liter cars demanded, and the 1.8 I knew to be very anemic and pollution control choked, so what I focused on was the 1.7 liter model, made from 1970 to 1974. I did not like the mandatory “Mae West” bumpers on the later cars,

And in 75 they got even worse!

but knew I could easily find and swap the earlier plain chrome units. I wanted a car with the vinyl and chrome trim on the crash bar, along with fog lights...the same setup my car had. While alloy wheels would be nice, I was not obsessed with having to have them.

After a few weeks, or perhaps it was months, of this I still had not made the effort to go see a single car. It finally dawned on me why.

“I don't want a 914,” I told Sherri, “I want my 914.” The car which had been with me for decades, the car with the magic Porsche name I thought I'd never own, the car with all my youth and memories wrapped around that thin plastic steering wheel. I went out to the shop and, for the first time in a decade or more, really looked it over.

I began to think about who could help me recover the car from the near dead, and what it might cost. My target, of course, was the price of the Miata which first caught my attention a couple of years before. When I approached one shop with photos I seem somehow to have misplaced, the price quoted for painting alone exceeded that figure by 25%. Discouraged doesn't begin to describe my feelings.

But in April of 2013, after extensively examining the car, I produced a four page summary of its status and issues. I thought the main issues were body and paint...getting off multiple layers, killing the surface rust, finishing the shape, and painting it. I thought the mechanical “must dos” amounted to new fuel lines, a clutch job, new shift linkage bushings, refurbishing the brakes, and a new set of tires. Though the interior was quite tired and there were issues like a tear in the driver seat cushion and dash and door material which peeled from the day I bought the car, I thought I could fix these with material and replacement parts from Autoatlanta and do the work myself. So if I could find someone to do the body stuff at some less than stratospheric cost, and a shop to do the mechanical work, I might actually have a decent “daily driver” within my budget.

Through the Crosley Club I had met Dale and Rob Lebherr, from Minden, Nevada, just “across the hill” (albeit a BIG hill) from me. They both had day jobs but did moonlighting on cars...Dale handled engines and mechanical work while Rob was the body and paint guy. I had seen several of their Crosleys and was impressed with them visually as well as the way they performed. So I asked Rob if he would give me an estimate to do the 914. His quote was about 40% of my total budge, but I expected that. The paint would also be a clear-coated two stage, which would be more glossy than the original, but that was an acceptable compromise for me to keep the cost down.

One of Dale and Rob's restorations
A custom bodied Skorpion/Crosley

One problem solved.

Next I approached Llew Kinst. I have known Llew for 40+ years, and he is not only one of the nicest guys around, but is a true Porsche “guru,” particularly on the older cars. His small but well equipped workshop has restored numerous classic street and race Porsches.

Llew and the 914-6GT Kremer Porsche he restored
Taken in Ernie Mendicki's shop

He also had bought a 2 liter 914 for his son, though the car had been converted from fuel injection to carburetors. This was often done when the owner had problems he could not solve with the original system, and the easiest thing was to just throw on a pair of carbs, though unless more extensive work was done to replace the camshaft and distributor the car would not perform as well as with the FI system. The last time I spoke with Llew about the car he was accumulating parts to replace the carb setup with the original D-Jetronic system.

I asked Llew if he would consider doing the mechanical work on the car. At first he demurred, since my original assessment indicated to him my car was too far gone and I would be better off scrapping it and getting a better base from which to start. But I looked more closely and revised the document, we discussed it further, and he agreed to take it on. So sometime in 2013, though I don't recall the date, Lee Cohee helped me trailer the car to Llew, and over the next month or so, in Ernie's shop, we disassembled it almost completely, though we left it in a state where it could be rolled on its own wheels. We also left the interior in place, other than removing the carpets, door panels, and driver seat cushion. The early 1970 cars had a bench passenger seat in order to keep costs down, but there were so many complaints about this that, from 1971 on, a duplicate of the driver seat was used. The 1970 bench was difficult to remove, so we left it in place. Rob had suggested that the paint could be removed with a process which did not require fully stripping the car.

Soda blasting uses baking soda to literally “explode” the paint off the vehicle. It is so gentle that window glass need not be removed. However, it turned out that leaving various sensitive components from the electro-mechanical fuel injection system bolted in place in the engine compartment was not a good idea and caused many problems later in the rebuild. The soda goes everywhere and is corrosive enough to interfere with these devices. In the next chapter I'll show you what the car looked like after the process.

The interior was a mess. This photo was shot in Ernie's shop as Llew and I began to strip the car. Note the peeling dash and torn seat. There is also a tear in the bolster that doesn't show, and the threshold sill plate is scratched. The carpets and door panels were equally trashed. You can also see the tear in the passenger sill which was done with a piece of wood for a project when the car was truly multi-purpose and used to haul building supplies. 

I will continue describing the rebuild in Part II, but here is another shot which provide an idea of what the car looked like just before I trailered it off to Nevada. Note the new rear rotor and that the front has not yet been replaced. The car was pretty sad, but this was the absolute low point. 

Worse then it appears
The bondo on that fender is 3/8" thick
April 2014

Panasonic Cassette Recorder

Panasonic Cassette Recorder

That's what some snipes called the 914 in 1970. Funny...why Panasonic? Anyway, many 914s are still around, but when was the last time you saw a cassette recorder?

I was 25 in 1970, and had been at my first “real” job for nine months by the time of my birthday in June. Marcia and I had been married for 2 ½ years, and though I don't remember exactly where we were living, we had enough money for a two bedroom place with room for my darkroom. We still had my second Austin Healey Sprite, a Mk III model with more creature comforts than my original Mk II, along with my Suzuki X6 “Hustler” motorcycle...and a cute but terrible Datsun 510 wagon. An earlier post explains why I rate it that way.

My first job came through an agency. It was with a one man operation grandiosely called “Reinhold P. Wolff Economic Research.” Wolff was tall, skinny, and, at least as I viewed him, an old bird with a pronounced German accent whose main clients seemed to be Savings and Loan Associations looking for good places to open new branches.

At the time Florida was a “unit banking” state, which limited branches to the single county contiguous with the main office of the institution. Obviously opportunities for expansion were limited, and had to be carefully researched since both practicality and perhaps law meant a given organization could realistically have only a couple of offices.

I lasted three months before the business dried up and I was “laid off.” I was in shock. I left Grad School in the middle of a recession and Florida wasn't a booming job market in the best of times. I had few interviews and no options. The only interview I recall was with Pan American Airlines, though it was for the Atlantic missile range and not the air operations. I was asked how I got along with other men and if I tended to get in bar fights (are you kidding? Look at me!). I quickly figured out that, if I managed to get the job, I was going to be stuck on some island in the middle of nowhere in a tin shack with a dozen hard drinkers. Lovely.

But the same woman recruiter, a cute Brit, managed to get me into the First National Bank of Miami, and Frank Nichols hired me for software sales...the last thing I wanted to do. I later learned he told a colleague he had “just hired a bright young man and no idea what he was going to do with him, but he liked him.” He had me take a night class he taught for bankers to learn a bit about computers so I would have some idea of what I was trying to sell.

I interrupted the class so often with technical questions that, on a break, he asked if I wanted to be transferred into “Programming.” I was sent to a one week class which assumed you already knew the language and was just trying to learn the specifics of this manufacturer's version. It was quite a challenge to keep up...but a week later I was a programmer and within six months was the project lead for all the bank's new software development. It was decades later before I realized how much I owed Frank, and I'm both embarrassed and sad that I never acknowledged the chance he gave me.

Of course I kept up my interest in cars and was an avid reader of “Road and Track,” “Sports Car Graphic,” and “Car and Driver” magazines. I lusted after every sports and exotic car they featured, though of course my $9500 a year salary put them all way beyond my reach...until early 1970 and the articles on the new “budget” Porsche model...the 914.

The 911 came out in 1965, and even the modestly powered “T” variant cost a lofty $7000+, so a Porsche for under $4000 got my immediate attention, as that was something I could (Barely) manage to dream about. Though today many think the car was designed as a replacement for the VW Karman Ghia, to me it was closer to a follow on to the 356. The Ghia was never in any sense a sports car, but the 356 was the car which made Porsche's reputation, though the four cylinder 912 might also claim to be that car's successor.

But Porsche chose to drop the 912. The car was very close in power to the 911T (105 or so compared to 125) and also in price. What was needed was something different, and less costly. The idea of a mid-engined car built jointly with VW was audacious, and brilliant.

The press didn't think so. In fact, every magazine panned the car, and unfairly photographed it in the most unflattering possible way...from low alongside, with the headlights raised. They also thought it anemic, perhaps forgetting that the 356 wasn't exactly a rocket ship, and that the 914 had other features and characteristics which were more than a compensation for lack of raw horsepower. But the magazines simply sniffed...and walked away.

Not me. What I saw was seven letters I never had the idea I could ever own, on a car which did not look unpleasing to me and, in fact, whose looks I liked better than the 911...making me as weird, I guess, as most people thought the car was.

I also saw an engine configuration that only cars like the Lamborghini Miura had, along with four wheel disc brakes and a five speed transmission...also items only found at the time on true exotics with five figure prices. Oh...and electronic fuel injection as well. Oh...and two usable trunks....and a removable top which stowed neatly in one of them without eliminating its usability. I cared little what anyone else thought...I thought the car was simply brilliant. If I wanted straight line acceleration I had a motorcycle than even Corvettes had a hard time staying with. And I figured, briskly driven, the handling of the 914 would allow me to more than hold my own against almost anything else. I had gotten used to “putting my foot in the carbs” to get a 57 HP Sprite to seem pretty zippy compared to the way most people drive...the 914 had 85. No problem.

I bought the car from the articles and a brochure I still have...the dealer didn't even have one to show me. From July of 1970 until past 1980 the car was my regular ride, and the only time it failed was on the trip from Florida to Las Vegas. Marcia was driving it, with a cat to keep her company. I was driving the U Haul with all our goods, and suddenly realized I had not seen her headlights behind me in the Arizona night for some time. I went racing back down the road to see her sitting peacefully, staring at the stariest sky ever, patiently waiting for me to notice she was gone.

Now what? We finally managed to get a tow truck and the very drunk driver got us to Parker...a town in an Indian reservation which seemed to consist mainly of old appliances not rusting in the dry desert sun. That night in a sleazy motel with a tiny space heater which could be felt all of two feet away was depressing to say the least.

The nearest Porsche dealer? Kingman...hours away. So we decided that somehow we would get the car to our ultimate destination...Vegas, where I was to start my new job as Programming Manager for Valley Bank. But how to get it there?

We somehow learned of a truck rental place just across the California line. Back and forth we went, making a number of trips to see if they had a truck the car would fit. We crossed the border so many times they started waving us through the Ag inspection station without stopping us.

Once we had the truck the next challenge was getting the car into it. We pushed it up a ramp to a loading dock, backed the truck up to it, and shoved the car in. A day later we were in Vegas, and drove the truck to the Porsche dealer. He was less than helpful and offered only to look at the car once we got it out of the truck. But how to do that? While scratching our heads a car transporter pulled up, loaded with snow covered cars destined for the dealer, who also peddled GM products. He suggested we back the truck against the ramps on his truck and we could then push the 914 out of our truck and onto his.

After several attempts which showed only how inept we were at backing up he took over our truck and did it for us. Once the car was unloaded and into the dealer and diagnosed the problem turned out to be...a “broken” ignition wire. Once I learned more about cars I came to believe it was not broken but had simply vibrated off the coil. Today I could fix the problem in about 30 seconds, but back then it took a hell of an adventure.

Once I had the Ferrari and then the Siata the 914 moved to a crude lean to in the side yard. After much neglect including my own poor attempts at painting it, the final straw was Adin finding the keys and joy riding it, long before he could competently (or legally) drive or work a clutch. By then the car had been repainted silver in Miami after being rear ended and badly repaired, then silver again when we first came to California in 1974, and finally returned to white by me...all without removing any of the other paint.

By the time we moved to Jackson in 1998 it was a sad case indeed. It got shoved into a spot in my shop which, though not in a corner, for all intents disappeared from my consciousness for more than 15 years. By then the fuel lines had rotted and though I started it regularly, it leaked badly and would have been dangerous once warmed up, and the clutch was totally shot...and finally one tire gave up holding air. The paint was flaking and faded and full of surface rust, and the body damage done by Adin really showed that the rear end was a mess, with over 3/8” thick bondo on the left rear quarter.

My one time pride and joy looked like a candidate for the scrap heap. Until one day in 2013.

This is Not Going to End Well Part IV

This is Not Going to End Well Part IV

But it Did

It took 4+ years to bring the Siata back from the dead after my major wreck in 1987. It took me a bit longer to regain my composure. While the car was being restored I eased back into race cars, first as a passenger, and then driving. But I could almost taste my discomfort.

I don't recall the exact order of things, but remember riding around Sears Point with Gary Kuntz in his 365 2+2 Ferrari, and with my tummy in knots. This model is known as the “Queen Mother” of Ferraris...it is huge, weighing in at over 4000 pounds and with a nose which seems to go on forever. 

Behnd the wheel you thnk there is no end to that sloping hood

 Gary is a superb and assertive driver, and could get this monster to dance in ways you would think impossible. I did trust him, but I just could not get my nerves under control, and it was not just because I was a passenger and not a driver. I was still...freaked out.

I also recall Gary Winiger and Ernie Mendicki entering me to co-drive a two hour endurance race with them...this too I believe was at Sears Point, though perhaps it was the original “short track” at the SCCA race course at Willows in Northern California, dubbed “Thunderhill.” Each driver was allowed no more than a 30 minute shift, and at least one fuel stop was required, though it could be combined with a driver change. We used Gary's Siata which, while the same model as mine, is a bit different configuration. 

Tiny Taxicab?
Gary Trying to Avoid Being Eaten by a Couple of Monsters and Coronado

Unlike my roadster, the last 20 or so 300BCs were built to meet the minimum FIA requirements tof 50 or more cars in order to be classified as modified production cars rather than prototypes. The first 30 were intended strictly for racing, and had low windscreens, no provisions for a top or side windows, and lacked other amenities or requirements normally found on street cars such as turn signals, door handles, and speedometers. Gary's car was a convertible, with a cutout behind the seats rather than a “turtle deck” like the roadsters, and these included those other items, including a high windshield and a removable top and side curtains. Like some of the race cars, it used the Fiat 1100cc motor, though unlike the roadsters this engine was supplied with the car rather than being purchase separately by those owners desiring to use it.

I was OK on the track driving it...and was a bit surprised by that. Maybe it was because of being a co-driver, or perhaps knowing it was not my car gave me a reason to be extra cautious and to not drive it as assertively as I would race my own vehicle. At any rate I don't recall any discomfort.

Additionally, as the restoration dragged from one year to the next, I acquired a Formula Junior to campaign while waiting. I had become attracted to the purity and ease of maintenance of early open wheeled cars, though my interest had initially been piqued when I first decided to get into vintage racing. One of the first cars I looked at was an Elva MkI Formula Junior. The car had been lengthened for a taller than average driver, and my concerns about what that would do to its handling plus the fact that, particularly since, unlike the photo below, it was white, it looked like a long refrigerator. 

Imagine this in white
With a two foot longer nose

I eventually located a Formula S in Virginia which had been modified “out of the box” for the Junior class, and worked out a satisfactory price and shipping cost to bring it to California, and began racing that, though it had some serious issues which kept me busy...and to an extent unnerved, but more about that in another post. 

The Purest Form of the Automobile
Quantum Formula S/Jr

As noted in the third post about my 1987 incident, the first event after getting the car back wound up with a spin which could easily have ended almost as badly as that disaster. This did nothing for my confidence. As I told Sherri, “this thing is a crap shoot. No matter how well I drive there are things outside my control which can snap up and bite me.” While I had always known that on some level, intellectualizing it is one thing, living it quite another. It was clearly going to take time to be OK with that as well as to regain confidence in the car...I did not ever lose confidence in my own, albeit limited, abilities.

Coronado was especially difficult for me. This is a road course laid out on US Navy airbase runways and taxiways. To protect spectators concrete barriers are erected running the entire length of the main straight, which is at least ¼ mile long. To slow the cars down entering this, again for spectator protection, there is a very low speed and short left/right “chicane” which leads into it. Since this straight is the longest on the course, your speed out of that turn complex translates directly into how quickly you get down the straight and your speed at the end of it, and in a modestly powered car like the Siata there is no way to “finesse” this...you can't make it up by horsepower...since you have very little. Thus you have to take this slow two turn complex, paradoxically,...as fast as you possibly can. And every time I did so my heat was in my mouth wondering what was gong to break and slam me into that very hard wall.

In fact, I watched a lovely and valuable Maserati AG6 do that right in front of me when one of his Borrani wheels, not dissimilar to my own, broke exiting the right hander. He literally scraped the entire left side of the car off along that concrete.

A6GS Maserati Racer

But the more my confidence returned the more I realized what this sport has added to me joy and life. My staff at work always knew when I had just returned from a race weekend...until mid-week I was mellow and relaxed-unusual for me in my high tension tech world. Somehow, literally putting my life on the line, with no place to hide from my own fears or lack of competence, enabled me to view even the tensions of critical software development projects with relative aplomb. They, after all, were only a threat to my job, not my life.

John Surtees was, I believe, the only person to ever win a Motorcycle GP championship as well as a Formula One championship. And it was John who said something like “those who have never risked their life don't truly understand the value of it.” Things are that much sweeter when you realize how fragile and short your own existence really is.

We delude ourselves into thinking somehow that the world is safe and we will live tomorrow just as we do today, but in reality no one is guaranteed tomorrow. The sun will likely come up...but you won't necessarily be there to experience it.

Sitting on the grid in a race car I am always nervous. In fact, at least once each season, usually in the car waiting to go out for the first time in the Spring, it crosses my mind that what I am doing makes no rational sense. “What,” I think, “makes you believe this is a smart thing to be doing?' But my next thought is about competence, skill, and control, Of course I can do this, I recall, and there is no place else I should be at that moment. Centering myself, going through a calming ritual, and focusing totally on exercising the skills I have developed to control myself and a vehicle at levels far beyond that of those in the daily freeway fog, helps me realize just what untapped potential for achievement we all have, if we only are willing to step outside our delusional concept of “safety.” What I am able to master in racing is beyond any level of mastery I feel I've achieved anywhere else, with much higher risk, and equally high personal satisfaction.

The second the car starts to roll towards the “splitter” who directs us into pairs for the parade lap the nerves are gone. To do this, to do it as well as I can and better than many...certainly beyond all who drive daily and think therefore they understand what it takes to control a car, is a state of zen that I think few achieve. At any rate, it is certainly my moment of zen.