Two Giants...and One Amazing “Little Mouse”
Part II: The Ferrari Came Next
The Ferrari Came Next
If I marveled at owning a Porsche, these seven letters were something I never even had the nerve to do more than daydream about. I first got caught up in the mystique, like many youths, through the pages of Road & Track.This was about the same time as I discovered sports cars in general, somewhere around my transition from high school to college in the early 1960s at the age of 18 or 19. By sometime in my 21styear I owned my first Austin Healey Sprite, a small and modestly powered and fairly crude roadster complete with side curtains and a “snap the dot” folding top. I loved the car but that did not prevent me reading about and dreaming of more powerful machinery. And by then the pinnacle of that world were the cars bearing the Prancing Horse emblem, led by the fantastic 250TR GTO. That this same basic three liter V12 motor also powered other more arguably “streetable” models such as the 250 Coupe, Cabriolet, 2+2, and Lusso only made me more certain that, given my relative lack of knowledge, “Ferrari” was synonymous with “front engined 3 liter V12.” This would blind me to any other alternative when, many years on, I actually believed I could acquire one of these magnificent beasts.
 |
| "Detuned" to 240HP Note Plug Wires Leading to Dual Distributors You Time it Like Two Separate Stright Sixes Three 2 Barrel Carbs and SOHC Per Bank |
In earlier posts I have reminisced about how I first got involved with Ferraris, through John Lewis and the “Ferrari Owners Club:Bay Area Region” in the early 1970s. It was people as much as the cars which brought me directly in physical contact with these wonderful machines. Bill and Judy Morton with their 330GTC, Tom and Tish Thinessen and Rob and Teresa Jones as well as Tommy and Verna Griffiths, all with 246GTs, and of course John with his own cars...the 330GTC and then the Daytona, 275GTS, and "Queen Mother" 365 GT 2+2. . Through them Sherri and I began to join in on runs to Riverside and to spectate at Monterey and other events.
It was only a matter of time before I convinced myself I really could become at least a temporary custodian for a car bearing that iconic “Cavallino Rampante.” This was not totally delusional as by then I had been somewhat “educated' regarding prices of 60s vintage models and while most were more than I could begin to manage there did seem to be some that were, at a stretch, almost within reach.
Of course I thought I wanted one of the sexy, two passenger models. To me the most attractive was the 275GTB, even though it used an enlargement of the iconic 3 liter V12 I wanted...but even the two cam variant was way out of my financial league. So too was the lovely and understated 250 “Lusso.”
 |
| 250 GT/L "Lusso" Note front end treatment Duplicates that of the earlier 250 GT 2+2 Series III Courtesy Wikipedia |
That left a variety of late version 250s...the short and long wheelbase “California” cabriolets, the so-called “SWB,” as well as the standard version cab and the very conservative looking coupe. Alas these were all selling for $20,000 or more, as was the even sexier 246GTS...a car I did not seriously look at because I really did not understand nor appreciate the “Dino” badging nor the V6 powering it. This obviously also eliminated even the newer 308 series in either GT4 or GTS guise.
That pretty much left me with only one option I thought I could push the financial envelope for, though I still was not sure exactly how. 2+2 Ferraris were then, and still are, the subject of a distinct lack of respect by the snobs who cluster within parts of both the Ferrari and Porsche worlds. While much less true today than in the late 1970s these cars are still, like the 914, undervalued relative to any performance or aesthetic standard.
The 250GT Pininfarina Coupe 2+2 was no exception. In 1979 it was priced at half that of any other Ferrari of the era. And I'm sure my first reaction to the fact that affording even this “less desirable” model was mild disappointment. Like the coupe it was an outgrowth of the styling was quite mild and conservative...or at least it looked that way until you regarded it more carefully.
 |
| Taken in the Back Yoard in Jackson Just Before I Supidly Sold It |
Then you began gradually to see that the Devil really was in the details. The car was made in three series and the first two were externally almost identical and not quite as handsome, with fog lights behind the grill and three piece “bullet” taillights, as the third.
 |
| Series III Improved Taillight Configuration And Practical Turnk Space |
Once I had the car I learned more about it. It was nicknamed, though never called that by the factory, the “GTE” though no one is positive why. The most likely explanation is that the chassis, which I believe was numbered 508, had an “E” suffix, probably to differentiate it from the 150 coupe version from which it was derived. Of course it was lengthened to accommodate the rear seats, and perhaps (too lazy to look it up) the wheelbase was also increased. Certainly the motor mounts were moved forward as was the engine, which resulted in more understeer than for other early 60s models, though this only became significant enough to be bothersome on a race track, for which the car was never intended.
In terms of handling and performance the car was beyond anything I had ever owned or, at that time, driven. This is not a light car, at 3200 pounds, yet 0-60 still came in an impressive seven seconds. But the car only seemed to get stronger and faster after that, right up to when wind resistance finally stopped it at 145...beyond or equal to almost anything around even in 1979. The four wheel disc brakes were fantastic. While easy to modulate from the most gentle touch to full on threshold stops, the car would haul down from any speed in an absolute straight line. No car I've owned was as good, to this day.
I managed to secure Road & Track reprints of many 1960s Ferraris including the 2+2, and unlike the 914, they were very complimentary about it. In fact, it became Ferrari's largest production run to date, with 954 cars being built across the three series from 1961 to 1963. This large run was, at least until fairly recently, one of the things which held its price down.
As I grew familiar with the car I learned some more interesting tidbits about it. It was the first Ferrari to be tested in a wind tunnel. The first prototype was revealed at LeMans, where it was used as a Marshall's car. It was the only Ferrari Enzo ever owned and drove. It is one of the models whose painting adorned the walls of the factory showroom (I would kill to own that, but I do have a picture of it in a magazine Ferrari once sent to all owners called “Rosso”). And I found out the next car behind it on the assembly line was one of those fantastic 250GTOs.
 |
| Quite Comfotable in Front |
 |
| Not So Much In Back That's All the Leg Room There Is |
My car was not show quality. It was mechanically sound but was far from cosmetically pristine. The paint was a bit worn and after a couple of years actually was worn partly through in a couple of places. There was rust bubbles at the bottom of the doors which also appeared during the time I owned it. The windshield had a crack at the top of the passenger side. Some of the chrome bits, while not rusted, needed redoing. In the interior the leather was in good shape but the door panels fit poorly and the stuffing and stitching of the front seats had both deteriorated and left the seats sagging. The carpeting did not fit well.
The car had electric power windows. I have only seen one other with these. The engineering was not well thought out, as it used a cable mechanism which wound off and on the same drum as the window rose or lowered and was forever coming off the drum. It seemed like I was inside those doors every couple of months.
The only mechanical weakness, at least as far as I was aware, was the exhaust system. The car had four mufflers, resonators, and tips, and I had patched the mufflers with JB Weld in so many places there was very little metal left to attach the stuff to. I did buy new tips which, oddly, I still have on the shelf in my shop.
But the biggest issue was actually structural. At some point the floor pan had rusted through, including a square cross tube. The owner once removed had fabricated a new floor out of fiberglass, but did not fix the rotted tube. Not sure how or if it affected handling.
As I looked back at these comments I realized they made the car seem scruffy...and that is not at all accurate. It's appearance was good enough that I was asked to show it at the first “Concours Italiano” as part of the “Monterey Weekend” in one of the early years of the historic races there. It is more that the car deserved more loving refreshing that I could financially justify.
My car was not originally sold in the US, but came from Italy, though I do not know the history or timing. It not only had metric gauges (and Sherri figured out quickly that 160 equaled 100MPH+ and told me to “cut it out” on a trip on Highway 1), but they were labeled in Italian.
 |
| But Dear, the Spedometer is Metric... Yeah, but 160 = 100MPH Cut it out! |
I kept the car for 25 years and to this day regret, to a degree, having sold it. But it needed a clutch as well as the other things mentioned above, and though I would not have been “upside down” putting the money into bringing it back to where it deserved to be, that only matters when you sell, and I simply could not justify laying out a minimum of $50,000 to “put it right,” since once I did there was no way I would have parted with it. So I sold it to Bruce Trenery at Fantasy Junction. In turn it went to LA and the new custodian did a great job of restoring it.
And then, since I am on their mailing list, I got an e mail from Bruce listing a 2+2 for sale. I was stunned when I read the ad and realized it was 4217...my car...for sale at more than ten times what I sold it for.
 |
| OMG...It's "MY" Car Someone put maybe $50K in it And Bruce wanted $395 for it!!! |
 |
| Refined from any angle |
Still, I have no regrets. Though I only really drove it for the first few years I owned it, it went everywhere with the FOC including on three race tracks (Laguna, Sears, and Riverside) and I have nothing but great memories of the club events with it.
 |
| The "Lusso" Front End Used on the 2+2 a year in 1963 The Year Before the Lusso Appeared |
No comments:
Post a Comment