I got a Ferrari 250GTE delivered to my shop a couple of weeks ago and the first thing I had to do was pull it inside with the forklift. The car was having some issues with the starter and it was easier to fire up the forklift than try to see if I could get the car to start off the trailer. The time I spent fixing the forklift this past summer paid off!

I shot a video of the car when it first came in going over some of the work I wanted to get done after I sorted out the starter. The car is pretty nice with fresh paint and interior, but the engine compartment is not that great. Even though a previous shop rebuilt the engine, they didn’t do much with getting the details right under the hood. I think with a little time and effort, the engine compartment will be at the same level as the rest of the car.

I removed the horns from the car to refinish in the correct red color. Someone previously painted them with some black paint and they looked horrible.

The original color on these FIAMM trumpets was a semi-transparent red color that you can see under the black paint. I’ve been using a particular clear-red model paint that seems to work fairly well, but I wanted to try out some new paint. I have a second set of horns in my stash of parts, and may try to do a comparison, but first the old paint had to be removed.

The base of the horns will get a silver hammertone finish while the trumpets will get a silver base coat. In the past, I used to polish the trumpets before painting them with a candied red paint, but found the polished alloy trumpets wouldn’t allow the paint to stick really well. Painting the trumpets with silver paint worked better providing the reflective base under the clear red paint.

The fuse cover in the engine compartment needed to be stripped so a fresh coat of wrinkle paint could be applied.