6/27/06
Visiting Francois

I stopped by Francois’ shop, and of course there were plenty of Ferraris to see. The Frenchman is up to his armpits in work, and there are cars in storage waiting for him to start working on them!

There were at least four V-12 engines in various states of reassembly, and a collection of cars in his shop that included a 250 Lusso, a 250 Short Wheelbase Berlinetta, a 512i BB, and a 512M.

The 512M was the one that stood out in the shop (not that a SWB or Lusso is not interesting!). This car was being prepped for track use and was recently restored in Europe. Francois has been adding the final touches to the car, and fixing some mistakes he found from the restoration.

Francois’ familiarity with this car goes back to when he was a head mechanic for NART when this car was first campaigned in the 70s. This particular car was even taken out to the Bonneville Salt Flats for speed trials. Working on this car today is like being reunited with an old friend for Francois.

As I was poking around the car, I saw this large sawed off wrench sitting on the car. It was obviously a Craftsman wrench that was cut short to reach some hard to reach bolt. Francois explained that this wrench is for a fitting on an oil cooler inside the nose of the 512. It sat patiently in his toolbox for thirty years to be put back into service now that the 512 has come back home!

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