6/19/13
Repairing 330GTC Crash Damage

I stopped by the paint shop to see the progress after the car was stripped to bare metal. Once the all the paint was removed, we could see the issues in the body that needed to be addressed before starting the painting process.

Mark Barton from the Panel Shop will be doing the metal work, so he came down to the paint shop to discuss a plan.

The left rear quarter panel sustained some crash damage many years ago and motivated the last owner to respray the car. The repairs were period correct for the 70s where the panel was beaten out as best as it could and then layered with a generous layer of body filler.

Some of the cracks in the sheet metal were filled in with braze which is a process of melting filler metal like brass with a torch to join steel. The melting temperature of the filler rod is lower than the melting point of the steel, but high enough to allow the filler metal to flow between the spaces. I’d like to replace all this bent sheet metal with new panels fabricated by Mark, and joined together with solid welds. The joints will be so smooth when he’s done, you’ll barely need any filler. 

There’s a small rust hole in the lower left rocker panel, but this could point to a larger problem. Mark will cut this section out and see what lies beneath. We should be able to repair this area without going too far down the rocker.

The nose of this car also sustained a little fender bender in its past, and we’ll have to address the fit here as well.

The right rear fender arch had a few pinholes forming, so a new strip will be fabricated and welded in place.

The paint shop is also working on a special car that belongs to a customer of ours. Some minor fender damage convinced the owner to approve repainting the whole car. There were enough issues elsewhere that it was decided to just do it all at once.

This is a pretty significant and rare NART Spyder. Not only did it race at 12 Hours of Sebring in the hands of Denise McCluggage and Pinky Rolo, but was also filmed in the original “Thomas Crown Affair” with Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen. It’ll be nice to see it back from the paint shop.

Reminder: If you have a Ferrari related project, car, or idea you’d like to explore, I’d love to talk to you. I can also help if you’re thinking of buying or selling. This website represents what I love to do, and I would be happy to help guide you through the Vintage Ferrari world so if you’d like to do something together, let me know. It all begins with an e-mail!

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