A very nice SI Ferrari 330GT 2+2 arrived at my shop last week from Florida. I inspected this car for the owner a few years ago and made some suggestions for making some corrections on the car. As time often gets away from us, the owner had not had a chance to get any of the work done, and decided to send the car to me.

This car was restored over a dozen years ago by a shop in Illinois to a nice level, but it was obvious the shop wasn’t familiar with all the details of Vintage Ferraris. Although the work was nice, there were a lot of little things wrong, and I was asked to try and correct them for the current owner.

Here’s a list of to-dos:

1.Hood pad incorrect. The correct one is a silver mylar.
2. underside of the hood should be painted semi gloss black, not body color
3. the left exhaust shield is cut up, and needs to be repaired and repainted.
4. brake booster brackets are rusty. needs to be painted black
5. steering column needs to be painted. Brake fluid has taken off some of the paint
6. Steering box seal is leaking. needs new seal
7. needs correct acorn nuts on intake manifolds
8. needs correct rubber boots on ignition coils
9. ignition coils should be painted red with red resistors
10. road draft tubes are supposed to be ribbed.
11. heater hoses should be a special textured hose.
12. cheney hose clamps should be installed on all hoses, along with special copiglia clamps
13. a sheath needs to be installed on choke cable. The choke cable bracket under dash needs to be changed
14. incorrect throttle linkages
15. battery hold down is incorrect
16. missing hood prop rod
17. radiator cap has wrong finish. needs to be white cadmium
18. Driver’s seat is collapsed. interior foam and supports needs to be repaired and restored.
19. Under dash cover needs to be vinyl instead of carpeting
20. Interior carpets are wrong and the binding it too wide. Needs to be Wilton wool
21. shifter knob is wrong, also needs correct lock nut
22. sun visors incorrect. Need to fabricate new ones
23. missing passenger side pull handle at the roof
24. missing rear defroster vent and perforations
25. Trunk Carpeting wrong
26. trunk seal incorrectly installed.
27. underside of trunk needs to be semigloss black
28. missing jack hole plugs.
29. front grille screws need to be rechromed, they’re rusting.

It’s a long list, and we discussed the scope of the work. Much of this work is cosmetic and won’t make the car drive any better, but to some owners it’s important to get their cars perfect. Even on my personal car that is “just a driver” has the majority of the details correct. It’s a pride thing that I know when I lift the hood, no one, not even the experts, will find fault in the details.

Here’s the weird cut in the exhaust shield. This will either have to be repaired, or replaced.

The underhood area should be painted semigloss black, the hood pad is wrong, and we’re missing a hood prop rod.

The interior is in decent shape, but the left seat foam is completely collapsed! It looks fine in the pictures, but when sitting in this car, it feels like sitting inside a 5 gallon bucket! Looking closer, the light tan leather has been stained and does not come out with simple cleaning. I have the same staining issue with my tan interior. It’s from wearing blue jeans when driving the car! I often avoid wearing jeans when driving my light colored car because the blue dye easily transfers to the leather and is nearly impossible to remove. We will have to disassemble the driver’s seat and first see if the cover can be safely removed to repair the under-structure of foam and straps, and then see what can be done with the leather.

The dash was incorrectly finished. The original finish was a rubbed oil finish that had a mat to semi-mat finish. Pininfarina used a very thin veneer applied to plywood to create this dash, so repairs and refinishing can be difficult. Another issue is a plaque that was affixed to the dash. I would assume Jim Hodur must have paid for this restorations and had the shop install a plaque on the dash. Unfortunately, the plaque was screwed into the wood, so a repair will require filling the holes, and matching the surrounding wood to hide the holes. Pulling the dash assembly out could lead down a path that can get very expensive. My suggestion is to take the glove box door off, try removing the plaque, patch holes and try to match the current finish. Although it’ll be the one wrong detail on this car, I think we can live with it over the expense of making it right!