Tell me about the old days!

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BT
Posts: 43
Joined: Wed Jan 02, 2008 12:56 pm
Location: Palm Beach Gardens, FL

Re: Tell me about the old days!

Post by BT »

My dad started buying Ferraris back around 1977 or so. I remember the first time he picked me up for my weekend visit at the Greyhound station in West Palm Beach in a Yellow Dino GT4. Then a 308 GTSi, a 512BB, and eventually a 1986 TR. He never worked on any of his cars. I was usually assigned to bring them to the mechanic once I reached driving age. Those were great days / fun assignments! Not so fun was bringing the Rolls Corniche to the mechanic. I felt totally dumb driving that behemoth around. Always had the cars serviced at Shelton Ferrari in Fort Lauderdale. Tried to get the 512 BB legalized at some other independent shop that never completed the job, and my dad traded a half ownership share of some obscure condo for the unfinished conversion project. What a disaster!
1967 Ginetta G20
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klv
Posts: 237
Joined: Fri Jul 29, 2005 9:56 am
Location: Sunbury, UK

Re: Tell me about the old days!

Post by klv »

While I've not delved into a Ferrari anywhere near the same level as you guys, I started my 'training' with my father in his garage rebuilding Jaguar engines for his cars when I was 11 or 12 years old and to just grew on from there. Rebuilding my Alfa GTV twice over the 30 years I've had it have contributed to the experience as well. I think now the idea of wrestling with changing a rusty exhaust has less attraction for me than it did 30 years ago, physically most of all! Also the fact that I can give it to a shop to do and afford to pay contributes as well I guess. As much as anything, we are buying time in this situation. While tinkering is fun, being able to get out on the road in the car rather that spending the weekend underneath it has some attraction too!

Oh - and with the new cars, a big issue is the amount of electrics/diagnostics involved as well. For example, if you have a modern car with carbon brakes, you can't just change the pads and discs (aside from the cost of them), the car then has to be plugged into the Factory diagnostic system to tell the car that it has new pads and discs fitted as the wear rates are logged in the car's brain. Incidentally, you don't tell the wear of the discs by thickness, but by weight too! And there are lots of other examples of jobs that are basically impossible for the home mechanic and even some of the small independent workshops now.
Kelly La Velle & Andrew Stevens
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