Nart Spyder

[Shaun @ Tru6]

Originally Posted by Reiver

Nice work....send me pm

will do.

[TRE Cup]

Those wheels on the Wilson recreation are actually correct for the car. Check out Denise McCluggage racing at Sebring back in the day with a Nart spyder, and requisite "scaffolding" roll bar

[Ferraripete]

Originally Posted by Shaun @ Tru6

Haha! Not so much jealous as I am sad for the owner of the car. I probably could have done a better job. At least on any chrome, aluminum and cadmium work. Doing some 512BB suspension pieces now.

Sign me up, I have friends in Boca! And I am, ahem, always nice.

shaun,

we are beginning a suspension resto on my 512bb. send me a pm w/ contact info so that we can discuss some cad work. as you know the proper finishes are quite important.

[Scott Douglas]

I'll never forget the time one of those, a real one no less, showed up at the Donut Derilics Saturday morning car show held here in Orange County. Owner actually drove it down from LA on the 405 freeway. I've got pictures of it, somewhere.

[Reiver]

The donor...1982 Ferrari 400i. V12

[drcoastline]

Originally Posted by Ferraripete

not trying to be harsh. just the facts. I agree with you, I have seen some replicas that I would love to own but there comes lots of downside too.

Sorry, I think you are trying to be harsh. If nothing else the workmanship is beautiful. That being said if it's the "facts" your facts should be accurate. Campies were correct. If I had a critique of the car it would be the blue inserts, I would have kept them black.

[Ferraripete]

Originally Posted by drcoastline

Sorry, I think you are trying to be harsh. If nothing else the workmanship is beautiful. That being said if it's the "facts" your facts should be accurate. Campies were correct. If I had a critique of the car it would be the blue inserts, I would have kept them black.

campys were period correct obviously. my father had a 275 gtb/4 when I was a child. his b/4 had campys. the nart spyders nearly all had borannis...save for a few. the campys looked best on a coupe and the 25 nart commissioned and 10 actually built looked more elegant with the wires.

just to level set, I commented on the metal work as well and said it was nearly too lovely to have paint... you may have missed that? sorry if that came off as harsh.

I was not however inaccurate w/ the downside of owning a replica of any fabled Ferrari. no fca or foc owners club event will welcome you. owners tend to look down on the replicars and hate that a donor car was sacrificed. in this case a 400...forgivable to most. last, Ferrari does look to crush replicas...fact.

[Borders Reivers]

Amateur effort.

Local guy Bob Norwood P4-575 cars tear factory P4-330 Ferraris apart.






But then he does things besides look at garage queens

[sand_man]

WOW! Admiral Obvious says that this is a pretty amazing build. I have always liked this particular model, but my favorite (maybe car of all time) is still the 250 GT SWB Berlinetta...make it a Competizione while you're at it.

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Borders Reivers

Amateur effort.

Local guy Bob Norwood P4-575 cars tear factory P4-330 Ferraris apart.

I'm going to have to take exception with that statement, it simply isn't true. Bob's done some interesting things, no doubt about that, but his replica P4 is nowhere near the same car as an original. If you put the two cars on a race track, the replica wouldn't even see which way the real one went.

I considered buying one of his replica P4's, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, or so. It was an undrivable, unsorted, piece of ****. I couldn't believe how bad it was.

[drcoastline]

Originally Posted by Ferraripete

campys were period correct obviously. my father had a 275 gtb/4 when I was a child. his b/4 had campys. the nart spyders nearly all had borannis...save for a few. the campys looked best on a coupe and the 25 nart commissioned and 10 actually built looked more elegant with the wires.

just to level set, I commented on the metal work as well and said it was nearly too lovely to have paint... you may have missed that? sorry if that came off as harsh.

I was not however inaccurate w/ the downside of owning a replica of any fabled Ferrari. no fca or foc owners club event will welcome you. owners tend to look down on the replicars and hate that a donor car was sacrificed. in this case a 400...forgivable to most. last, Ferrari does look to crush replicas...fact.

Seems your first paragraph is more subjective than fact save "the nart spyders nearly all had borannis... save a few." So while they may look "odd" in you opinion they would be correct. Especially for a car that is race prepped like this one. Which would also make the roll bar correct. As TRE proved in his post.

No I did not miss your post "lovely work. almost too pretty to paint!" came after Reveir posted the three photos of the unpainted bodies. It's not difficult to conclude the comment was directed at those two cars, not the nart replicar.

I think all of us car guys would agree if you took a perfectly good donor 400 and destroyed it, that would be unfortunate. However, since we know nothing about the donor car maybe it was to far gone to save? If for no other reason than from a monetary stand point. 400's don't bring much money. Since nart's run in the tens of millions maybe the builder thought a recreation using genuine Ferrari parts would be fun and make good use of a derelict 400, and save himself $20,000,000.00. I bet there are plenty of people that would drop a $1,000,000.00 to buy that car.

I don't think anyone made mention of trying to enter this car in Ferrari owners clubs or Ferrari sanctioned events? Of course I can see why they wouldn't aside from the fact it is not real. It quite possibly could be better than an original since the 400 components have 30 years newer technology.

Perhaps the only fact in your posts is that "Ferrari looks to crush replica's"? I don't know. Maybe they do. I do know they have sued to stop having replicars that are to correct from being built and sold, as was the case with at least one California replicar. Based on your screen name I think this says it all... "owners tend to look down on the replicars"






Oh yes... "Imitation is the highest form of flattery". Keep calm it won't diminish the value of an original.

[cashflyer]

Ferrari does look to crush replicas...fact

If this is true, why aren't they digging into their deep pockets and grabbing all the replicas listed on Hemmings, Dupont, and other sites?

Or did you mean "crush" in a figurative sense, as in suppress via legal actions?

[Borders Reivers]

Originally Posted by javadog

I'm going to have to take exception with that statement, it simply isn't true. Bob's done some interesting things, no doubt about that, but his replica P4 is nowhere near the same car as an original. If you put the two cars on a race track, the replica wouldn't even see which way the real one went.

I considered buying one of his replica P4's, maybe 15 or 20 years ago, or so. It was an undrivable, unsorted, piece of ****. I couldn't believe how bad it was.

How many records have your name on them?

That's what I thought

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Borders Reivers

How many records have your name on them?

That's what I thought

Records? What does that have to do with anything?

Are you alluding to Bonneville speed records? I don't compete there and Bob's records there have nothing to do with his P4 replica, anyway.

Have you driven one of his P4 replicas? I have.
Have you looked at one up close, after it has a few (say 1000) miles on it? I have.

The fact is, the examples I am familiar with are earlier versions of the car. He used different donor engines in the past (from basically whatever V12 model had little value as a used car at the time) and maybe a different gearbox (G50 911) and other components but my comments are still probably relevant.

In those days, he was willing to send out to a customer a car that was poorly built, that had problems that should have been sorted out prior to delivery and the cars suffered from numerous quality issues. I had conversations with Bob about how the cars were built, who fabricated the bodies for him, etc. and it all sounds good but the stuff doesn't last. The bodies quickly developed all sorts of stress cracks, the various components he sourced to assemble the things (911 gearbox, Corvette pedal cluster, etc.) didn't play well together.

If you look at some of the build shots of the current cars, you'll see cheap hardware and some less-than-ideal design details, so I'm not going to bet my money that things have changed for the better.

I've been around a long time, seen original P3, 412P and P4 cars driven in anger and I can tell you they'd run rings around one of his replicas. Ferrari, for all their many faults, knew how to build a car that worked and that's not what I experienced when I drove Bob's version.

JR

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Laneco

I actually like the wheels. This car is gorgeous....

I do as well.

I had not heard of Larry Wilson before. What a great eye.

[Sarc]

Originally Posted by drcoastline

Seems your first paragraph is more subjective than fact save "the nart spyders nearly all had borannis... save a few." So while they may look "odd" in you opinion they would be correct. Especially for a car that is race prepped like this one. Which would also make the roll bar correct. As TRE proved in his post.

No I did not miss your post "lovely work. almost too pretty to paint!" came after Reveir posted the three photos of the unpainted bodies. It's not difficult to conclude the comment was directed at those two cars, not the nart replicar.

Perhaps the only fact in your posts is that "Ferrari looks to crush replica's"? I don't know. Maybe they do. I do know they have sued to stop having replicars that are to correct from being built and sold, as was the case with at least one California replicar. Based on your screen name I think this says it all... "owners tend to look down on the replicars"

Oh yes... "Imitation is the highest form of flattery". Keep calm it won't diminish the value of an original.

Originally Posted by Borders Reivers

How many records have your name on them?

That's what I thought

I'm curious, do you two talk like this when conversing face to face with people or does socializing on the internet have the same effect on you as being over served and stripped of all tact and grace?
Why does everything have to be a pissing match? Sheeesh.

JR seemed polite to me in his disagreement in your Norwood statement and FPete graciously apologized for coming across harsh. And given their well documented CV of fine Italian autos from central Italy, I'm more inclined to listen to what they have to say anyway.

Thanks for sharing Reiver. Beautiful vehicle, no matter what it is.

[Reiver]

Originally Posted by Seahawk

I do as well.

I had not heard of Larry Wilson before. What a great eye.

He is not a dedicated builder altho it looks like it...he is a collector and has about 150 (I think) cars presently of all types. The nice thing about his collection is that they are all driven/rotated and many tracked.
The other good thing for the hobby is he has hired 12-15 permanent craftsmen to build, rebuild and maintain the cars...English wheel/wooden buck kind of thing....and the metal fabricators/frame guy is amazing.
He has a couple of older Maserati's I'd kill for....
I'll be out there in Feb for the Boca Raton Concours (Larry is the honored collector and will show 16 cars) and will get to help his manager do whatever (as a nug lol) and drive one of the cars to the show as it is nearby.
I'll post pics of his collection.

[javadog]

It's ironic to see comments about the "correctness" of the parts on a replica. Given that this guy undoubtedly built a car to suit his needs, rather than seek originality points in a concours event he's not eligible for anyway, it makes sense to me.

The wheels are probably lighter, stronger and less hassle than a set of Borranis (or, at least 2 out of those 3) and the seat inserts are a nod to the color that Ferrari often used for seats in their competition cars of that era.

I'd guarantee that if I built a replica car to suit my own needs, I'd change a few of the details, too. I haven't met a car yet that I was 100% happy with, in it's original form...

I'm sure it's a fun car to drive. One reason that I sold off everything I once owned that had to do with Ferrari is I eventually got tired of some of the bull**** surrounding the cars. More driving, less *****ing...

JR

[Captain Ahab Jr]

So many people think they could do a better job when building a car from scratch but seldom ever do it.

In reality unless someone has been involved in the full design/manufacturing process of creating a car from a blank piece of paper they have little idea of what and how much work is required.

I love it when I read 'I could do a better job than that', well if they could they would have instead of critiquing or poking holes in other peoples efforts.

Modifying cars is a long world away from creating cars so I applaud anyone that creates their own as you never know who will be the next Mr. Lamborghini, Mr. Ruf, Mr. McLaren, Mr. Koenigsegg or Mr. Pagani

[Reiver]

Originally Posted by javadog

It's ironic to see comments about the "correctness" of the parts on a replica. Given that this guy undoubtedly built a car to suit his needs, rather than seek originality points in a concours event he's not eligible for anyway, it makes sense to me.

The wheels are probably lighter, stronger and less hassle than a set of Borranis (or, at least 2 out of those 3) and the seat inserts are a nod to the color that Ferrari often used for seats in their competition cars of that era.

I'd guarantee that if I built a replica car to suit my own needs, I'd change a few of the details, too. I haven't met a car yet that I was 100% happy with, in it's original form...

I'm sure it's a fun car to drive. One reason that I sold off everything I once owned that had to do with Ferrari is I eventually got tired of some of the bull**** surrounding the cars. More driving, less *****ing...

JR

I get it....when high end is not high end enough...the concours crowd can be a great pita to the point of not being fun but simply work.
I can't speak for Larry but he does have some beautiful concours worthy cars...like the '26 Buggatti GP car...but he drives them.
The other issue is if you really want to flog it is it worth flogging a 20 million dollar car.
What I really appreciate is the level of craftsmanship he puts out that is still very usable.....now, that car is still in the million dollar range time and effort wise but compared to the real deal that is a fraction of the cost.
I also appreciate the guys that have full time jobs doing something they love at the high end of the scale...some are right out of college (McPherson)...Dave goes to that school yearly to look at graduating talent. A dream come true for those he hires.
For some guys the beer is never cold enough lol....