[Global Autosports]

This is a true beauty - 1964 Ferrari 250 GT for Sale in Beverly Hills, CA 90211

[tazandjan]

Very nice Lusso. Still surprising the 275s are bringing more than the Lussos when only 350 Lussos were built.

[212Export]

Originally Posted by tazandjan

Very nice Lusso. Still surprising the 275s are bringing more than the Lussos when only 350 Lussos were built.

Only 4 gears make a lot of difference in pratical useability obviously !

[tazandjan]

212- Affirmative, makes a big difference.

[Jimmy Chen Shiba DDS]

Originally Posted by tazandjan

Very nice Lusso. Still surprising the 275s are bringing more than the Lussos when only 350 Lussos were built.

As an afterthought with regards to Lusso, I find it rather interesting how the market taste changes rather unexpectedly with time. There were times that you could not sell Lusso at reasonable asking price. Once I considered Lusso, but upon considering several factors, I opted out. Back then, price began on the rise and I believe the asking was around mid to high 200k USD. There were many positive factors for me to consdier at the time, yet, at the time I did not feel that I fit the image of the car well. It seemed like a car that I could enjoy in my latter, seasoned years, when I hope I become more befitting the car's image that I have of Lusso.
(my rant again ...) w/ smiles Jimmy

[Brian]

Originally Posted by tazandjan

Very nice Lusso. Still surprising the 275s are bringing more than the Lussos when only 350 Lussos were built.

Have you driven both?



Nothing against the Lusso but it is at its' best standing back and looking at it.

The 275 was a huge step forward.


Even among the 250's I found many more rewarding to drive than the Lusso.

[SCM246]

Originally Posted by 212Export

Only 4 gears make a lot of difference in pratical useability obviously !

Had heard that too, a Lusso on the freeway whine

[Jimmy Chen Shiba DDS]

Originally Posted by Brian

Have you driven both?



Nothing against the Lusso but it is at its' best standing back and looking at it.

The 275 was a huge step forward.


Even among the 250's I found many more rewarding to drive than the Lusso.

Pretty much what I meant to convey in my rant. Brian can put in more eloquently. w/ smiles Jimmy

[tazandjan]

I think the looks are about it. Funny thing is when the Lusso was introduced it was criticized as too bland, just like the Maranello. Not too many people think the Lusso is bland now.

Brian- I know the 275 had IRS, a transaxle, 5 speed, etc, but the Lusso just looks so good. And no, I have not driven either. I started with DOHC machines, and not a 275 GTB/4 either. Could have bought one for less than the Dino in 1975, but who knew? Plus at that time I did not like the 275 GTB styling. Times change.

[Jeff Kennedy]

Would say that the 275 GTB was like the Daytona in its day and that perception has always held. They were the top performance iteration in their time and therefore considered the most sporting.

The comparison for the Lusso would be the 365 C/4. More civilized but not the hardcore choice.

I have not myself seen a Lusso stripped to bare metal but have heard that they had a lot of body filler on the nose to get the shapes correct.

Jeff

[tazandjan]

Jeff- I remember somebody in an old C&D talking about how cheaply they were built. Tax-free price in Italy was only about $8000, an equivalent age Corvette was usually around $3-4K.

Most of the cars are now in much better shape than when they left the factory.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kennedy

Would say that the 275 GTB was like the Daytona in its day and that perception has always held. They were the top performance iteration in their time and therefore considered the most sporting.

The comparison for the Lusso would be the 365 C/4. More civilized but not the hardcore choice.

I have not myself seen a Lusso stripped to bare metal but have heard that they had a lot of body filler on the nose to get the shapes correct.

Jeff

All hand made bodies have a lot of filler. Guys doing it now in restoration shops use far less because they are being held to a far higher standard than production cars of the period. Even American cars used to have a great deal of filler. One of my uncles was a body leadder at Studebaker before he became an aerospace engineer. In the days when labor was cheap and the stamping equipment not very well developed that was the way it was. Strip the paint someday off an original Gullwing. Every single detail and edge was sculpted from lead. The entire top around the roof vents, door and window openings was lead on the surface because no one could or would invest the time to shape the body metal that correctly, it just wasn't done. It took too long and they were just building cars, they were assembly line workers. Everybody think of them like the artisans doing the job now. Well it wasn't the same. They were assembly line workers not all that unlike the UAW.

You speak of the coachwork quality of the Lusso. There was a pretty well defined pecking order in the quality of the body builders in Italy. It ran roughly, Touring and Pininfarina, Bertone was next and Zagato was down near Scagletti but none of them worked to the standard we see now when we see the cars in shows. No one would pay for a restoration done to the work quality standard of the day, all execpt the cars being done by Classiche at Ferrari. They are pretty shoddy and sort of represent what they were building back in the day.


People also forget, the European cars of the 50's and 60's were being built where bomb craters were just a few years before. At Mercedes Benz there was nothing left that you couldn't pick up with one hand. It took their industries many years to fully rebuild and they used some pretty rudimentry equipment for a very long time.


In reality 90% of the pre 308 cars being shown today should be getting over restoration penalities.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by tazandjan

Jeff- I remember somebody in an old C&D talking about how cheaply they were built. Tax-free price in Italy was only about $8000, an equivalent age Corvette was usually around $3-4K.

Most of the cars are now in much better shape than when they left the factory.

Actual cost of building a car is a very closely held secret but a magazine once hired a production engineer of some sort to estimate what Ferraris cost to produce based on production methods, materials, lack of economy of scale, etc, etc. His answer was Ferrari was charging a retail price about double where it should be based on those costs.

This was back in the early 70's or so.


Thats the price of racing.

[tazandjan]

Brian- When you come right down to it, Enzo only cared that he sold enough street cars to support his racing habit.

I agree that the standards of someone like our metal expert up in Denver are way higher than anything done in the early postwar days. About the only cars back then that seem to have been built to a very high standard were the Maserati Brothers' OSCAs, from what I have read. But then, they were very expensive, even by Ferrari standards.

I think the one thing the Italians did (and still do) extremetly well was aluminum castings. Too bad they could not cast an entire car.

[Jeff Kennedy]

I have seen several 50s and 60s Ferraris striped to bare metal. It is interesting to see the hammer head marks still in the metal and realize how the filler was used to make the surface.

The filler is not Bondo but was too far removed from it either. One problem with that type of filler is that over time in thick spots it can sag and cause a perfect line to distort. There were stories of Ferraris being redone in the 70s using lead because of it being a more durable material to get perfect surfacing.

Remember a story in the early 80s of Joe Rosen doing a restoration on a Californai Spyder where the body was trued for left right symetry. As far as I was concerned this was sacrilidge.

Brian, didn't realize that Zagato build standards were that low. Question: was the body and interior build quality on the Bertone 308 GT4 better than the quality of the later 308s?

Jeff

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kennedy

I have seen several 50s and 60s Ferraris striped to bare metal. It is interesting to see the hammer head marks still in the metal and realize how the filler was used to make the surface.

The filler is not Bondo but was too far removed from it either. One problem with that type of filler is that over time in thick spots it can sag and cause a perfect line to distort. There were stories of Ferraris being redone in the 70s using lead because of it being a more durable material to get perfect surfacing.

Remember a story in the early 80s of Joe Rosen doing a restoration on a Californai Spyder where the body was trued for left right symetry. As far as I was concerned this was sacrilidge.

Brian, didn't realize that Zagato build standards were that low. Question: was the body and interior build quality on the Bertone 308 GT4 better than the quality of the later 308s?

Jeff

Later 308s were Pininfarina. Bertone and Pininfarina were pretty close in quality. I think the Bertone cars in this case might have had an edge because production pressure was not high. I remember seeing row after row of those behind one of the buildings at the Harrah Auto Collection where they stored new inventory. They were not fast sellers. The fiberglass 308s were very well finished. It was not until they were being hammered out of steel that production numbers started climbing but really the whole 308 328 series was pretty good if you didn't count the paint and that was Ferrari's fault.

On the topic of symetry I once had an untouched Daytona all the way up on a hoist and looking at the rear of the car from that angle it was very plain to see that the roof slanted a consideral amount to one side. It was so far off it was amazing the glass fit. Road & Track once superimposed both side views of the same 275GTB over each other on a graph. The shape was so far off you would have thought one was a kit car.

[wetpet]

great description of the situation then and now. If you want to see shoddy work, look at the mopars coming off the line in the late sixties early 70's. as a judge i always laughed at the over restorations nowadays. Those cars were falling apart as soon as they rolled off the assembly line. hell, a lot of them were pushed off the assembly line. My challenger was prized for it's original trunk and rear quarters. The restorer told me they couldn't duplicate the caulking inside the trunk because mine was so sloppy!

Originally Posted by Brian

All hand made bodies have a lot of filler. Guys doing it now in restoration shops use far less because they are being held to a far higher standard than production cars of the period. Even American cars used to have a great deal of filler. One of my uncles was a body leadder at Studebaker before he became an aerospace engineer. In the days when labor was cheap and the stamping equipment not very well developed that was the way it was. Strip the paint someday off an original Gullwing. Every single detail and edge was sculpted from lead. The entire top around the roof vents, door and window openings was lead on the surface because no one could or would invest the time to shape the body metal that correctly, it just wasn't done. It took too long and they were just building cars, they were assembly line workers. Everybody think of them like the artisans doing the job now. Well it wasn't the same. They were assembly line workers not all that unlike the UAW.

You speak of the coachwork quality of the Lusso. There was a pretty well defined pecking order in the quality of the body builders in Italy. It ran roughly, Touring and Pininfarina, Bertone was next and Zagato was down near Scagletti but none of them worked to the standard we see now when we see the cars in shows. No one would pay for a restoration done to the work quality standard of the day, all execpt the cars being done by Classiche at Ferrari. They are pretty shoddy and sort of represent what they were building back in the day.


People also forget, the European cars of the 50's and 60's were being built where bomb craters were just a few years before. At Mercedes Benz there was nothing left that you couldn't pick up with one hand. It took their industries many years to fully rebuild and they used some pretty rudimentry equipment for a very long time.


In reality 90% of the pre 308 cars being shown today should be getting over restoration penalities.

[brettgagnon]

I think I learnt more about Lusso's in this thread, another bloody reason this forum rocks, experts

[Brian]

Originally Posted by wetpet

great description of the situation then and now. If you want to see shoddy work, look at the mopars coming off the line in the late sixties early 70's. as a judge i always laughed at the over restorations nowadays. Those cars were falling apart as soon as they rolled off the assembly line. hell, a lot of them were pushed off the assembly line. My challenger was prized for it's original trunk and rear quarters. The restorer told me they couldn't duplicate the caulking inside the trunk because mine was so sloppy!

My family had some Mopars in that period. Great cars in many ways but I think they must have bought body caulking by the tank car to keep the line moving. They had some high output caulking guns and sometimes it looked like Ray Charles was at the controls.

[Brian]

Originally Posted by Jeff Kennedy

I have seen several 50s and 60s Ferraris striped to bare metal. It is interesting to see the hammer head marks still in the metal and realize how the filler was used to make the surface.

The filler is not Bondo but was too far removed from it either. One problem with that type of filler is that over time in thick spots it can sag and cause a perfect line to distort. There were stories of Ferraris being redone in the 70s using lead because of it being a more durable material to get perfect surfacing.

Remember a story in the early 80s of Joe Rosen doing a restoration on a Californai Spyder where the body was trued for left right symetry. As far as I was concerned this was sacrilidge.

Brian, didn't realize that Zagato build standards were that low. Question: was the body and interior build quality on the Bertone 308 GT4 better than the quality of the later 308s?

Jeff

The plasic fillers were becoming really popular at the time over there and there were many interpretations of the ubiquitous Bondo.

I was surprised about how late hand fabrication was used. I had a fender cut off our own 328 last year. On the back side it was obvious it was still largely made in the old style with small sections hand hammered and butt welded together to form complete panels.


I know a panel beater I worked with many years ago. One of the cars he repaired was a GTO with a very well known history. Well one side had never been damaged in its entire life so he made templates of that side and every GTO he repaired or was involved in the restoration of got made in the image of that side of that one car. He was involved in the repair or restoration of probably half of the GTO's in existence. We had quite a number of them in and out of that place.