[Randy Ferguson]

Hi Folks,

Where do you find replacement panels for your vintage Ferrari's? The reason I ask is that as a coachbuilder, I find the lines of the Ferrari very appealing. I can't afford to own one, but I'd sure enjoy building panels for them. I understand that Ferrari's were hand fabricated cars, at least early on and in most cases it would be necessary to fit replacement panels to each individual car. I'm curious as to whether there is a need for high quality, hand crafted panel fabrication among the Ferrari crowd?

Thanks,
Randy Ferguson
Ferguson Coachbuilding

 

[alsaautomotive]

Hi Randy, the main problem area with the earlier cars is that they were almost completely hand built. In other words you will not get cars of the same model that are identical. As a restorer I can vouch for the fact that (certainly in the UK) there is a real problem finding a fabricator who will take on and,more importantly, is capable of offering the quality of work a company like ours is looking for on behalf of our clients. I would be reasonably sure that the same is true in most parts of the world.
The most important feature to us is that there is a high attention to detail with fabrication in relation to fit, finish & operation.
We have fallen out with a number of the UK's best known specialists over precisely this matter. We now use a gifted fabricator less than 1 mile from our workshops. Sometimes the smaller firms are the best.
My advice is to find the nearest general restoration firm to your company and have a chat with them.
If I can be of any more help please drop me an email via our website.
Best wishes, Al.

 

[Randy Ferguson]

Hi Al,

I was pretty sure that was the case. I put that feeler out there hoping that there were restoration shops here in the U.S. looking for a competent coachbuilder.

I looked at your website a few weeks ago when someone on www.metalmeet.com posted a link. You folks do very nice work.

If you haven't joined MetalMeet, I encourage you to do so. I host our annual International MetalMeet, held during the month of October in Oblong, IL. We would love to have you in attendance if you could make it.

Here's a picture of one of our projects for this year. One of our members has drawn this in SolidWorks. It started as a sketch by Luis Huber who I believe works for PurSang in Argentina. It's based on a vintage Bugatti racer.

Here's the SolidWorks drawing:

And Hubers sketch.

There had to be a few changes made to make the cabin area large enough to be comfortable once it became full scale. We've done everything possible to keep it as close as possible to Huber's drawing.