Iain takes aim at the poor quality of welding on many classic Ferraris.
Idon’t really go for being insulted, and the build quality of some classic Ferraris was really rather contemptuous. The current ones might be more professionally constructed – I have no idea, and no real interest in investigating.
Prior to 1994 I had nothing to do with Ferraris, but a publishing house asked if I would do the words for a book about the 512TR, the model that came after the 1980s Testarossa. The book’s photographer was supposed to write the words as well as doing the pics, but he hadn’t. The writing fee was OK, and I'd shoot more pictures to cover some gaps. Fine, freelancers take what comes, and that means you go off in odd new directions sometimes.
There’s no shortage of reference material written by Ferrari worshippers, so the information aspect of it was straightforward. Oddly, in view of the shiny and superficial world of Ferrari, the reference books are quite well researched and consistent, so the technical informational aspects of the book were no problem. This is in dramatic contrast to Porsche book writers, some of whom produce absolute drivel. When the finished manuscript for my book The Affordable Porsche (which covered the usual Porsche suspects in limited depth) was sent to Haynes, my editor called and said much of what I’d researched and written was wrong.
In the end we agreed I would rewrite, using only information from books published by Haynes, which had been checked. It hadn’t even occurred to me that anal-retentive Porsche types writing books about their beloved cars would be sloppy and inaccurate. That 2010 book is hilariously out of date now; a friend who imported a nice 911 from the States couldn’t get rid of it at the time for ten grand, and it would now sell for £50K. The fickle finger of fashion poked him in the eye.
Anyway, the words for the 512TR book went well enough, and then a Ferrari arrived to shoot, drive and write about. My initial impression was… meh. I was writing for Kitcar magazine at the time, and I’d been doing a long-term test on the RV Nemesis, a Testarossa lookalike. It had a GRP body, a Jaguar V12 engine and a Renault 25 transaxle, and it drove and handled well. At two separate car shows, I had been quite forcibly hassled to sell it by two separate Ferrari blokes with genuine Testarossas who said they had been waiting a year or so for replacement gearboxes.
I politely declined, telling them that for one thing it wasn't mine, and for another it was a demonstrator and not for sale. I did also point out that they might get RV to build them a Nemesis faster than getting a new gearbox, and gave them the number.
I must admit that I didn’t like driving either the RV Nemesis or the 512TR in public, as everybody was always peering inside them to see if somebody famous was driving. That gets stale very quickly. The Ferrari and its replica were also huge, so quite difficult to park and drive in London where I lived at the time.
The real Ferrari was actually more plasticky inside, but had more practical luggage space and was generally a bit slicker, and it had Ferrari badges which the Nemesis manufacturer wasn’t going to risk fitting. The Ferrari’s engine was beautiful, and opening the engine cover to reveal it was a delight. It was engineering sculpture. But then I wondered why the flat twelve was perched so high in the car, and realised that the engine was on top of the gearbox, connected to it by a big chain – if the 512TR weren’t so wide, it would fall over.
The Nemesis was mid-rear-engined with the V12 mounted as low and centrally as possible with the gearbox behind it. It was also faster, with 300lb.ft of torque for about 2500lbs of weight compared to the Ferrari’s 370lb.ft for 3800lbs. The torque-to-weight ratio is the number that genuinely tells you how fast a road car is, although really, knowing the exact amount of grossly excessive power is of limited value.
The real shocker was when I looked underneath the Ferrari. My first thought was that it had been stitched together from two wrecks in an east London lockup. The welding looked uncannily like pigeon poo. I poked a bit deeper, realising that under the shiny surface, the whole car had been assembled from bits and pieces of steel tubing, stick-welded together by somebody who wasn’t paid enough to bother doing it properly, and then pretty red panels were added on top. This does make sense. Enzo Ferrari was only really interested in engines and racing, and subbed out the bodies to Pininfarina, who presumably realised that nobody who buys a new Ferrari is ever going to look underneath it, so why pay extra for skilled welders?
The crashed car pictured here is from the same period, and the bits of steel rod partly welded together are the original structure of the car. It’s more like a film set than a car, a convincing skin propped up with whatever bits of whatever came to hand. I think I’ll stick with BMC build quality, thanks.