Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina
Despite accident damage, customisation horrors and a mid-restoration ownership change, this Ferrari 250 GT Pinin Farina coupé was transformed from cast-off to class-winner by a steely father-son restoration startup
For Peter Read, this 250 GT is the climax to a long-held, and long-frustrated, dream. ‘I had another 250 Pinin Farina – a cabriolet – years ago, which I had restored from a box of bits until it won concours. But I didn’t fit, I was too tall. It seemed a shame to modify it so I sold it,’ says the Royal Automobile Club Motoring Committee chairman.
‘Later I had a 250 GTE that had been rebodied as a Tour de France, but again I wasn’t comfortable in it, so I talked to Roy Kent at the Old Racing Car Company. He mentioned that he had this 250 Pinin Farina coupé that he’d started to restore – he had the restored body there in bare metal on a trolley.’ The rest of the car was at GTB Restorations.
Originally supplied to Italy in September 1959, it was kept by the first owner for a decade before he sold it to Tom Meade, the Ferrari dealer in Modena. Meade then sold it to the USA, where it stayed until Kent bought it unseen in 2006 and shipped it to the UK.
After agreeing to a part-exchange, Read visited GTB Restorations to see the rest of the work completed so far. ‘They’d already rebuilt the engine; I looked at other stuff they’d done and they seemed to give all the right answers to my questions. I gave the go-ahead to continue the restoration. It was an opportunity to build it in the colours I liked – which in the end were only a few shades different from the original – and to make the seats the right size for me; the coupé has a bit more space in it too.’
The Pinin Farina was the first complete project undertaken by father-and-son team Chris and Mike Withers. Before then, Chris had been building his own 250 GTO replica since 1999 using 330 running gear, with Mike helping out. Says Chris, ‘After the arrival of the Pinin Farina it became more than a hobby.
‘I said I would do the engine, and that’s where it all started,’ he continues. ‘Roy then said “what about the rest of the car?” I didn’t have space in the garage at home, so Mike suggested we form GTB Restorations. That was in 2013 – I said I’d do it for two years…
‘When the PF first came here we stripped it down, and took the paint off in 2014. I rebuilt the engine and we sent the body to Circuit Motor Bodies near Silverstone. But then Roy asked us to stop so we stored it for a while. In March 2016 he came back and told us he’d sold it, and introduced Peter Read.’
Engine
‘The engine came from the USA in boxes,’ says Mike, ‘and there were only 11 conrods! It had blown up and even twisted the cylinder block slightly. During the engine rebuild, Mark at GTO Engineering found us a matched conrod and we line-bored the main bearings to correct the twist. Then when we had the cylinder heads crack-tested we found that one had significant cracks across it, especially between one of the spark plug holes and a waterway. That was welded by a local precision engineer and refaced. We found a few alignment problems when we came to reassemble the engine, especially the timing chain and camshafts. The cylinder heads appeared to be off a different engine so we had to machine the new pistons and pocket the heads to suit them, because when we first assembled it the pistons were too proud of the block face.’
Bodywork
‘The body looked horrible when we got it,’ continues Mike. ‘Then it got worse when we had it beadblasted. It’d had a front-end accident and it seemed as if the previous owner had then planned to convert it into some sort of special. They’d knocked it back into shape, drilled holes into it then slapped filler over it. Underneath the front panel, you could see strings of filler coming through the holes they had drilled, presumably to help key it to the surface. The frame tubing was buckled and had been crudely bent back, then welded. We do our own bodywork now, but this one was done by Trevor Davis at Circuit Motor Bodies.’
Says Trevor, ‘It originally came to me just to have the headlights moved forwards, but I told them to be prepared for a lot more once it was stripped – it always reveals unexpected horrors. The front bumper wasn’t fitted and when I tried it on, there was nearly a foot gap between the bumper and the wing on the left side. It had been put together really badly in the USA, and patched with panels off other cars. I’d already moved headlights forward on another 250 GT Pinin Farina, and kept all the patterns and measurements I’d made; I went to see an original car to get the correct shape. When these cars weren’t worth much it was common to move the headlights back and fit California Spiderstyle covers, but now everyone wants originality.
‘Fortunately the right side was still in good shape apart from the cut-back headlight,’ Trevor continues, ‘so I was able to use that as a template for the left side. I made up a wooden buck and tried it in place before wheeling up the steel panels to suit. I replaced both of the front wings, the outer sills and the boot floor, making all of the parts by hand and shaping them on the English Wheel.
‘For the sills, I cut aluminium formers to the exact shape of the sills before removing the rusted originals – then I could bend up the new sills to the correct curvature and be sure they would fit. Fortunately with the boot floor, although it had rusty areas, I was able to remove it in one piece and it was a good basis to copy. The key is to make good, accurate patterns and stick to them – you have to trust your patterns!’
‘Over ten months, I spent a total of 550 hours on the car. The original body was typical Italian quality – every hand-made Italian car I’ve worked on looks like an arc welder was used and you sometimes wonder how they hold together... but they do.
Suspension and missing items
‘The suspension was OK,’ recalls Mike. ‘It looked like someone had started to tidy it up. It’s chassis 1533, which makes it a Series II Pinin Farina that would normally have Dunlop disc brakes and telescopic dampers. It has the disc brakes, but this one had Houdaille friction rear dampers from new.
‘One of the biggest problems with the car coming in already dismantled was trying to to find out what was missing. It’s a bit like opening a 10,000 piece jigsaw puzzle and trying to work out which pieces are missing – you have to put it together to find out. We did a dummy build on the lights, the bumpers and the badges before we painted the car, to be sure that everything fitted and lined up.
‘There were lots of small components missing, such as the front of the servo, parts of the wiring and parts of the carburettors,’ explains Chris. ‘We had to make the auxiliary venturis, couplings and link rods. I also made the brake pedal pivots and bushes, the seat pivoting mechanism and the fuel pipes. You can buy fuel pipes off the shelf but they don’t have the right couplings. Ferrari used ones with a very fine thread.
‘The chrome was all replated in Peterborough, but the guy who did it has now retired. It’s getting increasingly difficult to get really good-quality chroming done. Other reproduction items gave us headaches too – we had to reshape the rear light lenses by machining parts away to make them fit.
‘It’s nice when you get to this stage, looking for faults instead of faults jumping out at you,’ adds Chris. ‘The last 5% takes 50% of the time, though.’
Paint and trim
‘There was much debate about the original colour,’ recalls Mike. ‘When we rubbed down part of the body to check paint layers, we found seven colours under the red. The car seemed to have belonged to a nightclub owner, judging by the trim and the girlie promo pics we found in it as we stripped it down. In the end we came to the original Dauphin Blue at the lowest level, a kind of duck egg colour. That led to a lot of heart-searching – only two had been originally painted in that colour, but it wasn’t the most inspiring shade. In the end the much more attractive Blue Notte colour was chosen.’
Cos Christoforou trimmed the car. ‘It had been completely trimmed in black leather that looked like someone had sponged pink on it to make it two-tone – even the headlining was black and pink. Ferrari used Dunlopillo seat foams that deteriorate with age – it goes from soft foam to solid and breaks up, making an awful mess. You can’t buy the foams, so I had to make all-new ones for the backrests and bases. I took the best one and used it for reference, checking the measurements with another car I’d done before. I sandblasted the frames and changed the rubber strapping under the foam.’
‘We used Connolly crushed-grain leather, where the grain is created by tumbling, not printing like with modern leathers. So the grain is irregular, just like it was when this car was built in 1959. It’s also a satin finish, not matte – matte looks too fresh and modern. I also created traditionally fluted seat-centres, stuffed by hand with cotton flock in each flute. That’s how they did it when new, not pleating as a lot of people do now. It’s very time-consuming but it gives a better, more classic look. I had to modify the transmission tunnel cover too, to make it fit more precisely. With some things, if you gave it back to the customer the way it came out of the factory, they wouldn’t accept it!
‘I fitted new Wilton carpet with Hardura-backed insulation, and made new headlining, door panels, rear quarters and the back panels, using birch ply. I even had to make new sun visors, because the originals were made from card sandwiched between a metal inner frame, and the card had distorted.’
Details and handover
‘The 250 was a painted shell when I joined,’ recalls Jack Arnold, an apprentice at GTB for the last year. ‘I built up the doors, and fitted the handles and the winder mechanism. I helped to put the interior in and the rear bumper on. I drilled new holes for the rear reflectors – that was scary, but I did a lot of checking before I drilled them! I put the taillights on, and made new gaskets out of an old inner tube because the new gaskets supplied with the lights were too thick. I’ve found out what I want to do now, I absolutely love this job. It was a bit nerve-wracking to start off – I was triple-checking everything.’
Says Mike, ‘I like it when we can get our teeth into a car, do all the testing and get it to work. It takes a while to get these cars sorted; we’ve put 3000 hours into the restoration and it was a real highlight when it won its class at the Warren Classic. Now it’s done, we hope to be able to look after it for the rest of its life – I’m quite attached to it!’
Says Read, ‘I’m delighted with how it’s come out, the colour and the noise it makes. I’ve only driven it for half a mile in a straight line so far. Now it’s time to finish the fettling, get it on the road and use it. It’ll have to go on display in the rotunda at the RAC Club first, though!’