Epic Restoration
How James Glickenhaus turned the wildest concept of the Seventies – the Pininfarina Ferrari 512S Modulo – into a working road car
Says Hollywood director turned car collector and racing team manager Jim Glickenhaus, ‘Modulo is one of the most iconic Ferrari show cars ever made. I think it’s what cars will be like when they are spaceships. After all, it was very connected to spaceships in its design and aesthetics.
‘I got to know the team at Pininfarina well through my Ferrari P4/5 project and I wanted to buy the Modulo for many years, but Pininfarina wouldn’t sell it to me. I stayed in touch with them and a while after the passing of Andrea Pininfarina in 2008 they started taking a different direction with the museum and I got a call saying, “We think you are the guy to carry Modulo on.”
‘My mechanic Sal and I went to Cambiano to collect the car and once it was loaded in the truck he said to me, “What do we do now?” I wanted it to drive. I don’t have cars in my collection that don’t drive, and Modulo is no exception, so the answer to Sal’s question was to make it drive – properly!
‘Some people think it drove once, but it never ran under its own power. There is a video of it ‘running’ but they just rolled it down a hill and took a video of it. In fact when we pulled it apart, it had no crankshaft, camshafts, pistons, rods or gearbox internals.
‘Unlike most concept cars, Modulo is on an original race car chassis, meaning it has real uprights, real shock absorbers, brakes and the like. It required a lot of fettling, but the structure to make it run was there.
‘The chassis used is Ferrari 512S chassis number 27, which had later been turned into a 612 Can-am car, chassis number 0864, before it was dispatched to Pininfarina to become a concept car.
‘I asked Sal to take on the project, and we agreed that it made sense to restore the car in Turin, Italy, so that Sal could make best use of his extensive network of contacts and skilled marque specialists in the area, from his time in the Ferrari racing team in the Sixties and Seventies.
The project begins
Says restorer Sal Barone, ‘When Jim and I saw the Modulo in person about ten years ago, Jim said, “It is a beautiful car.” I replied, “I see what you are thinking.” Nothing else needed to be said – we have worked together so long, over 40 years, that we know what the other is thinking. Jim said, “Let’s see if Pininfarina will sell us the car.”
‘Once the deal was done, we relocated the car to Turin and I got into the restoration. I did the car piece by piece; no bolt, not a single one, was left untouched.
Engine and transmission
Explains Sal, ‘I started by taking the engine and transmission apart and found they were just empty cases – they were there just for the shape, but empty inside. Nothing is available off the shelf for these engines, but luckily I had a friend who has lots of Ferrari parts – he owned two 512Ss in the day and had bought them from other teams. He had everything we needed to fill them!
‘The engine block is the car’s original from its 512S days and is now running in that specification with mechanical fuel injection.
‘Once the parts were sourced the engine went together fairly easily; all the castings were in good shape and so on. The few pieces that were missing, such as the water pump drive, were fabricated from original 512S blueprints. The engine was machined at Sport Auto in Modena and we worked together to assemble it. ‘The car’s injection pump was an incorrect Lucas unit from a Maserati. Fortunately, we had an original 512S unit that came as part of a ton of P racing car spares we had bought in Modena. It was modified by Jim Kinsler from 8mm flow to 6mm flow. It would be slightly too small for flat-out racing, but the compromise means it meters fuel better for slower speed driving, ideal for Modulo.
‘We don’t have dyno results for the engine, but on the road the engine is great – it is tractable and has lots of torque.’
The engine and transmission took two and a half years to complete.
‘With the suspension and driveline done, we trialassembled the car. Jim got in but we found he didn’t fit – there was no way he was going to be able to drive it’ Sal Barone