Yesterday I was searching around a little on FB and all of the sudden this picture hit my attention:
That looked quite similar as mine and it has a Dutch license plate. Almost unreadable but again it looked the same as mine. What a surprise. The search option I was using however did not reveal who actually posted it. So I was clueless where or who posted it. Luckily there were comments placed. That revealed the person. And it turned out it was someone I was connected with on FB. It's Rens Biesma. I did came in contact with him due to the Lancia Thema 8.32 (and later on also due to the Fiat Dino). Rens is a gifted drawing artist and specialized in car drawings. And in particular Italian cars. His first comment mentions the following about my car:
Rens Biesma Vervaldatum APK 18-07-2016 Datum eerste toelating 30-06-1979 Datum tenaamstelling 23-05-2013 Tijdstip tenaamstelling 14:30 Datum eerste afgifte Nederland 18-09-1989
This is taken from the Dutch official road register (www.rdw.nl). I do read again that it's first official registration is at 30-6-1979 (which I simply forgot). Not so long ago I wrote this blog:
And you will read that the first warranty registration starts on the 27th of December 1979. You will also read the car was factory delivered on 27th Feb 1979. I tried to explain the 10 month gap with the story that it was shipped to the UK to get a new and finer upholstery. Clearly such undertaking should not take up so much time. Now my thinking is that the car was simply ordered by Auto Becker and put in their showroom. It then got sold and registered by 30-6-1979 to its first customer. He then had it shipped to the UK and on return it got the official warranty since it was not used untill then. So perhaps Mr Massini was right after all. Cearly the dealers must had cars on display in their showroom - which could be bought as well. And judging by some off the old pictures, Auto Becker had multiple of them available - in this example at least six: click the photo to enlarge:
In any case, when I searched further I got ahold of another picture. Ths time with license plate clearly readable, so it was my car. The first thing that caught my attention were the foglights. When I purchased the car these were missing. It's unknown to me why. I was unsure if they were Original mounted but clearly this confirmed they were. In fact it was one of the first items I hunted for. See my blog:
Strangely enough I never had this job fixed. But now it should be an easy job if the wiring is still in place.
And of course I got in contact with Rens to learn more about the background of these pictures. Apparently they were taken in 1989 on some kind of Ferrari club meeting. At the time Rens was chief editor of the Dutch Ferrari Club magazine.
