Wednesday 31 October 2018

Ferrari 400 in Mexico

On Ferrarichat someone mentioned he was interested in purchasing a 400 which was located in Mexico. Apparently this 400 was delivered new in Mexico. Since not many 400's ended up in South America I thought it was worth while to create a blog for it, just for the records.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/400-automatic-for-sale-in-mexico.582178/


Currently it's offered for sale by the following company: Autos La Recta

Adres: Vía Volkswagen 4541, Belisario Domínguez, 72180 Puebla, Pue., Mexico

Interestingly they are located at the Via Volkswagen.

There was no website mentioned but when I checked on Googlemaps streetview I noticed the following:


So they have one though: www.autoslarecta.com But upon checking it's not working anymore.


The car is currently listed on the following market website:

https://auto.mercadolibre.com.mx/MLM-636869534-ferrari-400-22-aut-_JM

It's offered for 697.000 Peseta's.


Tuesday 30 October 2018

Ferrari 412 car cover

[this blog was already written up as a draft last week prior going on holiday leave]

Yesterday evening I just did a random search for Ferrari 412 on the  Dutch "Marktplaats"and to my surprise I caught this brand new Ferrari 412 car cover for only € 225,-. As it was late I figured to call the seller the next day. The advert was already there since 25th of September. How could I have missed it for so long??



The next morning I noticed a new posting in the FB group, to my surprise the 412 car cover showed up for sale.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/8727831092/permalink/10156572689591093/

Clearly that must have been the same one. So I called the Original seller and it was sold indeed and picked up last evening!   Pffff

Copying the photo's for reference:








So it's produced by this company: https://www.confezioniandrea.com/

On their website you will see you can have one tailormade with a logo printed on it.

Monday 29 October 2018

Ferrari 400 paint colors - colours - codes

Last week I was approached by someone who wanted to have more detail about the colors used on the Ferrari 400 as he wanted to respray his car. This was something I had not looked into before so a nice opportunity to do a little more investigation and write up a blog for future reference. 

My own car does still have the original color code decal which is located in the trunk, this is shown in the manual as well:



And the actual paint label itself:



From this you will learn the paint is made by PPG. More about this company can be found here:



As known, the 400 bodywork was done by Pininfarina, the other Ferrari coachbuilder was Carrozzeria Scaglietti and both used different paint manufacturers. Scaglietti used Glidden Salchi and changed later to Glasurit.  Eventually also Pininfarina switched to Glasurit, I was informed this happened in 1984.

Scaglietti by Glidden Salchi samples:





Glidden Salchi seems like to have been split up in the past into two different companies. It was originally an Italian based company located in Burago di Molgora nearby Milan.

And as already pointed out, the other well known paint company used is Glasurit:


To be correct, the paint used by Pininfarina is by PPG-Italver. It was originally an Italian company called Italver SPA (via Priv. Bolla 27 Milano) which merged into PPG. I found this paper snippet from 6 jan 1965 of the Pittsburgh Press:


Now I started digging into this a little more it appears that Pininfarina has been using some fancy names for their coloring scheme. Apparently they have been adding racing horses names to the color scheme. More about this can be read in this article: 

While I’m typing and doing some searching I stumbled upon this website with a Pininfarina Glasurit color sample. And to my surprise I see they are using Glasurit already in 1976.
So my guess now is that Pininfarina used PPG/Italver paint for the Ferrari models up to 1984 while other brands by Pininfarina, ie Peugeot, might have been using Glasurit paint in the seventies, this is just my guess. I'm unsure when Carrozzeria  Scaglieti started using Glasurit. Find hereby a sample of Glasurit used by Pininfarina (1976)



A very good overview of the paint colors used can be found on this link:

(as can be read, it's based on a Quattroruote article printed in 1964)

In any case I found these photo's of the Ferrari Pininfarina paint chip fob. This one must be early seventies as it does contain the "racing horse names". These horse names dropped off the list later on. I'm unsure when exactly but my guess would be 1976.



FERRARI PININFARINA paint chip colour fob (campionario tinte per vetture Ferrari). Italver-Pittsburgh Paint spa Milano Italy & Montecatini Edison Italy. 18 Colours in total: 

1- Blu Ortis
2- Rosso Sir Ivor
3- Arancio Vaguely Noble
4- Giallo My Swallow
5- Avorio The Tetrarch
6- Verde Seabird
7- Azzurro Gladiateur
8- Rosso Nearco
9- Nero Dark Donald
10- Grigio Argento Le Sancy
11- Grigio Mahmoud
12- Oro Kelso
13- Marrone Colorado
14- Celeste Gainsborough
15- Azzurro Hyperion
16- Blu Ribot
17- Verde Pino Blenheim
18- Verde Medio Niyinsky

And additionally another set but from late seventies without the horse names:




1 Bruno Acajou Met.  - code nr: 20299608
2 Marrone Met.
3 Gold Poly Met.
4 Verde Medio Met.
5 Verde Pino Met.
6 Blu Ribbot Met.
7 Azzurro Met.  - code nr: 8044169
8 Grigio Scuro Met.
9 Grigio Argento Met.
10 Blu Scuro
11 Verde Scuro
12 Nero Tropicale
13 Avorio Safari
14 Rosso Cherry
15 Rosso Nearco

I was unable to find the color codes for each of them (except for 2), so if someone has these I'm interested to hear from you so I can have this updated. I'm unsure what color options were available for the 412?

I guess a similar exercise can be done for the carpets and leather color choices. I welcome any contribution on this matter.

Sunday 28 October 2018

DING DONG! - 5 Years of Ferrari 400 blogging!

Yes, 5 years of blogging about the Ferrari 400. It has become quite a journey. It also means I'm a happy 400 owner for more than 5 years. The blog only started as I wanted to keep track about my 400. It started with this specific blog with a small story, which I still recall very well due to the unexpected meet up with Mr. Kroymans himself:

http://erwin400.blogspot.com/2013/10/friday-18th-october-2013-taxation.html

What a strange start of the blog and even without a proper introduction. The following specific blog is one that received many views. It also describes again my reasoning and is one of the few blogs I did put some effort in writing up a decent story:

http://erwin400.blogspot.com/2014/12/enzo-ferrari-dino-taggliazucchi-chic.html

As pointed out, I'm not a great writer and I have no desire to become one. Besides that, it takes up much time to write a decent blog. Even the marginal blogs I have been making does eat up time. First of all it's the daily scavenger job and digest the information. Meaning I have to go over the Google, Ebay, Facebook, Twitter and other searches/notifications. In case of hardcopy magazine/book articles it means scanning them and change them in the right format (JPG or PDF). Or simply make photo's about items. Consequently upload them, update the records, update the blog, say something sensible about it and make links to the photos/items/etc.

So how well is the blog being read? Well, here are some stats.

No surprise, the USA is the number one. Surprisingly Russia is the number two:

So which blog posting did had the most pageviews (I don't have a logical explanation for these stats):


As for referrals it's dominated by Google, no surprise there. But mind you, this blog has "robot.txt" disabled - meaning it's not indexed/crawled by the search machines spiders. This is also why my blog does not show up in the first few pages of the Google search results if you search for Ferrari 400. I deliberately left it like this to reduce the noise and unwanted attraction.


And as for attraction; on average the blog gets about 100 visits a day and roughly 4000 visits per month. This is pretty steady over the past few years. You will see some remarkable peeks though which I can't explain fully - although I sometimes notice a temporary increase from a specific region/country, meaning someone discovered the blog and goes wild over all the blogs, causing the stats to grow ;-)



As can be seen in the last snapshot, in total the blog had 270k pageviews.

So how many blogs did I produce?


In total I made 1342 blogs in 5 years. So on average that's a blog per 3,7 days. Over the past years the blog frequency has been declining and this is mostly because running out of unique material.

So what's next? I have decided just to continue as the 400 keeps fascinating me and I expect I will have some more memorable events coming up. Any input for my blog is welcomed, my email details can be found at the bottom in the "my profile" section,

Your 400 supporter with a smile,

Erwin

Sunday 21 October 2018

Auto Moto Italia 2018 - Expo Haarlemmermeer

Today I visited Auto Moto Italia (https://www.automotoditalia.nl) and spotted these 2 cars. The 412 was unknown to me and when making some detailled pictures I was approached by the owner.  It was originally delivered in Italia and after 2 years it was exported to the Netherlands and stored in a collection for ages. The current owner has it for 2 years, current mileage was around 60k km. It's a manual version with a very nice dark blue interior.



The next one I knew (from photo's) but had not seen it in the live before. I bumped into the owner when wandering around the place. And apparently he does follow my blog on a weekly basis ;-)




And good news at the ENI promotion desk. Apparently they have launched a new classic oil range using their known name AGIP. More details can be found here:

https://oilproducts.eni.com/en_GB/areas/lubricants/automotive-lubricants/lubricants-for-classic-cars


I got some nice ENI goodies via Paul V - thanks again! Yes, some of the IHWC folks were around as well. All in all a very pleasant day and time well spent. 

Saturday 20 October 2018

Supercar Showcase Puts Dream Rides Within Reach — Living Like a Rockefeller for a Day


As I admired a blazing red Ferrari which an 11-year-old boy told us he owned, his proud papa alongside nodded in agreement. “I bought it for him when he was three,” he said. “Only four more years until he can legally drive!”



full article:

https://www.papercitymag.com/culture/park-place-luxury-supercar-showcase-dream-rides-dallas-four-seasons-ferraris-rolls-royce/#173852

Wednesday 17 October 2018

Auction : Ferrari 400 interior parts sold


Recall this blog:

https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2018/01/ferrari-400-parts-for-sale.html

Well, two days ago I got tipped about this batch being for sale (I missed out on this one somehow). And it ended yesterday. The whole lot got sold for € 2.000 (nearly € 2.500 incl. premium and tax). It got sold via:

https://www.bva-auctions.com/auction/lot/35563/11594871?__fsk=-652869836

Upon double checking this I only now noticed it did include a pair of Testarossa chairs and a 456 dashboard (perhaps it was thought these were F355 parts?).

A few months ago I secured the 400 front bumper for someone which I bought from this seller. I wonder where these parts are now going as I have an interest in a few parts only for spare though.


Sunday 14 October 2018

Please don't stop the music - Auto Acoustic

By surprise I stumbled upon this great photo, taken around 1978 in Australia:

https://www.autoacoustics.com.au/index3.php?x=HOME|About-Auto-Acoustics^History%60A

Often people are making negative remarks regarding audio usage in these type of cars. One should listnen to the sound of the engine. Well, trust me, even with the radio on you will still hear the engine. I just like to drive around with a nice melody coming from the speakers as well. Besides I like the old skool radio's and any GT should be equipped with a correct time period high end radio.


Saturday 13 October 2018

These 9 Ferraris are either on the rise or still relatively affordable



https://www.hagerty.com/articles-videos/articles/2018/09/28/these-9-ferraris-are-either-on-the-rise-or-still-affordable



The grand touring V-12 parade continued with Ferrari 400 and 412. The panelists agreed that these cars are going to continue to rise in value. Time has been kind to this design, and people tend to see the wedgy shape and say, “Hey, why didn’t I like about these before?” Both can be found between low $30K and low $40K, with a premium for the more-desirable five-speed manual transmission. There was a time when maintenance was likely deferred on these cars, so get those service records. These are very capable and powerful cars and values will continue to rise as collectors get over this car’s old stigma and accept it as a legitimate stablemate to the other prancing horses.

Friday 12 October 2018

Tuesday 2 October 2018

Monday 1 October 2018