This Ferrari is a Gran Toupee-ismo

Well, I guess this week the convertible 400 is popular somehow. I just have added this article to the online section: http://jalopnik.com/5751498/for-29500-this-ferrari-is-a-gran-toupee-ismo

I think I recall this one as last year it was up for sale if I'm not mistaken. This particular one appears to be a Straman conversion. According to this FChat thread: https://ferrarichat.com/forum/ferrari-discussion-not-model-specific-sponsored-algar-ferrari/252228-straman-convertible-registry.html
there have been 51 conversions made of the 365/400/412 by Straman.

Pavesi has made 18 conversions. How many has been done by Lorenz & Rankl is unknown to me. And recently we discovered at least one conversion by EBS.

Ferrari 400i convertible by EBS

Via the known FB Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/8727831092/ I came across of this unique 400 convertible performed by a small company in Belgium called EBS. The company no longer exist and has become part of the following company: http://www.act-research.be.

The pictures were obtained via the Dutch register:

http://www.ebsregisterholland.nl/page/other-ebs-cars

I suspect it's a one-off. Anyone any idea if it still exists today?

Classic Car Weekly - Buying guide Ferrari 400

Now available in the download folder. I noticed point 4 and 5 do look similar from the snapshot 'running gear' in my blog:

http://erwin400.blogspot.hu/2015/02/ferrari-automatic-transmission-part-ii.html

Ferrari 400 Lorenz & Rankl brochure - convertible / cabriolet

My archive is now extended with this brochure. I got ahold of it via the seller of the 400 photo's on the Torino Autosalon. He was some kind of automobilia reseller. A good moment to further look into this brand. There is a nice German Wiki about this company: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/LR_Fahrzeugbau

Which provided me the Original website for this company: http://www.lr-fahrzeugbau.de/

But it also provided a particular fansite regarding a car brand developped by the same company: http://www.silverfalcon.de/index.html

From there it is a simple click away to find more history about the work carried out by L&R on the Ferrari models. Which obviously included the 400:

http://www.silverfalcon.de/ferrari.html

And as you can see, it does include pictures, (German) articles and even some pricelists.
It's that simple and easy. The write up of this blog took longer then finding and collecting this piece of information.

 

Update 8-4-2015 : On Facebook someone posted these 2 pictures. We suspect these are the same one as used in the brochure:

 

 

Golden trio : Ferrari 365GTC, 400i, Dino 308GT4 in “chiaro oro”.

How unique is this golden trio? Thanks for sharing Dirk!

Ferrari 400 Automatic photo Autosalon Torino 1976

On Ebay someone offered two pictures for sale about the Ferrari 400 automatic which was presented on the Turin Autosalon in 1976. I consider them unique pictures as during my searches I have not come across many good pictures of this car on the known car shows.

As such I had to have them. And I was not the only one. It’s typical,  the unbeloved 400 is somehow very popular. Anytime I find something of interest the prices seem to be unusual high. You might even recall this owner manual story as an example (which I didn't purchase):

http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2015/01/ferrari-400i-vs-bb512i-owners-manual.html

 

And not much later I had the same thing when purchasing the 400i press release + picture. Again someone had put a high bid on it which I had to outbid. Same story on these photo's. This time around it was a different person. I wonder who it was.

 

And of course I did check with the seller regarding the background of these pictures. Here is his response:

The 400 photos and the others were taken by someone (a German), who apparently visited regularly the European Motor Shows, or at least Geneva, Frankfurt, Turin and Paris. He put together Albums of the Shows he visited. By chance I was able to buy the albums a few years ago. As for my own collection I don't need every photo, I put the "surplus" up for sale.

 

And here are the photos, enjoy:

 

Official Ferrari 412 photos

I thought I was pretty much complete but I came across a few more. I just have added them to the 412 picture directory (on the right bar). If I'm still missing some and you have them in your possession please share them with me or post them in the FB group:

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