Spotted my own car again

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:

http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2016/10/my-400-original-colour-setting-ferrari.html

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:

http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2013/11/carello-fog-lights-part-ii.html

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.

My 400 - Original colour setting - Ferrari Classiche - Actual Delivery date

Earlier this week I was approached by someone who wanted confirmation of the Original colours of my 400 for his database. According to him it was likely to be Azzurro Metallizato with Beige VM 3218 interior and Blu carpets. As far as I could see myself this was the case, however I don't have it officially documented though, nor was it mentioned in the warranty papers or such. It was something on my target list to obtain an official Ferrari Classiche paper stating the origin of my car. Such paper would cost you € 300,- To give you an idea what it looks like:

For those interested regarding this intriguing owner, see this blog:

http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2015/10/bring-trailer-1974-ferrari-365gt4-22-5.html

So yes, quite an expensive A4 paper. But anything Ferrari is slightly overpriced in my humble opinion. Nevertheless it's an item I would like to have included with my 400 for historical completeness. But for now it can wait.

Prior to this I was given the following source who potentially could assist in confirming the same information; Tony Willis at The Maranello Concessionaires Archive.

But I was also given the name of Marcello Massini. I guess for the majority of the Ferrari incrowd this is a known name. In fact he can be considered the authority when it comes down to Ferrari history. The following article provides a nice story about him:

http://www.ferrarichat.com/velostrada/issues/200509/Ausbrooks_Massini.htm

So I just send him an email to get confirmation about the colour setting used for my car. The next day I got already an answer and he confirmed the following is correct:

Azzurro Metallizato with Beige VM 3218 interior and Blu carpets

He also mentions the actual factory delivery date is 27 February 1979. My Original warranty booklet mentions however the deliver date of 27 December 1979. So that's exactly a 10 month gap which I can't explain.

My theory is the following. When doing research regarding the first owner of my 400 I found out he had the car shipped immediately to the UK when it was newly delivered. This to get a complete new leather upholstery, see my blog about this matter:

http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2013/12/car-owner-history.html

So I suspect the warranty of the car became active on it's return from the UK since it was still unused in between. I guess this might have been settled/agreed with his Ferrari distributor Auto Becker.

Mr Massini however mentions the following; "Cars were not easy to sell in those days and the warranty only begins once the car is really sold. The car may have been sitting unsold for several months."

Although I don't have any insight about this particular era and how car deals were made I find it difficult to believe these type of cars would have been produced without an actual order or pre payment to confirm the deal.

Actually from the following time period magazine article:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B8teqGKDb3gkVlNSYkN3b3UwNHc

I understood that in May 1977 there were no new 400 cars available for testing or to provide demo's. This was due to the high demand and impatient new owners waiting in Maranello. Even the company "works" car had been sold.

I Always found it quite peculiar that my 400 was a carburettor version given the delivery date of 27 December 1979. The first injected cars were already on the road in August 1979 or even earlier. But now I know the actual delivery date was 27 February 1979, so that's another mystery out of my way.

I'm now curious to know from Ferrari Classiche when the actual order was placed and how long it would take to build a 400. It is estimated it would take about 1 month to assemble a 400. Of course there could have been a waiting list between order and start of assembly and we expect that varies so we guess around 2-3 months. Anyone who has got more insight in this matter please get in contact with me.

And for the records, a picture of the paint sticker located in the trunk of my 400. So yes, the color is Azurro Metallizato with code 8044169

more 400 owner history

Perhaps you recall this topic: http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2014/08/ferrari-365400412-koni-load-levelers.html Maybe not. In any case, from time to time I do post a cool picture (at least I hope they are) on a few FB pages of my interest. One being the Fiat Dino group. On a Factory photo I posted I happen to notice it got liked by someone called Lapre. Funny I thought; I now come across his name after I briefly met him, wasn't aware he was in this group as well. Not much later I noticed another like from him on the FB page off Iso Rivolta. I shouldn't be surprised he's on these pages given his background. Out of curiosity I checked his FB profile. It turns out it was his son. So from there I jumped to his father's FB profile. Curious as I am I just had a look at his friends and contacts. To my great surprise I see that one of his connections is "Vroklage meubelen". Rings a bell? No?, read this again: http://erwin400.blogspot.nl/2013/10/monday-22nd-october-car-owner-history.html
Perhaps time to visit him, in fact I was quite curious to see his workshop. Another contact I see on his FB friends is someone who recently joined the Dutch Lancia Thema forum. With whom I'm now also connected due to his search for a cool 8.32  Typical how this all comes together. And today I'm contacted via my blog by someone who has an interest in the Koni shocks offered for sale in the workshop of Lapre. So far so good.

A little later I noticed on the FB group Iso Rivolta a posting by K. Vroklage (in combination with a yellow Iso Grifo). I suspect she must be a relative somehow.The above I ignored for a while untill I noticed a new post by K. Vroklage in the Iso Rivolta FB group. Since there are not much woman on these car fora it's quite noticable, plus her posting is quite a unique picture. This resulted in a few reactions by others. Remarkably one guy asks if she knows George Vroklage (the 2nd owner of my 400). She responds on it and mentions it's her uncle. The guy itself appears to be Dutch, who now lives in the USA and owns a car/appraisal shop (www.memorylanecars.com). It turns out he worked in the past on the cars of George Vroklage. How's that?

So I decided to contact both and make an enquiry if they do happen to know or recall anything about my 400 somehow. A few days went by and I thought I was ignored. But by surprise the guy contacted me a day ago. He saw my message but it went lost somehow and he had not time to respond until now. So I asked him again if he knew about the existence of my 400. It appears he knew about the car as he had seen it at the house of Mr. Vroklage occasionly but only from a distance as he never worked on it. I'm very pleased with this confirmation that backs up the owner history of my car. It's another true story.

Update 16-10-2016: I placed another posting in the FB group Iso Rivolta:

http://www.autogespot.nl/iso-grifo-7-litri/2016/01/11

And again this provoked a reaction from her. It appears it was bought new at the time by Mr. Vroklage:

How cool is that?

Car Owner History

Guess what? I managed to dig up another piece of history on the car. Last time I thought I was more or less stuck. I was Lucky the car came with the Original service booklet. So I knew the car was purchased by the Firma Gottschalk & Co in Kassel. For my Ferrari registration a copy was required since they didn't recognize the chassis nr. In any case, this triggered me to look into this again.

Of course I had already searched on it before and knew this company no longer exists. So it was more or less dire straits. However this time I found a outdated Facebook page without hardly any information. But one update did contain an email adress of an old employee who wanted to get in touch with other old employees. So I gave it a shot and wrote him an email to find out if he would recognize this car and it's owner. Within a few hours I received the following remarkable response:

Hallo Herr Erwin400,

ich habe von 1968 - 1997 bei der Firma Gottschalk u. Co. in Kassel gearbeitet, dieser Ferrari ist mir sehr gut im Gedächtnis geblieben.

Der Besitzer des Wagens war unser Chef, Hans Frenzel.

Die Fa.Gottschalk wurde in der Hitlerzeit dem Besitzer Geheimrat Gottschalk enteignet und dem Henschelkonzern zugeschlagen.

Nach dem 2.Weltkrieg bekam seine Tochter Leni Gottschalk den Betrieb zurück. Gottschalk & Co. – Wikipedia: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gottschalk_%26_Co.

Sie heiratete einen schlesischen Textilhersteller, Hans Frenzel, dem seine Firma die heute in Polen liegt auch enteignet wurde.

Die nun verheiratete Leni Frenzel, geborene Gottschalk führte den Textilbetrieb Gottschalk u. Co.

Der Herr Frenzel, ihr Mann war nur zu repräsentativen Maßnahmen eingesetzt, Entscheidungen wurden nur von seiner Frau getroffen,

also ein ähnliches Verhältnis wie im englischen Königshaus (Queen Elithabeth-Prinz Philipp).

Er durfte mit dem Ferrari umherfahren und im Seidenanzug die Aufwartungen machen und sie traf die Entscheidungen.

Als nun Leni Frenzel in den 90ern starb, war Hans Frenzel mit der Leitung des Betriebes überfordert und verkaufte an die Firma Mehler in Fulda. 

Hans Frenzel fuhr noch einen anderen Ferrari in rot. Welcher Typ das war weiß ich nicht mehr.

Jedenfalls wurde der Ferrari den Sie jetzt besitzen sofort nach dem Kauf nach England verbracht um die Innenausstattung und die Sitzpolster mit einem anderen feinerem Leder zu beziehen.

Mit freundlichen Grüßen

 

 

How cool is that. I find it very remarkable, you order a brand new Ferrari and when it arrivés you ship it to the UK to give it a complete new leather upholstery because it's not meeting your quality standard. It at least explains why currently it's still in such good condition. Next to that; it smells so nice. 

 

 

 

Of course I had a follow up email and he's now checking if the 2nd owner (Mr. Vroklage) was a customer of them. Watch this space.

 

Gottschalk & Co :

 

 

Ferrari.com | My Ferrari

It’s official now. I’m registered as a Ferrari owner. The previous owner told me I could sign up on the Ferrari website being an owner and receive notification on events and get reductions on tickets, goodies and such. At first I was not interested in all this marketing hype and I more or less ignored it.  Last week I was visiting their website and reconsidered it. Reason being is my curiosity regarding the Ferrari experience and perhaps soon or later something interesting could come out of it.
Furthermore I thought it could not do any harm to get the car registered as it will build up a bit of history track record. Thinking about it, I will make an enquiry on what information they might have on this car already.

In order to get registered I had to send them a copy of the service logbook, a copy of the registration license papers and included a copy of my driver license.

Dear Mr. Erwin,

thank you for the information you have sent. We are glad to inform you that we have updated our records, and it was our pleasure to process your request to register as Ferrari owner. You will shortly be able to log in to Ferrari official website, using your email address and the password you chose as you registered.

 

 

Please be assured of our full attention at all times.

We remain at your complete disposal for any further assistance you may need.

Our best regards,

 

Ferrari Customer Care

 

 

Car owner history

Yesterday I did send another reminder to the family of the previous owner. I did include a picture of the car, hoping they would recognize it. Today I received a response from them. Unfortunately they could not provide or confirm any additional information about the car. As such I think this is were the story ends ... bummer!

Car owner history

Previous postings were all retrospective. Today it's my first genuine actual live story.

This morning I checked my Linkedin updates and saw that mr. Vroklage checked  my profile. I'm unsure if this is done due to the fact I visited his Linkedin profile or because of the email I send them earlier this week. Hopefully he did got my message and is willing to provide more insight regarding the history of the 400.

To my surprise I got a Whatsapp from Arriën this afternoon. He submitted me the following remarkable picture:

I'm very happy with this as it's a nice contribution of supporting evidence. Note the Ferrari badge sticker added on the truck. As mentioned in the older posts, the previous owner did had a company called Deaval BV specialized in classic cars. It was based in Amsterdam and no longer exists. I searched on the internet but was unable to find anything. The owner was now based in a rental garage in Vinkeveen where he was restoring a truck for hobby purposes. In the same garage he still had quite a few of his motorbikes collection parked. His daily driver was a Mercedes C63 AMG and his favorite motorbike was his MV Augusta. The Ferrari was parked in another garage storage together with his remaining collection. According to the owner he still had a nice Rolls Royce which he would not sell.

At the time I announced my purchase on the Lancia Thema forum it was Arriën who recognized the car. He told me he had spotted it a few years ago nearby his parents in law - living in Loenen aan de Vecht. He had even pictures of it and of course some stories. It's a small world.

And by now I received an additional picture:

 

 

I now also remembered I made a picture of a car sticker on the back window. Unfortunately it's not a sharp picture, but it reveals their website as well: www.deaval.nl

I had it checked before but it's empty and only registered since 2005.

Monday 22nd October - Car owner history

Today I did some further investigations regarding the previous owner. The last owner was a regular customer at Kroymans. But he also had his own company in classic cars at the time in Amsterdam. The name of it was Deaval. That company no longer exists and he was more or less cleaning out his private collection. The car itself was registered on the name of his son. When they placed the advert to sell the car they did mention it was previously part of the private collection of Frits Kroymans. By now this is more or less confirmed by mister Kroymans himself on our visit last Friday. Meanwhile I had found out already via the internet this was the case. When I told a friend about my purchase he almost found immediate evidence on the following website:

http://www.finecars.cc/en/editorial/article/news/kroymans-collection-the-netherlands/index.html

28 April, 2001

Ferrari Import Kroymans BV are the long time importer for the marque in The Netherlands, whilst the CEO Frederico Kroymans is a passionate classic car enthusiast, and was the overall winner of the Shell Historic Ferrari Maserati Challenge race series in 2001, driving his 250 GTO, chassis # 4757GT. He also has a fine private collection of some rare and beautiful Ferraris, which Edwin van Nes was able to access, to provide you with the images that you will find  in this gallery >>>

 

 

 

I also got in touch with Edwin van Nes and obtained the Original pictures. Cool!

 

 

The last owner also told me the car was traded in with the purchase of a new Ferrari Testarossa. As I know by now, this happens to be true as well. When I asked Frits about this he confirmed the story. He mentioned the name of the buyer and told me he was living in the east of the Netherlands and his occupation was doing business in furniture. We walked back to his office and he googled it up on his red Ferrari laptop. He furthermore mentioned that much later the owner died due to an accident in the Ferrari Testarossa. However he wasn't entirely sure about it. As for the 400 itself, he recalled the color settings and mentioned he had driven it occassionly himself as well. During the 15 years of his possesion it had been driven only occassionly. As far as I can track back about 10.000 km in 15 years time. The next owner drove about 7.000 km in 9 years time. I became owner of the car with about 98.000 km on it.

 

Yesterday I already did a quick search but could only find the following: http://www.vroklagemeubelen.nl/ In fact that was the same website that mr. Kroymans showed me as well when he searched on mr. Vroklage. I dropped them an email but had no response so far. I was not happy with my findings so I did some further research. The current  owner of the company is named George Vroklage. I found him on Linkedin but as he was out of reach I could not connect to him to send him a personal email. After doing a bit more indepth research I managed to find a website with a family tree created by a family enthusiastic. To my great surprise there was a link with much detailled information about Vroklage senior. Including scanned paper articles with memorials:

http://www.clicks4you.nl/joomla/index.php?%20option=com_content&task=view&id=88&Itemid=2

From this I learned he was quite a well known person at the time. I now understand why mr. Kroymans recalled this person almost instantly. The articles from the paper also confirmed the tragic death in his Ferrari Testarossa.

On the same website I found another email address. So I wrote up a more detailled request about my research regarding the history of the car. A bit weird to dig into this now, knowing the involved person died in a car crash. I hope they don't mind me asking all these details. According to the service booklet the car was Original purchased at Auto Becker in German and registered on the name of Fa Gottschalk in Kassel. It's not unusual expensive cars get registered on companies. This particular company was specialized in Textil. So I suspect there is a clear link between Furniture and Textil. My guess is that the car might have been part of a transaction deal or something. The car was from 1979 till 1988 (80.000 km) serviced and stamped for each interval by Auto Becker in Dusseldorf.

1979 Purchased by Fa Gottschalk & Co.
1988 Sold to Kroymans by George Vroklage - traded in for a Ferrari Testarossa. Mileage 80.000 km
2004 Sold to Mr. Veenendaal / Deaval. Mileage 92.000 km
2013 Sold to me. Mileage 98.000 km

 

 

 

 

 

Friday 18th October 2013 - Taxation - Kroymans visit - IHWC meeting

Friday morning my Ferrari 400 did got a taxation. This was a requirement for the insureance.

Friday afternoon Jos arrived and we informed the IHWC crew about his visit. So shortly a meet up was arranged in Amsterdam at the Febo on the Olympic square. As there was enough time left we decided to drive over to Kroymans in Hilversum.

When we entered the showroom mr. Kroymans himself walked out of his office and greeted us. I told him that we were returning an old car from his collection. Basicly I was after more historic details of the previous owners. The car had been in his private collection from 1989 till 2004. To my surprise he recalled all details including the previous owner. Apparently the car was traded in on a new Ferrari Testarossa. We walked back to his office and he googled the name on his red Ferrari laptop. He found it instantly. As such I got ahold of the name of the previous owner. However it came with a sad story. The owner died a few years laters in his Ferrari Testarossa due to a crash.
Meanwhile Jos was guided by another employee and got ahold of an old Kroymans sticker from the eighties. Cool! I now can put this on the car to make the history more real.

 

 

I was very happy with this unplanned visit. I didn’t expect to meet mister Kroymans in person and getting some more historical background information and confirmation about this car. Clearly I had now to do more research but this was a great direction.

Thus now we went onto Amsterdam. Since we had plenty of time we decided to take a touristic tour via Muiden en Weesp. We arrived first and Jos treated ourselves on a nice Kroket.

Not much later Paul showed up and shortly afterwards Thomas. Even Mart drove all the way from Zeist and lastly Peter arrived as well. The latter two stayed and we went for a meal nearby Peter’s garagebox at a restaurnat called the Elsas. After a nice meal and some laughs we returned back home. Picking up the 400 at Peter’s garage box I offered him a small ride around the block. Boy, was he happy or what!

 

All in all a very enjoyable day.