Satan's barge - 1983 Ferrari 400i
Discussion
Rumdoodle said:
Mr Tidy said:
It is very special - you don't realise quite how steep it is until you start walking up it!
Thanks for posting some great photos.
Must have been a phenomenal spectacle back in the day.Thanks for posting some great photos.
Rumdoodle said:
bolidemichael said:
Camber Sands Yellow on the e type.
I knew of primrose yellow. Hadn't heard of that one.I’ve had a quick google, but can’t find anything… Primrose Yellow was my initial thought, but I’m certain that’s what he told me.
bolidemichael said:
Rumdoodle said:
bolidemichael said:
Camber Sands Yellow on the e type.
I knew of primrose yellow. Hadn't heard of that one.I’ve had a quick google, but can’t find anything… Primrose Yellow was my initial thought, but I’m certain that’s what he told me.
Pale Primrose is the colour that I recall having seen and discussed, but confusingly he referred to it as ‘Camber Sands’. Oh well.
The colours for the 400 were mostly, or possibly all, named after racehorses. Hence, Arancio Vaguely Noble, Celeste Gainsborough, Rosso Sir Ivor and others. Courtesy of the definitive Ferrari 400 blog https://erwin400.blogspot.com/2018/10/ferrari-400-...
bolidemichael said:
I suspect that the Brown Testarossa belongs to ‘Duke of London’
To quote Withnail and I
Brown kind of works on a GT4
and really works on a GTC/4
but on a mid-engined Ferrari, it confirms all I suspected about those metropolitan deviants. All of it. And more.
The Sunday after the Brooklands trip was the first Bicester Scramble of the year, with a dry day forecast. The afternoon before, I gave the 400 a good clean inside and out. Went to start it at sparrowfart, and it didn't want to play. Turned the key, dash lights came on, but no bananas. This had happened a couple of times before, also on cold mornings, and on the second attempt it had fired up as normal. Not this time. It was the coldest night it had ever spent outside, not exactly brass monkeys but cold enough for this to probably be temperature related. Tried jump starting it to no avail. Borrowed a hairdryer and went at the injectors and a few other bits with low expectations, which were met. It was early afternoon by the time we had all guns blazing. Too late for Bicester, so I took it for a run to Moreton and back.
When it's cold, it runs fine. But when it's up to temperature, it's running rough under 2k rpm and sometimes not pulling completely cleanly above that, although it's barely perceptible. It had been fine all the way to Glasgow and back. Some diagnostics required to keep this jewel of an engine purring as its creator intended.
Largely unrelated, I found myself reminiscing about my old 380SL and got in touch with my friendly local classic Mercedes specialist to ask them to keep an eye out for a budget classic smoker barge. The Ferrari has proven very useable, except for the parts supply these days. By way of an extreme example - as I don't need a whole engine - Eurospares are listing an engine for a 365GTC, basically a detuned Daytona engine and a smaller capacity version of mine, at £65k. And a 365BB engine (for non-Ferrari nerds, that's the early Berlinetta Boxer) at £130k. However, even at that level, the main problem is not actually price but availability. I'm not bothered about having to replace stuff, but I am bothered about not being able to. It wouldn't have been such an issue twenty years ago, but it genuinely is now.
Fortunately, I'm finding this such a delight I won't mind wrapping it in cotton wool more than originally envisaged. I'll still max out the mileage allowance. But it's such a treat when I do use it, I'm content to restrict it to mostly sunny days. But, with the onset of galloping old age, that's also kind of how I'm starting to feel about other things in life too
, so I'm probably just projecting that sentiment onto the car.Hence, tapping into the still plentiful supply of old Mercs for mundane duties. I don't need anything more modern than that. When I looked at a car rental website a few weeks ago, it was bizarre to see that about half of the options were full electric things. I'm just not ready for that sort of s
t. The 400 is now officially not my only car since the acquisition of a 1999 Merc E320 wagon for £1k a few months ago - in colours to match the Ferrari inside and out!
Until today, I hadn't driven the Ferrari since early January, the longest period of non-use since I bought it. In the meantime, it attained historic vehicle status and is now exempt from tax, MOT, ULEZ and ZEZ. It's also had a thorough checkover. By the time I parked it up in January, it had started running rough at low revs again, and the right side exhausts were smoking a bit, indicating a fuelling issue. Turned out that the right bank's metering unit was causing rich running and needed cleaning up and adjusting. A transmission fluid leak was traced to the sump, which needed its bolts tightening. The water pipes from the radiator to the water pump and the lower oil pipe were looking tired and replaced with new ones. There's always been oil seepage from the timing cover gasket, but it's minimal and would be an engine out job to replace. I can envisage getting this done within the next couple of years, and will probably aim to have engine mounts, suspension perishables etc done at the same time. Even though the car has only recently started racking up regular mileage, all that stuff is getting on for twenty years old now.
So, I got back to the UK this afternoon, went to pick it up, passed this Morris Eight, proper WW2-era austerity motoring
and drove into a swine of a hailstorm in Enstone. Pretty big stones for about five minutes when I was stuck at a multi-way traffic signal. No damage done, as far as my cursory check could ascertain. Now plan to rack up some miles over the next few weeks.
Until today, I hadn't driven the Ferrari since early January, the longest period of non-use since I bought it. In the meantime, it attained historic vehicle status and is now exempt from tax, MOT, ULEZ and ZEZ. It's also had a thorough checkover. By the time I parked it up in January, it had started running rough at low revs again, and the right side exhausts were smoking a bit, indicating a fuelling issue. Turned out that the right bank's metering unit was causing rich running and needed cleaning up and adjusting. A transmission fluid leak was traced to the sump, which needed its bolts tightening. The water pipes from the radiator to the water pump and the lower oil pipe were looking tired and replaced with new ones. There's always been oil seepage from the timing cover gasket, but it's minimal and would be an engine out job to replace. I can envisage getting this done within the next couple of years, and will probably aim to have engine mounts, suspension perishables etc done at the same time. Even though the car has only recently started racking up regular mileage, all that stuff is getting on for twenty years old now.
So, I got back to the UK this afternoon, went to pick it up, passed this Morris Eight, proper WW2-era austerity motoring
and drove into a swine of a hailstorm in Enstone. Pretty big stones for about five minutes when I was stuck at a multi-way traffic signal. No damage done, as far as my cursory check could ascertain. Now plan to rack up some miles over the next few weeks.
Rumdoodle said:
The 400 is now officially not my only car since the acquisition of a 1999 Merc E320 wagon for £1k a few months ago - in colours to match the Ferrari inside and out!
That sounds good value - how many miles has it done and is there any rust? And is it a petrol or a diesel?Gassing Station | Readers' Cars | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff