George Vosburgh of Pittsburgh, PA is restoring his 1977 Ferrari 308 GTB with NJB Automotive in Columbus, OH. It's going to be a full ground up restoration and shown for the first time at the Cortile in 2014. According the George, the paint, suspension are done, the engine is complete. They've used high compression pistons, steel valves, electronic ignition. You can stay up-to-date on George's restoration on Ferrari Chat 77GTB #21039 Restoration
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Written by Bernard Martin Hahn & Vorbach Associates recently completed a ground up restoration of this 1963 Ferrari 250 GT Lusso. Regarded as one of the most beautiful Ferrari's of its time, the 250 GT Lusso's Pininfarina design and V12 power makes a statement all its own. Featuring a double wishbone front suspension and live axle rear end all tied to a tubular frame, the steel bodied Lusso was virtually identical to its aluminum bodied racing cousin. Only 350 of these cars were made and it's making it's way to the Cortile in 2013 for it's first showing since restoration. Chassis # 5165 Engine# 168 Restored by: Hahn and Vorbach Auto Restoration – Harmony, PA Painted a beautiful “Azzurro Metallic” blue and featuring chrome Borani wheels and a black leather interior, this 1963 Ferrari 250GT Lusso is nearing completion of a full, ground-up, every nut and bolt restoration. One of 350 examples built between January 1963 and August 1964. Equipped with the 245 horsepower 3.0 liter v-12 engine and mated to a 4 speed transmission, the car will do 0 to 60 mph in 8.0 seconds (which was quite impressive in its day). Designed by Pinninfarina and built by Scaglietti, the 250GT Lusso was the last of the 250 series cars offered by Ferrari. The body/frame of this car have been alkaline dipped to remove all rust and corrosion. Extensive bodywork followed to repair any damage and new aluminum door skins were fabricated to replace the original ones that had deteriorated. The engine, drivetrain and suspension have been completely rebuilt. The gauges have been rebuilt and a new carpet and interior installed. The final major component to be installed will be the distinctive eggcrate grille and then the car will undergo final testing and tuning before final delivery.
This beauty will make it's first judged appearance at the Cortile 2013 Written by Bernard Martin Ferrari Club of America is currently celebrating a major milestone, its 50th Anniversary! 50 Anni di Passione Tour Under the motto “50 Years of Passion – One Lap of North America”, a specially prepared 599 Ferrari relay car, sponsored by a private donor, is carrying a symbolic “baton” and is visiting all Ferrari Club of America (FCA) regions and chapters, every Ferrari dealer in the U.S. and Canada. This is a year one-year, 20,000-mile relay of North America and it's coming toPittsburgh for it's public stop before the FCA Annual Meeting!
Leading the One Lap of North America will be a specially prepared Ferrari 599 driven by a volunteer FCA member from each chapter. The relay is led by a special, one-off Ferrari 599GTB-HGTE built specially for Passione. This unique Ferrari, the very last North America specification 599 produced, has been made possible by Jim Taylor, FCA member and Patrono Principale of the FCA’s 50th Anniversary, and by Ferrari North America. The 599 has a unique paint scheme and interior design, as well as custom graphics representing the 50-year history of the FCA.
By PAUL VITELLO, New York Times Published: July 3, 2012 Sergio Pininfarina, whose design firm created the rakish and elegant auto bodies of some of the most popular, and fastest, cars ever made by Ferrari, Alfa Romeo, Maserati and Fiat, died on Tuesday, [July 3, 2012] at his home in Turin, Italy. He was 85. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for Ferrari, where Mr. Pininfarina was a board member for many years. Mr. Pininfarina took the reins of the company in 1961 from his father, Battista, who founded it under the name Carrozzeria Pinin Farina in 1930 and then rebuilt it virtually from scratch after Allied bombers destroyed its plant along with the rest of Italy’s industrial base in World War II. The younger Mr. Pininfarina, who brought a flair for marketing as well as design to the family business, scored his first successes in collaboration with Ferrari, the racecar maker known for its lucrative business in rich men’s toys. Convinced that a new consumer market was emerging, Mr. Pininfarina urged Ferrari to let him design two auto-body prototypes for a new 12-cylinder racecar-quality vehicle under production in the early 1960s.
“Ferrari would not be Ferrari without Pininfarina,” said Michael Sheehan, founder of the online Ferraris’ collectors newsletter, Ferraris-online.com. “Ferrari built the machines, and basically Pininfarina clothed them.” Mr. Pininfarina’s firm worked with many other carmakers over the last 50 years, including some in the United States. The Pininfarina stamp — an “f” surmounted by a crown — has appeared in millions of cars by Alfa Romeo, Fiat, Maserati, Rolls-Royce, Chevrolet, Cadillac, Bentley, Volvo and Peugeot. But for most of that time Mr. Pininfarina was, in effect, the design department of Ferrari. Only a handful of car models made by Ferrari were designed by other companies. For a while, Mr. Pininfarina stood as the chief custodian of Italian styling in cars. His firm designed prototypes for models that sold about 50,000 units a year by the mid-1980s, compared with about 500 in the early 1960s, and the success gave him freedom to design not only “affordable” cars but high-end and even one-of-a-kind vehicles for the very wealthy.
By 2008, the family had lost control of all but a small share of stock to creditors, though family members continue to operate the firm. Mr. Pininfarina was born in Turin on Sept. 8, 1926. He earned a mechanical engineering degree from the Polytechnic University of Turin in 1950, and became the firm’s managing director in 1961. His father died in 1966. He turned over control of the company to his son Andrea in 2001. After Andrea’s death in a motor scooter accident in 2008, Mr. Pininfarina’s younger son, Paolo, became head of the company. Besides his son, he is survived by his wife, Giorgia, and daughter, Lorenza. A courtly and stylish man of wit and charm, Mr. Pininfarina taught car body design at his alma mater for several years, and was often invited to speak to engineering and design groups in the United States. On one visit in 1981, an interlocutor asked, “What makes a good design?” He replied with a long list of criteria, including “good harmony, classic style, proportion, grace — and honesty,” adding with a small smile, “Then, if you have good taste, the battle is won.” SourcesWritten and compiled by Bernard Martin Sergio Scaglietti, who used intuitive genius and a hammer — seldom blueprints or sketches — to sculpture elegant Ferraris that won Grand Prix races in the 1950s and ’60s and now sell for millions of dollars, died on Nov. 20, 2011 at his home in Modena, Italy. He was 91. At the PVGG Cortile 2012 his designs are honored as the 2012 Proiettore Macchina.
World War II interrupted further development of the relationship. In the years after the war, Ferrari was comfortable enough with Scaglietti’s maturing talent that he frequently brought him crashed cars for repair. Then in the early 1950s, a gentleman racer from Bologna commissioned Sergio to rebody his damaged Touring Barchetta. “Enzo Ferrari saw this and said ‘That is not bad,’” Scaglietti remembered. “From this, he entrusted me with a new chassis.”
Ferraris, with their hair-raising acceleration and sleek lines, bespoke postwar modernity in the manner of the Color Field paintings of Barnett Newman and Mark Rothko or the architecture of Eero Saarinen. Mr. Scaglietti in the 1950s designed the blood-red skin of the 375MM sports car, picture above, that the film director Roberto Rossellini, the master of neorealist cinema, gave to his wife, Ingrid Bergman. Before long, the Ferraris emanating from the shop would be ranked among the most beautiful and memorable competition cars ever made. The honor roll included such top-flight sports-racing cars as the 500 Mondial and 500 TR and TRC, the classic pontoon-fender 250 Testa Rossa, the winning 290 MM, 315 and 335 S, and the immortal 250 GTO. In the late 1950s, with Enzo Ferrari setting him up with the banker and cosigning the loan, Scaglietti greatly expanded his enterprise. He began building numerous street Ferraris to designs by Pinin Farina. His business prospered, and Scaglietti enjoyed the rewards and prosperity the expansion brought him. In the late 1960s, however, with labor troubles a constant, Scaglietti leapt at the opportunity to join Ferrari in a sale of his business to Fiat. Scaglietti continued to manage the carrozzeria until his retirement in the mid 1980s. Ferrari’s 612 Scaglietti model, and the Carrozzeria Scaglietti customization program, were named after the humble artisan.
“The chief of production came to Mr. Ferrari and said, ‘We have to stop production because we have no black paint to paint the engines,’ ” he said. Mr. Ferrari asked what color paint they did have. The answer was red. Mr. Ferrari said, “Paint the engines red and we’ll call it the Testa Rossa,” which means redhead in Italian Mr. Scaglietti’s method was to receive a prototype from the legendary designer Battista Farina or one of his associates and “interpret” it in aluminum, rarely using a drawing. He made a wire frame, then hammered the metal into the shape he envisioned. He did this on bags of sand, because wood proved too hard. He did everything, he said, “by the eye.” He followed the designers’ concepts to varying degrees. Many sources give him considerable personal credit for the overall look of the 250 GTO in 1962-63. Just three dozen were made, and Mr. Ferrari, who died in 1988, approved every sale personally. The car was one of the last front-engine cars to remain competitive at the top levels of sports car racing. (Most racing cars today have the engine behind the driver.) Motor Trend Classic in 2010 called the car the greatest Ferrari of all time, and some people consider it the most beautiful automobile ever made. There have been reports that one sold for $50 million during the classic car boom of the 1980s, and the Web site Supercars.net called that figure not “entirely unrealistic.” SourcesThere is a wonderful review of the Cortile and the Cortile Cup in the August issue of the Ferrari Market Letter. Be sure and read it over. We are honored!
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