What happens in Vegas...

So I find myself in Vegas for a few days this week for a user conference. It's a quick trip -- only two days. While down here, I realize that there's a Ferrari dealership half a block from my hotel. It's in the Wynn hotel, but here's the kicker -- it costs $10 to go in and have a look around! What? If I want to see some cool expensive cars, I need go no further than E@RTC on a Saturday morning. The dealership had a few F430s, Californias and a 599. Cool, but nothing I hadn't seen before. I stopped by anyhow, since there is a Ferrari Store there (no cost admission). It's the first Ferrari Store in North America and I'd never been to one before so I wanted to go. I ended up buying some outrageously overpriced items with the prancing horse logo and posing for a photo next to a Ferrari F1 engine on display. Overall, the store was ok. It seemed pretty sparse compared to any other store. Still, where else can you get a Ferrari racing suit and driving shoes for your child?

The uber-rare Saratoga top

Back in the 80's, I remember hearing about a company called Saratoga that made plexiglass targa tops for cars with a factory solid targa top like the Porsche 914 and the Ferrari 308. The Saratoga company went out of business many years ago and their tops are extremely hard to find. Mention one of these tops to people in the 308 GTS community and everyone starts salivating. Having one go one sale is like the shark tank at feeding time. One of these uber-rare tops popped up on eBay last week and just closed on Sunday. The result? 35 bids and a selling price of $2,635.00! Wow! Sure, it'd be cool to have one, but $2600? I bought a BMW E30 325is for half that! What an odd comparative...car...Saratoga top...car...Saratoga top...

Ferrari Fitness Plan

After a lot of rainy weekends, we finally had a dry one and on the first day of Spring to boot! Saturday was beautiful and sunny, but I had other things to do that day. Sunday was a bit cooler and cloudy, but I had a chance to take a few hours and pilot the 308 through cow country. The sun was out and it was mostly warm when I left so I took the targa top off. Even though I had the heater on, it was a bit chilly on the drive out. By the time I stopped to turn around, I decided to put the top back on because the sun was obscured by clouds. Still, it was a wonderful drive and I had a great time.

When I got home, I noticed something strange climbing out of the car. My legs were sore. It was like I just did a bunch of leg presses at the gym. The early 308s had a heavy clutch pedal. REALLY heavy. Heavy to the point where driving our manual transmission 3/4 ton Dodge Ram feels like a cakewalk. Somewhere around 1980, Ferrari switched to a different clutch actuation mechanism that supposedly lightened up the pedal effort quite a bit. There was even a Ferrari service bulletin (SB21-2) printed 03/19/1981 that outlined the change and included a parts list and diagrams to retrofit the new system to the older cars. Unfortunately, my car was never retrofitted. Apparently, the parts are available but cost about $1000. For that money, I think I'll just keep my heavy clutch pedal and continue to get a lower body workout every time I drive.

Cleaning out the shop

I made a decision this past weekend. I needed to clean out my shop and make more space. Not just clean up and organize, but do some serious purging to get more space. After many years and several homes, I decided to give up on my old Volkswagen Rabbit Pickup project. Now that I own the car that I've wanted almost my entire life, there was basically no chance that I'd actually finish the VW. While I would have loved to get that thing back on the road, it was time for it to go.

Taking up half my shop was the Rabbit shell and about a dozen boxes of parts. I first considered trying to sell the entire project as a whole, but it didn't seem like anyone was interested. I ended up listing the rolling shell on Craigslist as free. It's sort of like when you hold a garage sale -- either you're in "just get rid of stuff mode" or "try to make some money" mode. I started off trying to get money, but realized that space is more important to me than the few measly dollars I could get. In less than 24 hours after posting, I reclaimed half the floor space in my shop. That feels good. I still need to spend more time going through all my parts and get rid of them as well. Purging is good!

Earplugs needed for Dyno Day

Yep, still raining here. Last weekend, our local FCA chapter hosted a dyno day. Even though it was raining, a lot of high HP cars came out. There was a Lamborghini 670 LP-4 SuperVeloce, Ferrari F430 Scuderia (2 of them), Alfa 8C Competizione, Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, and Corvette and even a Bentley Turbo Arnage. High HP of the day went to the Lambo at 546. Mind you, this is four wheel drive at the wheels. The Scuds came out at about 460HP and the Corvette got about the same number. My car, on the other hand, probably puts out about 150HP at the wheels right now (maybe even less). New, the carb'd US spec '78 308 reportedly puts out 225BHP, which is about 187 wheel HP. While it would mildly amusing to have my car dyno'd, it would mainly be sad and embarrassing. Kind of gives me an idea of the a**-whooping I'd get if I tried to race any modern F-car.

This was my first time seeing a dyno run in person and it was pretty interesting. The tech had the drivers start slowly and work their way up the gears to 4th. Once in 4th, the tech started the sampling and the driver floored it. The power measurement was done from idle to redline in 4th. I'm not exactly sure why 4th vs. any other gear but perhaps this gives the most accurate reading. Each car repeated the 4th gear run a few times, then did a final run all through the gears starting from 1st. It was really cool to see each car flat out from 1st banging through all the gears. Oh and did I mention that it was LOUD? Here's a compilation video of most of the cars tested:

Compilation video

See, it really did start at a young age

A while ago, when I was going through some old boxes, I found some stuff from my youth. This is a 1:24 scale model of the Ferrari 308 GTS that I made when I was probably 14 or so. It was a kit made by Revell, and as I recall was marketed as the "Magnum PI Ferrari 308 GTS." I wish that I still had some of my old posters, especially the one that was 8' long and covered the entire width of my room. I was crazy about the 308 back then and it's still a little strange to me now that I actually own one.



This model is pretty detailed. Now that I know a lot about the 308, it's fun to pick out all the details as well as point out the inaccuracies. First of all, this model is a Euro model, whereas they used a US spec car in the show. You can tell it's a Euro mainly because of the small bumpers. However, this car also has a dry-sump oiling system (there is a dry-sump tank under the bonnet) and a single rear tailpipe, which identifies it as an early Euro dry-sump GTB car. Also, the Euro cars had a slightly different layout of the bonnet louvers. So, it has all the Euro dry-sump details, but with a GTS top and marketed as the Magnum PI car!