A little later in the morning, this beautiful 1984 512BBi showed up. When I was growing up, the 512BB was another one of my dream cars next to the 308. However, the BB is so far out reach of a poor working stiff like me that I'll never own one.
Another cool car is this Aston Martin in a color I'd never seen before. It seems like all the Astons I've seen are some shade of silver and this one in Maroon was gorgeous. Another car I'll never own...
Lastly, a new car that few will see and fewer will own -- a new BMW 1M. Not to be confused with the BMW M1 of the 70s, I guess BMW needed to keep with their M designation and ran into a problem with the One Series. Very few of these cars will make it into the States. The owner of this one had to go to Oregon to get it. According to him, it's a blast to drive and a really fun, high powered good handling car.
Two weekends ago, the local Ferrari club chapter had a tour of a local fabrication and restoration shop. I wasn't sure what to expect since I'd not heard of this shop before. As I neared the shop, I saw a red 308 roar by and followed it in. It turned out to be friend and fellow 308 owner TV. The shop was near his house and despite threatening rain for the day, he risked bringing out his F-car to the tour.
Walking in to the main part of the shop, it was apparent what these guys did. There were metal working machines all over. Everything from welding gear to an english wheel to lathes and mills. Their clientele were mostly sport and club racers and this shop did everything from ground-up fabrication to race preparation.
This is an example of the work these guys do. This old racer was pretty sad under the paint and basically needed a new body. Just like the artisans of a time gone by, this body was fabricated by hand from sheets of aluminum. Wow, what workmanship. Next to the raw aluminum body was a frame jig where a tube frame was being fabricated.
This shop was huge and had lots and lots of cars in it. I found out that these guys also do most of the restoration work for Richard Griot (of Griot's Garage). I believe that this white Porsche is one of Richard's newest cars, sent to the shop to be checked over.
Here's a cool little racing detail I didn't know. These brake rotors are painted with three temperature sensitive paint stripes. Each color would burn off at different temperature so the crew could tell at glance how hot the rotor got. Red paint gone? Driver needs to be easier on the brakes!
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