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Restoration of a 246 GTS

F

ferrari-nut

Member
Guys, I have just purchased a 246 GTS, and the fun begins ........... This is a copy of the monthly report that I am (hopefully) going to write for the Ferrari Owners Club UK (Essex region) news letter ............

FERRARI 246 GTS DINO –

It’s Sunday morning, 6.30 am and I get a call from a guy telling me that he knows of a stripped 246 GTS. He informs me that it is almost complete(?), ready to assemble, some new parts and VERY expensive. As some of you may remember I had a similar call a few years ago about a 365 GT 2+2. When I purchased this car, and after eighteen months my mechanic/friend turned it into a stunning car. The budget changed four times and the final cost was well over what I had estimated. I wonder if he is up for another challenge? I remember thinking that I was mad to take on the project and that I would NEVER do anything like that again..............

Later that day, when I drove up to what seemed like a small castle, four hours away, I was greeted by the very wealthy multiple Ferrari owner. Nice guy, but what a difficult man to deal with. Yes, his price was VERY expensive and there was no room for negotiations. Deal done and the following day I find myself much poorer than I was the day before. Thank goodness that my wife Pat is so understanding (the fact that she is counsellor is also a big bonus).

The shell and crates of spares will be delivered to my house on Tuesday. Hopefully I can persuade my mates, to get excited and involved in this project.

My time scale is 12 months to turn this bag of bits into a fantastic car that I will enjoy and hopefully it will stay with me for some time!

For those interested, I will try and give you a monthly update as to the progress of the rebuild.

Now it off to my garage to try and make space for the arrival of what will hopefully be an exciting and fascinating project.

Anthony
 

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Congratulations :thumbsup: It's great to see another one being brought back to life. Do you know the chassis number? I've got my second one currently half way through restoration and will be collecting a third that also needs restoring in a couple of weeks so am very familiar with your comments on costs always being higher than planned! :grin:
 
isuk said:
Congratulations :thumbsup: It's great to see another one being brought back to life. Do you know the chassis number? I've got my second one currently half way through restoration and will be collecting a third that also needs restoring in a couple of weeks so am very familiar with your comments on costs always being higher than planned! :grin:
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my god........3 .......:thumbsup:
 
love these threads!

you guys should knock up a little website or blog/twitter

that other restro in the states was amazing and i sat there for hours reading a looking at the pictures

looking forward to the updates guys! enjoy
 
Good luck with it, will be watching with interest. Just to keep us Dino lovers happy, any chance of a pic of the other two, just to sort of keep us going? I could be wrong but think I may have seen a pic of your stable on another forum. Weren't we chatting about Dinos being 'misunderstood' by the larger Ferrari comunity in their early life? If it was you the pic of all your cars lines up was fantastic to anyone who likes classic Ferraris.
 
andy74b said:
Good luck with the project, still miss my 246.

Where do you guys find these projects? Would love a gts to restore.
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Shame I'm not around Tuesday morning Ant, otherwise I'd help out mate.

I too am looking for a GTS to restore, so anyone with any information on one out there, let me know!
 
Out of interest, what's the ball park these resto jobs sell for? Ruby's tight as a gnat's chuff, so anything over about 5k isn't going to cut it :grin:

Presumably you could drop a serious amount of money restoring one properly if you have to pay someone to do it (100k?). And that assumes you can find or have made any missing parts. Arguably you'd also end up with a "non-original" car that wouldn't command some of the big money cars are allegedly selling for?

I think it's great that these cars are being brought back to life (and love watching these threads), but the market looks very toppy at the moment to me and if prices to restore are too high the investment potential would seem shaky (assuming that's the intent)?
 
Interesting debate, Andy. When the OGCC visited 355 at dunsfold recently, Andy argued that the difference between this classic car boom and the one in the early '90s was that he was being asked to turn cars round in weeks so that the speculators could shift them at a profit. Whereas now, people with serious money are asking him to restore these cars at almost any cost and do not plan (or need) to sell them.

As it happens, this debate took place around the shell of a Tdf Dino that from memory had been restored in the early '90s....and not very well at that. I was arguing that Dinos at £120k at that time were toppy...

As to what these cars are worth, Ant is as 'shrewd' - I prefer that word to 'tight' :) - as I am, so I could hazard a guess at what he paid...

I think that a good Dino is a very 'manageable' classic Ferrari...not too long or wide, so fits into a standard garage and not too complicated for someone to play with. It still has the classic toggle switches and veglia dials and is lighter and nimbler than a 308. Oh and did I mention just how pretty it is? And the clincher is f course that Danny Wilde drove one :)

More importantly, are you a proud father yet? Must be close to e 2 weeks overdue that I predicted....
 
There are very few totally "unrestored" cars out there. These cars had zero rust protection from new and some required fairly hefty panel replacement by the time they had reached 6 or 7 years old due to fairly aggressive rust issues. The 246 became fairly unloved within the Ferrari world in the late 70's/early 80's following the arrival of the 308 GTB and GTS models and values started to drop rapidly with many examples falling into the hands of owners who didn't spend the necessary money on maintaining them. With the classic boom of the late 80's a lot of cars were hurriedly restored at modest cost to maximise profit, some by bodyshops unfamiliar with the cars. Most cars were repainted into resale red unfortunately. Parts were also harder to come by then so a lot of bodge up's seem to have been done. In light of that it is condition that dictates the value of the car, not necessarily originality.

Fortunately there is now a fairly good supply of high quality replica parts from various sources and due to the rise in values it is economical to do proper restorations. The cars are now 40 years old so values are unlikely to slide again like they did after the last classic boom bubble when they were less than 20 years old.

You'll be extremely lucky to find a low priced example in need of restoration as most of the Dino specialist dealers/restorers are on the trail of any that come to market. Anyone sitting on a less than pristine car knows they have a valuable asset so tend to expect high prices even though a proper restoration will be required to protect the car for the future. I had a fairly tortuous route to buy my second one and had been trying to get it for a year or so. The third car is one I considered when I first started looking for a 246 back in summer 2010 but ruled out on the grounds it needed too much work. I kept in touch with the owner and after gaining invaluable experience restoring my first car, I felt confident enough of the likely costs to take this project on.
 
Good Luck with it Ant.
Looks quite an undertaking.
The guy that did the body work on my car, Is doing a full restoration on a GTS at the moment and he is truly an expert on Dino's, if you need any advise.
He has just bought a new front clip from Ferrari UK, they had it made by Brandoli in Italy, the cost £20K!!!
Grant
 
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