Sorry, guys, been out all day dealing with a very interesting situation tangentally related to the horsie farm. I'll probobly post about it in Silver, but it's been a waaaaayyyyy of the charts day involving someone I almost hired, animal mutilation (not on my property), one of my boarders, a possible kidnapping situation (it wasn't, but she didn't know how dangerous her predicament was), police, and having to speak to an ex-manager who was punted for skimming the deposits. ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, On this car, I haven't yet: - Gone inside yet, where not only is the quality of what was done is consistently abhorrent, but much of it wasn't done at all, and of what was done, ignored what materials went where, as if there weren't emails to which anyone could refer. - Touched the Denials and Deflections themselves yet, nor the pre-shipping paperwork that nukes it. Sorry, Dave, but the versions I have in the emails have more to do with selling me on either how I'm mistaken and it's a great paint job, or that it certainly didn't leave the shop that way. Thus, my running joke about "great value". Much of what's there isn't even covered in the emails, and I just acknowledge that I've shown enough, and really can't stand to keep going on, as the point, and problems are beyond clear by that point. The only custom items I supplied were the leather and Ultrasuede. The Energy Suspension bushings are the same used by anyone else (or shop) who want urethanes on Ferraris rather than the flex-type, and require very minor work because of the slight inconsistencies in the older Ferrari production - a little trimming or shimming. I've done that at home on several cars to a lesser extent, with regular tools. The brake lines would/should have been an easy, and I offered to have them made and shipped, but as noted, Bret had "already handled it". Again, something I've done at home more than once. Larry, I apologize if I revealed something that I'd relegated to the BS pile; after what went on with the 2nd purchase, and especially after delivery of this disaster, I had no reason to believe the veracity of any part of what I had been told by Brett. I've realized that it was all about "selling the job", and I was happily "sold a bill of goods" ( or "sold a bill of sale", as it were). I believe that the engine photos are of the new motor - they look like what I was sent. I looks good, sounds good (I'm still scared to run near redline, for obvious reasons), just don't look at the car itself, or even the under-bonnet pad, or how the struts seem to just possibly be mounted on the wrong sides of the panel frame tubes. This is why I had an Expert perform this.......so it would go back together correctly...... BR & Argento, I'm kinda curious about the receipts, too. I know they can be created to order quickly, though. I can't do that with my emails, which is why I'll log anyone into my account to verify every single thing I'll post here. I can't edit or otherwise modify emails in a Hotmail account server, in any way. I know I have lots of pics implying lots of work, but when you see the result, it just boggles the mind. It LOOKS like it was the same car undergoing all of that. Going to bed, I should have some time tomorrow. I hope.
Seriously? The only way is your way? I thought you threw a temper tantrum way back on page 2 or 3 and were done with this thread.
i dont see you making any better suggestions. Feel free to post one or two - im sure many of us would like to hear them, myself included. Receipts are the proof in the puddng for everyone of us....no matter what you purchase, homes, cars clothes, how else would you determine a deal,good value, or over paid? Unless, the shop and the OP dealt in rice and corn cakes. it scary dealing in an absolute reality isnt it
Just for discussion sake I'm not sure that solves anything. So far there hasn't been any argument about the total amount paid. So far the argument has been over the quality of work.
That's about it, I believe it's... "I don't care if it has electric windows. I don't care if the door gaps are straight but when the driver steps on the gas I want him to **** his pants." Enzo Anselmo Ferrari Yeah, isn't that a 412 thing?? Originally, they were white...are they unobtanium?
If you are saying we don't have the whole story, then lets get the whole story. While I am inclined to side with the OP at this point, he is the one that has decided to publish this story to all of us and should do so in its entirety. ...and this issue must be about the total amount paid. If the OP got the 400 for a dollar, I doubt that he'd be upset about a subpar restoration job.
I haven't spilled everything I know about this, because I don't think it is proper for me to do so. This isn't my beef and it isn't my place to make info public. As a matter of fact I told both parties that they'd have a much better chance of settling this whole matter if they didn't go public. I will tell you it is very obvious most of the people who have posted in this thread have not carefully read every post put up by the 2 parties involved.
You know Dave, I got that same impression. It seems pretty clear to me, & the pictures don't even show up at my end on this thread for some reason. Plus, I read this thread from the last post back to the beginning (one hundred & some posts in a couple days ) & haven't even read the 1st 2 pages but seems rather clear. & I 2nd the 'going public' thing. Again, sad in some ways...
$17,500 (Bill of Sale in post #2) or $24,000 or $29,000 or $41,000 of that was for the car itself. The car was sympathetically restored while not owned by Kurt is how I read the details so far. That to me seems a much larger issue than the paint work woes. The invoices will/would show the breakdown of charges for mechanical, interior, exterior and dis/reassembly. Until we see that it we are left just guessing on the costs involved for each area. Gerrit ex-11966
I think the whole project was doomed from the get-go. The owner stated in post # 1, " basically what he wanted was a brand new, 30+ year old car". Both owner and shop should have known that was an unrealistic expectation given the budget constraints. Ed
While it sounds like we don't know the whole story, I still see it the OP's way. The OP may have had unrealistic expectations, but the person doing the work is the expert after all and should have managed those unrealistic expectations. Why would a shop even get into a project where there wasn't a sufficient budget?
If I got what's sitting here for a dollar, I'd be ecstatic. Financially, it would be and even better basis for a restoration. This is the $999 Earl Schieb paint jerb........there was a coupon involved. The "orange peel" texturing is actually about perfect, but the rooftop and the horizontal surface of the trunk lid are all that's salvageable without it just being a monstrous patchwork of repairs and spot-ins. Larry had sympathetically restored #22579 for his own use, to a standard with which he was happy. It's condition, as described by Brett, made it the perfect basis for building my ideal 400, at the price given by Brett. It wasn't $17,500 PLUS the cost of the motor, or PLUS an additional $XYZ, or anything else. Even if the $24K had been brought up as the price itself, starting at $24K, this would have killed the opportunity that I saw, since there was a pretty good pool of 400s and 400is for sale back then, including the Leake auction cars which we all knew needed some considerable work. Starting with one of those $8-10K disasters, a thorough $10-12K strip/body/paint, $9K interior, and $10K fully replicating what had been done on the Boxer (without the threaded Konis and springs) would have yielded a car that could be driven until the motor popped, and then I'd have James build me the motor I really wanted. I didn't have the time, and Brett had the expertise and the perfect base for a start. I considered a couple of those Leake cars, and seriously considered the Rebirth Auto car that Jay/full_garage bought (but I wanted a carb car, and even spoke to James about converting one). Some of the others out there, like Ashman's silver car (currently for sale again) would have been good cars in a color I was fine with, for high-$20s to high $30s, but then, along came this opportunity. #22579 was decent, but rough, but only at the right price was it worth a basis for the project;otherwise, it was a sub-$10K car without the new motor, from what I could tell in the pictures Brett sent, but nothing that wouldn't be addressed and corrected during the bodywork stage, overseen by a trusted expert, and reassembled by that same expert. Outside of a frame-off restoration, over $40K just for $10-12K body/paint, $9-10K interior, and repeating most of what was done to the Boxer, and an exhaust, incidentals, and checking the diff and gearbox, there should have actually been profit left over before hitting the $60K. The result should have been "basically....a brand new, 30+ year old car". Unfortunately, Brett was the only one who knew that this wasn't starting with a $17,500 cost basis (except Larry, who was not in the restoration loop). ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, I had every intention of keeping this private, with the expectation that this was going to get fixed to the level I had specified and expected, without having to pay for it all over again. I've already paid twice for the car itself, which was bad enough, but I thought I was at least getting that specific result I wanted. It wasn't until 6 months of empty promises, dodging, pointing fingers at the vendors whose work he had accepted (and the shipping company who, for some reason, did all kinds of things to the car's exterior and interior, then reassembled it incorrectly during its trip to Texas), that I had to accept that I was stuck with this thing. The $5,000 offer would have covered the interior repairs and new materials to replace what couldn't be reused somewhere else, with a little left over, but not much: Estimated $2K in labor, plus another black hide and more Ultrasuede, and correct padding underneath. We've still got to fix the mechanics of the driver's seat, one of the rails of the passenger seat, and line-up the support of the driver's seat cushions while hoping the pattern lines still match. I wouldn't turn it down now, but I expected it was gone the moment I shined the spotlight on this atrocity with this thread.
What I meant was that you spent all those $ to sympathetically restore the car while you didn't actually own it, given that you had to pay another $24k at the end to Larry. Based on what you have shown from emails (post #2) something sounds very wrong about giving someone a Bill of Sale in exchange for a chunk of money ($17,500) and not stating that there is more due later (if that wasn't the total sale price). Gerrit ex-11966
"Sympathetically restoring" would have left the red and probably never reached to the original silver. The trim would have been removed just for the purpose of reinstalling it correctly, though, likely with some patchwork spotting to cover some of the repairs. Nor would the whole black interior (excepting the headliner/B/C pillars, and steering wheel, as already been noted) have been recovered with new materials (well, it was supposed to have been). As I've said, the only significant numbers discussed for a very long time were the initial $17,500 in the beginning, and the initial target of $55K, which grew to my realistically-expected $60K, for the whole car, finished. We discussed the exhaust cost and sound, and getting it tucked as far under the car as possible, and leather cost/sq.ft., and later, the cost of two gears while a couple of bearings were replaced, all of which are noted and included in parts of what I've posted so far.
