David Piper restores the Talacrest P4

The car was a P4 when it was built. It was then converted to the can am. The P4 is the more original version in my eyes. The can am is a cut and chop, which many of you would freak out about if it was any other Ferrari. "oh god..they chopped the roof on a 400i!! Burn the car!! Burn the owner at the stake!!"

 

I'm not sure. All I know is that in David McKay's Scuderia Veloce book (Buy David Mckay's Scuderia Veloce Book by David Mckay (9780908031788) at Angus and Robertson with free shipping) he says when #0858 turned up in Australia it came with a container of spares, including engine(s) and gearbox(es). Enough to build another car sort of ...
Pete

 

You continually miss the point.

Ferrari modified this car, not Joe Bloggs in his home shed. Remember Ferrari build these cars originally thus when they decide to change their OWN race car to a different form it is 100% legit. In this process #0858 became a Can Am car. Now if anybody else had done the modification returning it to P4 form would be the correct action but because Ferrari did it, #0858 as a P4 is gone. Ferrari effectively used the P4 form of #0858 as raw materials and created #0858

This is the same as Ferrari modifying #0846 from a P3 to a P4.
Pete

 

AFAIK P3 0846 was modified into P3/4 not a full P4.

 

No..you miss the point. The car started life as a P4. Who or what was done to it afterwords is a change to how it rolled off the line. Don't care if Ferrari did it, or a guy who worked at joes cheese shop. The car was a coupe first and foremost. Changing it back may be a shame, but that is what the car was when it was built. You cannot change that fact.

 

And the GTOs that were modified into GTO 64s will best be served by reverting them to "original" spec?

 

Or should we revert Daytona's and Dino's back to raw metal stock because apparently we don't care that Ferrari built them anymore.

tbakowsky,
Come on, we as Ferrari enthusiasts, have to put considerable weight on what the Ferrari factory did, otherwise we are incredibly hypercritical (right word?) and undermining the very basis of our interest.
Pete

 

Gets to the question of what makes a Ferrari a Ferrari.

 

Absolutely.

Pete

 

My 'ah ha' moment. It all makes sense now.

Fake Ferrari - Ford engine. How sad...

>8^)
ER

 

I gotta Agree with PSK on this one... You are TOTALLY missing the point. Sure.. the car did start out its life as a P4 BUT...<(and that's a BIG but) it ended its useable racing life (which at the time was all these cars were built for) as a factory built 350 Can Am car and that (how the car left Ferrari in period when it was last built for a specific purpose) is what defines what this car is. Any P4 remanants that made it's way into 350 Can Am were nothing but a parts basket to build a new car. There are a significant amount of parts in 350 Can Am that were never in the P4. Whereas now there is even less of a Ferrari there, P4 or 350 Can Am, then there was before this chop started.

Not only are we losing the last of a piece of history and rendering that Ferrari History extinct we are also ending up with a car that is half of an original 350 Can Am and much less of the original parts that actually ran in the P4 version instead of having a 100% original Ferrari that was with us a short time ago.

The Irony of all this is that the car was in much better hands when Medelin had it, Barn falling over it and all. At least then it was a historically correct Ferrari.

Now you might as well toss a Meyers Manx Body on it and rip er around the race track. It wouldn't be any less of a real ferrari then one with a P4/$ re-body.

 

P4 0858 seized to exist when Ferrari used it to build 0858 350 Can Am. There is no more 0858 P4 in the world, and there will never be.

0858 today is a REPLICA of 0858 P4, made by butchering 0858 350 Can Am, a red-book certified Ferrari racing car.

How can this not be wrong?

How can this not be sad?

Best,

Jack.

 

0858 originally created as a P4. Now it's going to be preserved as nearly as possible as originally created. tongascrew

 

Can you preserve something that has ceased to exist?

 

In terms of its current state does anyone dare guess a percentage for just how much of the the original P4 exists now that has been preserved over the years and what percentage of this Piper P4 is actually new metal and parts?

 

Personally I don't really care which category, if any, 0858 goes into. It will always be a P4 s/n 0858.Let's remember it for its successes rather than it failures. We like to remember are heroes first for what made them great and and only later for their mistakes. Read any biography of any famous person or thing and it will emphasize what made them great,despite, well documented failures along the way. In a way 0858 is a perfect example of Enzo Ferrari embodied in one of his creations. tongascrew

 

Oh,I understand quite well.That doesn't mean I agree. Much of the pleasure of this "back and forth" is in the debate. Since you have brought up my replica it is what it is. My wife and I built much of this car.It is not badged as a real Ferrari would be. Any Ferrari type could spot it.I made sure of this. I have a pretty good idea why you brought up the issue. It doesn/t help your image.Everyones life is filled with replicas,even yours as well as mine. So let's stay with the subject at hand. It's really why there is a "chat' after Ferrari. tongascrew

 

Preserved is not the correct word to use. The Can Am Version was preserved. This car will be recreated and will be a copy. There will be less Real Ferrari left once this is done. If what you want is "preserved as nearly as possible as originally created." then you would want 350 Can Am to stay as is.

You can't preserve what isn't there.

I would like to know this too. Whatever number it is it will be less then exists of 350 Can Am.

 

If we measured the other surviving Ferrari racers by the same standards as the originality fetishists do in this case we better move most discussions of GTOs etc in the recreation & replica section......seriously what a joke. The core of this car is a slightly chopped P4 frame, original Ferrari and all, thats way more than many other cars around have that claim the s/n of a historic race car and are considered perfectly genuine.

0858 would have been converted back to P4 long ago already, but WM obviously had other priorities......PB (RIP) did the same with his CanAm decades ago and Ive never heard anyone flaming him for that.

 

Hi Pete,

Thanks for the reply post no 1002 stating;

"I'm not sure. All I know is that in David McKay's Scuderia Veloce book (Buy David Mckay's Scuderia Veloce Book by David Mckay (9780908031788) at Angus and Robertson with free shipping) he says when #0858 turned up in Australia it came with a container of spares, including engine(s) and gearbox(es). Enough to build another car sort of ...
Pete"

The question I am left with is that if Ferrari supplied these spares, and you appear to indicate far more items than I was assuming was included, do you not think that Ferrari was considering that the next purchaser may want to convert back into the P4 style? If not, then why include all the spares, unless they were all based upon the Can Am?

Anybody know how many Can Am engines and gearboxes were built, not that many I would have thought?

Anybody have the facts here, or is it down to guesswork?

Regards

Jong

 

Ferrari supplied the spares because they probably had no use for them.

Things are usually simpler than revisionist history makes them out to be.

It's been repeated here to exhaustion that 0858 had basically all different "Tipo" components to a P4. It makes it a different car. No one is disputing there was a P4 with that serial number. The key word is "was". It was destroyed - ceased to exist entirely - after pretty much every major component on the car was altered so it could begin its life as a 350 Can Am, serial number 0858. Different car. Like a S2 GTO is a different car from the S1 GTO that spawned it, and is treated as such. Taking the 350 Can Am chassis engine gearbox and wheels and putting a P4 type body on it makes it a non-period rebody. Makes it not worth the same as a real P4. Makes it less of a real Ferrari that if it were still an original, factory certified, 350 Can Am.

The car Talacrest will be selling is neither the car that won all those races back in the day, or the car that lost all those can am races back in the day. It will be a dealer-commissioned, overexpensive (at 25 million), incorrectly made hackjob. A beautiful one - more beautiful than most - but still, it is no resurrection. By the way, you could also call any of the 350 Can Am's "hackjobs". That's basically what they were. But the difference is Ferrari did the hacking, in period. That means a lot.

In the end, it will probably not matter much to the person who buys it in that state - just like the fitting of a P4 body to 350 Can Am 0860 did not matter to owner Pierre Bardinon - but it will not be a real P4, and it will certainly not be P4 0858 which no longer exists, as Ferrari has made clear with their statements, more than once.

 

Aren't there a couple of these P cars around today which "no longer existed" at some point or another?

 

I believe so, certainly Piper's "0900". But if they come up for sale their history will be reflected in their price vis-a-vis a more original example.

That before there even having been the question of "were they rebuilt at the expense of a very real, very rare, very original and historically significant Ferrari?"

 

The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

 

Very well said!