1985 Ferrari 400i 5-Speed Chassis 54877

It most certainly is a butt dragger! Pretty nice cosmetic condition overall though and a rare 5 speed with CA BAR sticker.

Thanks for continuing to document Sam!

Ruben

 

Do we have an original color for it? I can't imagine it was resale-red from new.

Also the differed maintenance is being corrected faster than the mileage is going up. Does anyone have any ideas on the car's story?

Regards,

Art S.

 

It was gold when Sun International performed the US compliance. It was already red in September 1989 when Vintage Motors, Encinitas, CA had it for sale, described as a one owner, Californian car, with 27,800 km.

 

Wow! Thanks for tracking that down!

That said, in spite of gold coming back into fashion, I'm not sure if its enough of an improvement over resale red, to warrant returning it to original, especially considering it's been resale red for most of its life.

Regards,

Art S.

PS. That said, its growing on me.

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David Osborne had one in this color at the Audrain Museum. He sold it about three years ago. Beautiful color in person

 

The seller claims this vehicle is leased.

Have any of you guys heard it that on 80s Ferrari? lol

I guess premier financial


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So the auction got canceled after the car didn’t make test drive.

What are you thought ? Would it be fuel pump issue?

Jun 19 at 2:54 PM

Rahtok This author's likes: 463
So. I drove to Oregon to give this car a personal visit and test drive. It should be noted that the car has an issue with running. I was unable to complete a test drive either last night or this morning. We pushed the car into the garage last night and had to get a tow back this morning after it quit running half a mile from the shop. AC is non functioning, driver side mirror is inop, antenna is inop, there are several holes in the exhaust.

@Bat This car should be listed as a non-running project as of this moment.

@SELLER is aware of these and I believe they are attempting to contact BaT. But interested parties should be aware as I am not seeing any disclosure about these issues to date.

Jun 19 at 3:04 PM

Vintage_Underground (The Seller) This author's likes: 95
Rahtok: yes we appear to have had a fuel pump fail last night. Not particularly timely, but it happens. We are fixing it now. AC also did stop, we are addressing that as well.
There is a split at the very rear of the exhaust just prior to the tip on the passenger side, that is shown in the pictures.
This comment's likes: 1


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Stuff happens. The question will be how the owner and dealer handle it. The car has had a lot spent on differed maintenance catch-up. The question is by who and of what quality? If the owner was experiencing a similar trend as the bidder who came for the test drive, it could explain why has decided to part with it. As with any car you didn't restore, we don't know if everything the car needs done and done well and this was just bad luck with it not being completely sorted or is there a long way to go before you have a happy driver?

I suspect there are still a few hidden annoyances that a few more months of headaches and $5 - $7k will take care of, but that's a guess without having done any real homework.

Regards,

Art S.

 

Hello Everyone! This might be my first post here, but I've had a lurking account for a while.

So the reason I went to go test drive this car was because I met the owner at a club event in Spokane last weekend. Charming fellow - and is the kind to own cars, not work on them. I've been low-key looking for a 400i for a while but had other priorities so hadn't put a lot of effort into it. But having one pop up relatively close to home (I'm in Seattle, car is down in Eugene, OR) was a good opportunity to take a good look, at least get the wife's opinion, and maybe even get one. So we did the 5 hour + drive down to peek at it prior to auction close.

And here is where the craziness starts. It should be noted that this is the first Ferrari I'd ever seriously looked at for purchase, but I'm no stranger to quirky older cars as I own both a 928 and a couple RR Shadows. From this, you can deduce I'm a masochist already, right?

Anyway, we get there and honestly the car presents visually pretty well. There's one ding and one moderate crease in the rear left fender, but otherwise the respray is of a good quality. The interior also presents nicely, with just a little bit of work needed on the drivers seat bolster. The restorer in charge of this car for the last couple of years is Vintage Underground there in Eugene. I'd never heard of them, but Haugland is a part owner and they've got a sizeable operation with over 20 employees I saw across at least 3 facilities in the area. The reasons I'm starting here is because they knew I was driving down at the last minute on my own dime to check out the car, and quite frankly - not only did they not go through the car to verify what did and didn't work before I arrived, they didn't appear to do so before posting it to BaT.

Before starting it I wanted to do a visual check followed by making sure everything with electrics worked. I found a few... /cough here's a list.

• Headlights inop - you could try to turn them on but they'd reveal, hide, wink, and change their mind
• Antenna inop
• left drivers mirror inop
• no lights in trunk, glove box work
• hood release doesn't work (gascap and trunk did)
• radio would 'reboot' when messing with passenger side fan control (more about radio stuff soon)
• left rear blinker barely lights and flashes very quickly, despite bulbs front and rear being ok. right blinker was a more sane blinking rate, but the rear right was also quite dim.
• A couple holes in the exhaust

The radio is it's own sordid story I think. Pics above show a thumpin something something system when the car was obtained by the current owner. He had the shop 'remove everything' and put a Continental unit in. I found snipped wires in the back to either side of the rear AC unit that I am assuming was just the rear speakers connections... but they're just dangling back there. The shop did not hook them up. And clearly - because the power to the unit was observably flaky, I am unsure as to the quality of said wiring work.

Anyway, after all that I turned it on and it fired right up. Lit instantly, idled well, let it run for a couple of minutes to see gauges, etc. Turned it off, waited a couple minutes to get situated and then go out on a test drive. We got in, backed it out, and was waiting for the Shop representative to lock up and hop in the car (Wifey squoze in back). While in the lot idling, I had her turn on the rear AC fan so we could start seeing how well the AC worked. This may be coincidence, but as soon as we turned on the rear fan the car abruptly quit. It didn't sputter or cough, just died. It was idling nicely prior to that. Turned off everything and tried to restart. Took a couple of times, but it did start. Rep hopped in and then it quit again while touching nothing. Took a couple tries, but it restarted and I was going to try and drive it around the parking lot. Got 100' before it quit and couldn't get it restarted. He decides he's going to have it lugged to the shop in the morning (different facility) to check things out, and the side benefit is there's a lift there so I can spend a little time under the car. Morning comes, they declare the car just needed fuel and that the fuel gauge is awol (something the owner has receipts of them servicing). Car's on the lift, come look and go for a drive - so that's the morning plan.

Car has been recently dry ice blasted. Definitely clean under there, and you can see overspray from it's original Gold color. But most things look pretty good, so we take it down. The shop owner Joe pulls the car off the lift, starts it up, and drives it around the block. NICE - I'm kinda excited. Fuel gauges going awol aren't that big of a deal. So we all pile in to go for a ride and it doesn't start again... and again... and again. After 10 minutes of fiddling fires up again. I honestly want this test drive now. Came a long way, hotel, food, etc. Stayed lit long enough to back out and get into 2nd before it dies under throttle. I coasted us to the side of the road and they had to go grab a trailer to take it back. I checked out the fuse panel under the passenger foot and honestly... things looked pretty good in there. No melted/distorted plastic. No visible signs of oxidation so I don't think the car was ever 'moist inside' for any significant amount of time. I didn't take a multimeter to it but... visually was better than I expected.

We were about 4 hours from the end of the auction at that point. I kinda looked pointedly at the shop owner and told him he ought to cancel the auction at this point. Car isn't what the ad copy says it is (more on this in a moment too) and if they didn't post anything, I would. Two hours before auction, nothing from BaT or the Shop/Seller, so I posted the brief version of the above as I'd be more than a little livid to win an auction and find out everything I'd found out post purchase.

So... in the end... I'm not left with a great impression of Vintage Underground. They're charging a serious chunk of change to represent the car on behalf of the owner, (the owner thought the car sorted and ready to go btw, and for the amount of money he's handed to the shop, that was a reasonable assumption IMO) they've had the car for at least 18 months to work on it, and within 20 minutes I found a significant amount of things that were inop/broken that were NOT listed as inop in the BaT copy. You can claim 'things fail' all you like, but not THAT much that shouldn't have disclosure in the listing (e.g. antenna is not connected, rear speakers are not connected, holes in exhaust, etc). Felt a little like Amateur Hour on the part of the shop. Add into that they had billed the owner for AC repair (that didn't blow cold) and fuel gauge repair (that just sat in the middle of the range regardless of fuel level) and I kinda question their QA on their own work.

I think the bones of the car are likely fine, but as an experienced long term owner of a pair of Rolls-Royce Silver Shadows... my opinion is they've got electrical issues, not mechanical. At this point in time, I don't know if the owner is going to sell the vehicle or not. I've told him I'm still interested, but for all the things that still need addressing, my offer price is going to take that into account. I suspect that he may not be willing to take THAT big of a hit on his investment, but we shall see.

What I *am* sure of now is that I want one. Even though my 'drives' were brief, I liked the fit, I liked the experience, and what's more - so did my wife. I'm not overly fond of this cars respray color, but I suppose it's arguably better than gold. If any of you have or know of a manual that is available, I'm in the market and would love to talk to you. I definitely want one.

 

As Brian (BJWhite) and I have commented on the BaT thread, it almost certainly was not "a" fuel pump failure that caused the car to shut down during the test drives since there are two independent fuel systems and the likelihood of both fuel pumps failing at the same instant is close to zero.

Most likely electrical or ignition.

 

First, welcome aboard and thank you for the detailed description! While it may be a minor electrical gremlin, the other stuff you found is more concerning and doesn't speak well of the shop. The problem is, you don't know how the non-electrical stuff was done and by who. The right shop will make that car, or equivalent, a joy.

Wait until you try a good one, or a good 365GT/4 (same body but older) - sounds like a 365GTC/4.

Assuming Brian or one of the other guys here doesn't have a car to try. If you come out to the east coast, reach out to Tom Yang, he's the current king of the older V-12 2+2s (he apprenticed under Francois Sicard). He'll probably point you in the right direction and may find you a test drive of a sorted car.

Regards,

Art S.

 

Thanks Art! I'll definitely be continuing my search for a 400 or 365GT/4. I'm also staying in touch with the current owner of this car - I think he's in a bit of a conundrum really. If I get additional updates on this car, I'll toss them in this thread.

 

This is incredible detail and shows a lot more problems than your brief description on BaT, which was concerning anyway. I would encourage you to post the full description on that pulled BaT auction because all of the issues you listed were not described at all by the dealer selling the car and that information should be made public.

Sounds like a nightmare experience with a dealer who inspired zero confidence.

 

Sounds like a car plaged with electrical issues. Given it did quit when the AC electric valve was engaged, I presume the relay panel is on its last leg.

Should be adressed properly, it is no such a big deal but speaks volume about the lack of knowledge of whoever took care of this (otherwise good looking) car.

 

Car is for sale now on Hemmings with a 91k asking price. Car description is incomplete as it does not include the non operational / broken items like antenna, fuel gauge, drivers side mirror, or even the dent just behind the driver side door ahead of the rear left wheel. Additional items of note for this car. The trunk repair when they pulled the aftermarket giant stereo system out of it required remaking the trim panel between the trunk and rear seat. It's simply wedged in there and is incorrect for a car with rear AC. When the stereo was replaced, they only hooked up the two front speakers and have left the rear speakers in place but simply snipped the wires. Electrically, there are some odd repairs.When they went to fix a problem with power to the fuel pumps, instead of diagnosing/fixing the weak power to the pumps, they added a relay and ran new wire to draw power directly from the battery. Same was done for the window lift motors, although I tend to think that's an improvement that's OK because it takes the window switches out of the responsibility for carrying full current for the windows.

I honestly think the bones here are fine, but this car needs several of these items addressed before it could be used very well and the shop hasn't been particularly forthright about disclosing what those things are. Caveat Emptor.

https://www.hemmings.com/classifieds/listing/1985-ferrari-400i-eugene-or-2802263

 

Now for sale for $96.5k at BHCC.

https://www.beverlyhillscarclub.com/1985-ferrari-400i-5-speed-c-16869.htm

 

When I was looking for my 400i in 1998, the cars were only 13-19 years old but now they are 39-45 years old and a lot of things can be done or happen to a car over all that time. This one appears to have a lot of deferred maintenance as well as many bodged modifications and repairs.

Fixing normal wear and tear is expensive enough but tracing and fixing someone else's mistakes is even more expensive. TIme, money, and patience will be required and a prospective owner should factor that in to any offer price.

 

I think I know that shop!!! Originally in Canada?

 

I... don't think so. Was small until a big investment by local car dude Alex Haugland provided a shot in the arm. Alex is a good dude, and I don't know how much he is involved in the day to day operations. I was just not impressed with my whole experience with them though. Either with the honestly of the BaT description compared to the actual condition of the vehicle, nor the vehicles quality of repairs or accuracy as to how they should be repaired.