My POSITIVE experience with Bob Norwood

If my client calls, texts or emails me he gets charged. And all of this is set out in my fee agreement letter and my pre-representation speech. I haven’t trinkets to sell, only my time and if I’m taking calls, responding to texts or emails, I am spending my time. It would be similar to a store giving away their inventory. Very seldom do I hear a complaint and those clients get fired very rapidly.

 

Would fchat be classed as a fake Ferrari website because it is not a product of Ferrari? and has no official affiliation what so ever with the brand?

If Ferrari had their own chat site, would this one then be looked down on, and dismissed?

 

I think you’re being overly sensitive. This is young guy car bs.

Personally I could care less what anybody does with their car, even a Ferrari. I remember the story of the guy who painted his Ferrari GTO in camo colors. I thought that was cool, but others might disagree. Think of all the criticism on here about people who cut up cars to make 250 GTOs. At least, we’re talking about cars here. I’d cut him some slack.


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Given his recent history here, I did.

This ain't my first rodeo Dale.

D

 

Now, how did I know this wasn't your first rodeo?

 

I agree an entire project estimate to be accurate wouldn't be reasonable, which is what I said, but I think the piecemeal fashion should be. If he said he could do the frame stretch $2,500 (which is only 1 small piece of the project), then he should stick to that. If he realizes later it took more than anticipated then he needs to eat the cost himself and do better job on estimating the next small task. He's done the stretching before from what I've read with other cars so he should be able to give an accurate estimate for just that job alone. Kinda like doing fixed hour billing on car service at the dealer regardless of how fast or long they take as certain items are not new tasks never done before.

That nickle and diming strategy to work and bill would be really frustrating to me as a customer. I rather pay a higher rate up front then get something like that where they bill just to move the dang car off a trailer. Unbelievable. I guess that's why others in this thread don't speak highly of that shop.

 

I don't know the man - never met nor spoke to him. My comments are just my experience thru business and life. I've done a great deal of work that had to be quoted (not estimated) up front and it's not an awesome place to be. I've designed full blow assembly machines in which I quoted the entire machine before a design. Yep, that's estimating the cost to produce parts that I've not even invented yet

Not fun - that's why I no longer do that type of work - more losers than winners. Restoration shops are dying or the ones succeeding are getting paid properly what the work takes. I've tried to get a bare metal respray estimate from one of the most prestigious Ferrari shops in the US - they thru out a ball park of $70K and when I asked for them to take a more detailed look, that was the last time we spoke (probably 1- year ago). It's clear they simply don't want the work if they can't get paid their time. We could debate that ball park number but that's not for this thread.

 

and thats not a personal insult at me? I swear man you're a walking contradiction, but you're a mod so you can say that......

Earlier in this thread you made a commented pointed at me

"What you did was cleverly phrase your version of, "You're an idiot."

you just did the same thing insulting me using different words discussing "my recent history". Keep up the great unbiased work.

 

I'm going to make the one and only comment on this topic. Dave and I started off rather rocky. I will tell you honestly, as a mod he is EXTREMELY fair and unbiased. He has earned my respect. Big time.

 

That's fine Im sure he's a great guy, but the reality is he rants about what I say and then throws a subtle jab at me. We're all adults here, we don't need our teacher threatening to put us in timeout if he doesn't agree with what we say. The owner of this site called the OP an idiot for goodness sake. I don't think I said anything in here that was worthy of a threat from Dave. We made our peace in DM and then he wants throw out comments about "my history" which includes bans on nonsense like debating economic statistics about US GDP. Good Lord I thought we paid $50/year to be able to take the gloves off in these forums.

 

Actually, these forums were created to put on the gloves. It was a bit rocky here during the early days.

P&R particularly got way out of control. I still have Maranelloman's pictures, which I threaten to post every now and then.

But there's nothing wrong with heated debate. Just keep it between the sidelines.

 

The TL/DR for those just joining us is that the OP reported that he was happy with the work done by Bob Norwood and was fine with the final invoice issued before he picked up his 288GTO tribute project and took it home with him. He posted this as a counterpoint to the recent thread complaining about Mr. Norwood. Subsequently, his motives have been questioned and both he and his car have been insulted.

After that, things turned ugly...

 

Well this escalated rather quickly into multiple first world problems.

OP I hope it all works out for you and I'm glad to hear you are happy with the way things are going, which is all that matters.

 

I've never even been to a rodeo.

 

My wife - a Texan - took me to my first rodeo a few years back. Some fine looking senoritas. Highly recommended!
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T

 

Ooooh, 288 pr0n! I love it.

Since this thread has gone so far sideways, I'll ramble:

I love 288s. To my eye, they're one of the prettiest Ferraris ever built, and considering the sheer number of beautiful cars that have come out of Maranello that's saying something. The first Ferrari I ever drove was a 288, and since then two other very generous owners have allowed me the opportunity to track their concours level cars. To say I'm a fan would be an understatement, so obviously I'd love to own one. But with only 27x ever produced (I've read both 272 and 277, but how many detractors in this thread can come up with either number off the top of their head?) demand outweighs supply to the degree that even if you can afford one in today's market you'd want to be very selective about when and where you drove it, if for the sake of preservation if nothing else. Just because you an afford to wreck a ~3 million dollar car doesn't mean you should take wild risks when there were so few made.

As a purist (and I am one at heart) I hate that perfectly restorable cars have been sacrificed to build clones for profit. Fans of the marque who have been around a while have seen V12 cars which were not particularly valuable at the time used as the basis for TR and GTO (250, that is) clones. It sucks that it happened, but that doesn't mean that I hate those clones today-- it's not their fault that they were built. What matters to me is whether they pay proper homage to the original, and that they are never represented to be original. I don't care if they wear original badges-- the more accurate the better when it comes to tribute cars, but they should never, ever be passed off as the real deal.

In this case the OP is arguably rescuing a chassis that most likely would have been broken if it had fallen into other hands. So what's worse-- chopping a car up for parts or rebuilding it into a tribute car? As a purist, I can see where original parts allow other cars to stay on the road, but from a practical perspective I hate seeing a Ferrari chassis trashed because it's financial suicide to restore it. There will probably come a time where restoring even this basket case will make sense, but truth be told the chances are very high that this car was going to the breakers if the OP hadn't picked it up.

Speaking of the OP, who can deny his allegiance to the marque? He owned this car years ago with the intent of putting it back on the road. He's amassed an amazing collection of original 288 parts in order to make his car as original as possible (more on that later). I don't know the OP-- I don't even recognize his screen name, but it's safe to say he has a long held affection for the marque and the 288. Longer, perhaps, than some of the detractors in this thread.

Speaking of detractors, where are all the "kit car" comments in the other thread? The OP is going to great lengths to recreate the original look of a 288. The other car is a 308 with fender flairs. Why all the vitriol in this thread and yet so little in the other? Something to think about...

Now, as to the 288 pr0n pics, that's where I become conflicted. As a purist I'd rather see these parts used as spares to keep the originals as original as possible. On the other hand, the parts were presumably offered for sale to anyone with the wherewithal to buy them, and the OP is committed enough to his project to pony up for them. If nothing else, the OP deserves respect for the lengths to which he's willing to go to pay homage to a car that's clearly special to him.

Most of us are here because we love the marque. Most of us are Type A, and highly opinionated. I get that, and I can see where people would rather see even a junk heap 308 restored, or why some might object to original 288 parts being used on a tribute car. But we should all be able to see the passion with which the OP has approached this project, so even if we disagree with his direction we owe him the respect due a fellow aficionado of the marque. Sadly, that has not been given here.

4G6308, your project speaks volumes about your passion for Ferrari. We're within driving distance so I hope we get to meet at some point. Until then, best of luck on your project and please keep the updates coming.

 

Because of the notion that this thread is a defense of the indefensible. If Bob Norwood is a bad guy, the premise of the other thread, then how can he also NOT be a bad guy? This thread runs contrary to the current mob mentality, so it gets attacked on all fronts. (I am not a fan of chopping up cars and turning them into something else, but I can't argue that it's within an owner's right to do so, and within our rights to object to it.)

They're so busy feeling compassion and understanding for the owner of the other project car that they haven't attacked him, yet, for making a 308 into a bitsa 288.

But if the OP of this thread is defending Bob, then he has to be a bad guy too, just like Norwood is perceived to be. Thus, attacking his project in as virulent a way as possible, serves the dual purpose of discrediting the project and the guys undertaking it, Norwood and the owner of the car.

That, in a nutshell, is the reason the OP is getting attacked. It's less about this car, and way more about Bob Norwood and the perceived idiocy of his billing methods and WHAT he does to perfectly fine 308s when he chops 'em up and makes 'em into 288 GTO replicas, in general.

D

 

The way I see it, it's about how these objections are made. The OP seems as polite as anyone here, so why the vitriol?
This isn't the corvette forum.

 

For the record, the only comment I ever made is about Norwood's crap billing, and as someone who had a husband in the body shop business for 20 years, all on luxury/exotic cars, I will never back down from that statement. I'm WELL aware of the job he did, how many unpaid hours he worked, and what was charged to customers. I also live in the Dallas area and this is not the first or last story I'll hear about Norwood's questionable methods of business.

The OP can do whatever he wants with his car, but he probably needs to expect that many will definitely know it's a conversion and pass judgement based on that.