Update 2/25/09: Seller sent me a few pictures of this car out of the little garage where it’s been living the last 20 years.
Car looks even better out of the cramped garage.
I wish my SS looked this good from behind.
Update 2/20/09: I went and saw (translated that means I drove from Oakland to San Diego and back in 21 hours) this car on Wednesday to either get the idea of buying it out of my head or get the ball rolling on the buy, combine, sell process. It sounds like a big drive just to look at a car, but I also picked up an extra set of door glasses, seats and some small misc from the other SS the seller got with this car, which was stripped, cut up and thrown away due to being ‘very very rusty’. I am listing some of the other parts for the seller on my for sale page.
Looks pretty good as far as projects goes. Headlight appears to be pushed into the body a bit and the marker light has been molested at some point. Hood fit doesn’t look too bad.
Okay, so how is this car you ask? I think it’s pretty good. If you wanted to just drop a running engine in it, do the brakes, lube the suspension and get the electrical parts working you’d have a roadworthy rough SS. Kinda cool. The dash, headliner and all is pretty good, the door panels are out of the car but could be sympathetically installed to achieve the RSS ‘Ratty Sprint Speciale’ look.
The engine you can see propped in it is a blank Veloce block, the crank is out and one of the main caps is missing. The seller says he has more boxes of SS stuff ‘somewhere’ but I would either plan on an align bore or write the block off going into the deal if I didn’t see it. The intake manifold, 40DCOE2’s and plenum are correct for 1300 101 Veloce and I found the fuel pump blank off plate, Marelli distributor, engine front over with aluminum fan etc, so there is a lot of value in what is present. Personally I’d throw a known good 1600 or 1750 in it and keep these bits on the shelf for the ‘restoration’ while I drive it around.
Send me an email at sprints@giuliettas.com if you want to hear more about this car. The seller is ready to deal but this is no fire sale.
Here it is, fresh off the 00121 engine I am going to start rebuilding soon for the SS. It doesn’t look like much but the shaft spins nicely without having any side to side play. I am told these are pretty hard to find and expensive, so I will be careful.
As usual, the finished picture first. The red in the engine compartment came out good. Not great, just good. I think the level of finish in the engine compartment will match the rest of the car if I leave the valve cover alone.
No serious alarm bells yet, except maybe the seeming absence of rockers. I can’t really tell if it’s red over gray or gray over red but important thing is they are both over rust.
It’s like two-face from what was it Batman? Looks like it was a nice car.
So far so good. Trim is excellent and I like the color of the car. Blacked out grill openings are pretty cool. Note wet driveway and remember cars look better when wet.
This is how you used to find them all the time. A little bump in the nose, trim and bumpers in B to B+ condition with good enough fit for a driver, paint with some bald patches and, well ,you get the picture.
It’s a Spider, that’s for sure. Is that bondo around the nose? Sweet.
Looks very good. It’s hard to get all the panels and trim pieces to align and be symmetrical after a repaint. Color is a little boring in my opinion, but I’m sure ‘classy’ in someone elses, at least it’s original.