1983 308 GTBi Restoration

[mbwoy84]

This has still been progressing. The pace slowed considerably for a few months with life and other work getting in the way (which it has a habit of doing!), but in the background parts have been being sourced and others refurbished. The engine is almost ready to put back together and whilst I had a bit of a free-ish window over the Christmas period I decided to crack on with the body and paintwork

[mbwoy84]

The photos outside were of the shell pulled straight out of the booth and into the daylight. The one photo of the front wing inside is halfway through the polishing stage. The Rosso needs to look like something that has been carved out of a block of solid colour, rather than something that has been painted, but I'm very pleased with the initial finish.

The whole body including all panels were stripped to bare metal via soda blasting. All rusted sections were cut out and replaced with new as per factory welds (there wasn't an awful amount of new metal required really, just the "usual" places). OEM Ferrari panels were used wherever available. Otherwise, new panels were fabricated exactly as per original dimensions etc.

The whole body was then treated with a hot zinc coating, followed by an epoxy and polyester primer. The black areas (chassis etc) were all then top coated in Raptor, which is the closest to an indestructible coating that currently exists. The interior hidden red parts were coated with the same thing, but a clear tintable version where you add the body colour to the mixture. The problem with other similar coatings where you top coat them is that whilst the coating itself has some "flex" in it, the paint on the top won't. This way it is still just one flexible, but hard coating. Very clever.

The body colour is original Glasurit Rosso Corsa FER300. I wanted to stick with the original paint manufacturer as there is of course a paint sticker on the car proudly advertising the use of Glasurit Paint. I have opted for a more modern base and clear system though as it is a more modern development and gives a vastly superior finish and durability. Glasurit is probably at least 3 times more expensive than your average, but good quality paint, but to keep the provenance plus for the highest quality finish, I think it's worth it.

Also, this car wore the original shade of FER300 Rosso Corsa, which to me, on the 1980s cars is the best shade, as with FER300/6, FER300/9 and FER300/12 the shade seemed to have an increasingly more orange tint to it and my preference on this shape of car is the deeper red.

Hopefully it will look stunning with the doors hanged and other panels fitted, ready for rebuild.

[Pangea]

Looking good.

[Mike01606]

[emoji106][emoji106][emoji106]

Looks great...

[Nosevi]

Really looking forward to seeing this come together

[Quigs]

Looks great. Now the fun begins trying not to damage the paint on reassembly!