gemellocattivo.com

I sincerely hope so!



Yes, I may well go down that route, however, my current plan is to see if I can interest one of the big classic car magazines in doing a feature on it. It's an interesting car with an interesting history (a 1959 Aston Martin DB4 that needs complete restoration), so would make a good feature - and possibly help me find a buyer at the same time!

Another very cool car! Yeah, maybe talk someone into a "barn find" article on it but I'm never sure if that drives the right interest. I post over on Grassroot motorsports and they love the project, good suggestions, but there is no one in the market over there. Good luck with it!

I wasn't going to talk about what the car was as it gives folk the wrong idea about me (I haven't got two pennies to rub together), but then decided that as people like yourself and the others who frequent the site are probably already on my page, I might as well 'fess up!

Oh I get it.......believe me I get it.

Still, a couple very cool project cars you've grabbed over the years so I imagine its hard to let either one go. I've been through my storage space looking for stuff to sell to keep the V12 project moving so many times that at this point I'm not sure I still own anything worth over $20

Yes, I know you do, which is why I owned up!



Yes, I spent everything I had at the time to buy each of them (seven years apart) and lived on beans in order to do so. 'People' generally hear the two manufacturer's names and go 'Oh, rich ****er'...



Yes, I've been dragging stuff out as part of my big clearout and selling it a) for the money and b) for the room they took up. This morning a chap turned up here and collected a big job lot of old camera equipment that was occupying valuable shelf space. It didn't raise much, but it was a whole load of stuff I no longer had to think about. Once I've made my decision as to how the Dino project will go I'll probably start listing all the stuff I won't be needing, like engine, trans, wheels, etc. Hopefully, that'll raise a reasonable amount towards the replacement parts!

Well, I've done a load more garage clearing/reorganisation - despite my Good Lady detailing me to rotavate the new lawn in preparation for the turf to go down and do a variety of other mundane Brownie Point tasks. One advantage of all her activities is that she decided that she no longer needed a pair of kitchen cupboard units. These were just the right width to go into an alcove to the left of my milling machine. After much sweating and cursing and many hours with a hole saw, I now have one of them fitted out to take all my milling chucks. This means that I can now use the chuck that I need, not the one that I can reach (due to them all being piled into a deep steel drawer and thus only those at the top being accessible).

I've also cut a number of two inch thick oak kitchen worktop offcuts so that they fit onto the shelves in the other cupboard unit. Tomorrow, I plan to drill as many holes of the appropriate sizes as I can get in them - these will then form racks which will allow me to easily access most of my milling cutters without having to fight my way through bins of the damned things.

Except where there are cars or machine tools, I can now also see all the garage floor, something that until now has evaded me for more time than I care to admit to - Hallelujah!

So - it's been over a month since I last posted, and more or less all I've done since then is yet more garage clearance/organisation. I've managed to get everything where it should be - I've built various tool racks, etc. so all I have left to do now is sort through about 20 bins of stuff and I'm done. I'm determined to get them cleared before starting any new projects, but in the meantime it hasn't stopped me daydreaming about the Dinosaurus and exactly what I should be doing with it.

I have to confess that I had a bit of mental check light come on a couple of days ago when I saw an eBay advert for a Dino of a similar age to mine being offered for £375,000 (that's UK pounds, not dollars). On looking into it further, it was due to go into a specialist auction which has since ended. The company's website now shows it as being available for £431,250. There was also another on eBay for sale at £300,000...

While I appreciate fully the fact that it would cost a fair sum to restore mine to the necessary standard, I already have most of the parts ready and waiting, so it'd mostly be time and effort. I also have all the relevant equipment and experience, however, after much navel-searching, I've come to the realisation that I am just not a restoration person. My career was as a motor racing engineer, and that is where my psyche still lies. Having to fit a bolt that I rated as sub-standard simply because that's what the factory used would keep me awake at night. So - a straight restoration is not going to happen here.

That leaves me sitting back and looking at the car wondering:

a) Should I just sell it 'as is' complete with spare front and rear body shells?

b) Should I sell it 'as is', but keep the spare front and rear body shells and then build them onto something like a written-off (i.e. crashed) 458* chassis?

c) Should I say 'To hell with the supposed value', and just do what I was intending to do - fit a 458* engine into the Dino chassis?

d) As per 'c', but with the addition of selling all the unnecessary parts off the Dino, which would help considerably towards funding the project?

*When I say '458', I mean one of that family...

'Fortunately', I can't afford to proceed yet, so until I've sold some stuff to raise the required funds I don't need to make any decisions. There is a lot of soul-searching going on though...

I'll start with what is right for you only you can decide....but I'm happy to offer an opinion

I think you knew a 246 was an expensive car but also knew that is not quite what you have. Expensive cars are generally expensive because they are made from expensive parts. Something like a 250GTO is worth WAY more than the cost of parts...a nice car is $30M+ but an FIA homologated copy is $500k-$750K...and the original title is worth $29M. A Dino is not a 250 gto.....so is a nice car is 300k-500k then my guess is you'd spend the same in parts to build one. A clean title with useable chassis and body parts I guess $30-$100 but you probably could make a few calls to get a better idea.

After that its up to you whether or not the project is worth it to you. You are talking about a $50-100k project on top of the parts you already have....and I continue to caution against the 358 path due to space. Running and looking good with the wrong but much higher hp ferrari engine will yield a desirable car. Well finished you'd have a $200k+ car is my guess but only a finished car listed for sale can set the price. Nice V12 308s are worth amore than nice original cars....but I doubt engine swapped 246s will top the price of perfect original cars hence my $200k+ guess,

Now go sell some other junk and get this car running

Thank you for your wisdom! I agree with everything you say - I guess that the mental process I'm going through is that of working out what all the various options/problems are, and then ruling them in or out, one by one. Some of the points established thus far would include:

a) I want to build an interesting car that has looks as well as 'go', and the 'Dinosaurus' (I hate the name, but can't think of anything better) ticks these boxes.
b) For the reasons given above, I am just not a restoration person.
c) My car is a long way from being a good restoration starting point.
d) Money is not a motivator for me - so long as the finished car was not going to lose money hand-over-fist, then I don't really care about its value.

As regards the '458' thing - I've done some mock-up Photoshop images of a Dino both as stock, and with the front wheels slightly pushed forwards / the rear wheels pushed back, and think that the latter format suits the look of the car better. Any slight discrepancies would be lost when the flared arches were added (as the wheels would otherwise project beyond the bodywork). This would gain me at least three inches, giving it a similar wheelbase to a 360. It would also mean there was enough space to fit a V8 in there longitudinally.

Let me show you this Subaru 360


the build is here
https://grassrootsmotorsports.com/forum/build-projects-and-project-cars/nocones-2020-challenge-build-thread/160484/page1/

This is kind of the scope of work I think you're kind of talking about when moving firewalls and wheel locations to get the engine you want in a space it won't fit. Everything you're saying is possible but man its a lot of work! and I'd like to live long enough to see you driving it