97 Ferrari 456 GTA bought in auction

[fastgerman]

Buonasera

Well this has got to be pretty high up on the Brave Pill scale; a Ferrari 456 GTA bought through Collecting Cars, having been stored for 3 years with a flat battery.

As you can see my profile name isn’t something usually associated with this type of car and I was on the site looking at a 997 GTS... but, well, front engined, 4 seater, V12 Ferrari with pop up headlights!

One of my favourite parts of acquiring a car in this circumstance is the investigation. The original owner was Paul Weiland (Director for Blackadder and Mr Bean) in 97 who purchased the car at Maranello in Egham. The car was looked after by Maranello till 02, then DK Engineering till 05 and then things go hazy until 2016. In 2016 the car went to Rardleys Ferrari Specialist with an overhaul bill at £9,970, followed by Dick Lovett Ferrari in Swindon carrying out further overhaul work at £7,371.

It went to storage with Ed Rudler for 3 years and now I am the ‘lucky owner’ who has arranged transport to Rardleys next week for a cambelt service, fluids, filters, plugs and an MOT - hoping for change from £2k.

Wish me luck :-)





















Engine sound - https://youtu.be/J8sG1Louhvs


Reg - P343HBC

Back on the road - See Page 6 and 7 for overhaul update at Rardley Ferrari after storage

Carpool Feature - https://www.pistonheads.com/news/ph-carpool/ferrar...

Edited by fastgerman on Saturday 26th December 13:59

[carinaman]

Congratulations, fantastic looking car. Interesting that Rowan Atkinson also had a 456 and wrote in CAR Magazine about the unpleasantness of being asked for a cheque when he specified and ordered his.

[spreadsheet monkey]

Stunning car. Keen to see how you get on with it!

[Richard-390a0]

Finers crossed for you.

[Leftfootwonder]

Always admired these. Congrats! Looking forward to more updates.

[markiii]

saw this and would have had a bid had it been a manual

[andy97]

One of the best looking cars ever built in my opinion. Hope all goes well.

[samoht]

Fantastic purchase, hard to think of a better place to put £25k Hope you have a lot of fun with it.

[paulyv]

A 4-seat Ferrari is one of my dream cars. Love the colour and will be watching with interest...as the owner of a car which seems to enjoy gorging itself on bills I have my fingers crossed for you.

[fastgerman]

Thanks All

Good shout on the Rowan Atkinson article, link anyone?

I found this quote, which is pretty incredible:

That was also the article in which he hit a pheasant with said car and did 1500 worth of paint damage..
He said : 'the pheasant didn't suffer, though it probably regretted some of its pension contributions'

I found this on Paul McKenna (the 2nd owner/bill payer and you can see his name on the DK Engineering receipts above) - https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/interview-me-an...

Even more interesting is that the 2nd owner on the V5 record was Clare Staples, so he put the car in her name. It's like the Daily Mail checking out this cars history. Apparently she tried to extort money from him. Errrr
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/1649067/hypnotist-pa...

[Purso]

Nice work op, you will have an awesome car when it's sorted with an interesting history! Looking forward to the updates.

[carinaman]

fastgerman said:

Thanks All

Good shout on the Rowan Atkinson article, link anyone?

I'll continue to look, but there's Atkinson's 456:

https://www.historics.co.uk/buying/auctions/2011-0...

[ferrisbueller]

I'm guessing some of the gap in the history was while it was taken off the road to be repaired. I did wonder how a Cat D car had all original paint.

[DevonLad]

Lovely looking thing, I'm assuming the mot tester got a little carried away with the 8 button whilst typing up the 2009 mot.

[fastgerman]

ferrisbueller said:

I'm guessing some of the gap in the history was while it was taken off the road to be repaired. I did wonder how a Cat D car had all original paint.

Yes this is an interesting one as I have an invoice with some details in 2011 from Devonshire Classics and there is still MOT's going. The Cat D is 2011, it then has no history from 2012 to 2016 (maybe in storage), then a huge repair bill at Rardleys end of 2016.

Cat D is non-structural damage, with repair bills over 50% of the cars value. In 2011 this car was worth around £20k, so it only needed £9.5k of damage + some car hire costs etc for the owner. Everything including boot, doors, bumpers and bonnet look like original parts but it's definitely had some paint. The first Paul McKenna link above states that a taxi door scraped down the side of the car so it needed paint in the early 2000's.

I think (along with my car viewing buddy) that an owner in 2011 tried to put through mechanical issues on the insurance. There is £17k spent after it's hibernation getting it back on the road and none of the invoices have anything to do with paint/body/structure, it's all mechanical stuff.

The Dick Lovetts Health Check in 2017 makes no reference to bodywork etc and while I have no way of knowing for sure, the price means I have some repair contingency :-).

[fastgerman]

DevonLad said:

Lovely looking thing, I'm assuming the mot tester got a little carried away with the 8 button whilst typing up the 2009 mot.

Haha yes just noticed that :-)

[ferrisbueller]

fastgerman said:

ferrisbueller said:

I'm guessing some of the gap in the history was while it was taken off the road to be repaired. I did wonder how a Cat D car had all original paint.

Yes this is an interesting one as I have an invoice with some details in 2011 from Devonshire Classics and there is still MOT's going. The Cat D is 2011, it then has no history from 2012 to 2016 (maybe in storage), then a huge repair bill at Rardleys end of 2016.

Cat D is non-structural damage, with repair bills over 50% of the cars value. In 2011 this car was worth around £20k, so it only needed £9.5k of damage + some car hire costs etc for the owner. Everything including boot, doors, bumpers and bonnet look like original parts but it's definitely had some paint. The first Paul McKenna link above states that a taxi door scraped down the side of the car so it needed paint in the early 2000's.

I think (along with my car viewing buddy) that an owner in 2011 tried to put through mechanical issues on the insurance. There is £17k spent after it's hibernation getting it back on the road and none of the invoices have anything to do with paint/body/structure, it's all mechanical stuff.

The Dick Lovetts Health Check in 2017 makes no reference to bodywork etc and while I have no way of knowing for sure, the price means I have some repair contingency :-).

I think the bonnet alone could have sounded the death knell for a few 456s when their values were low. I've always fancied one but lacked the testicular fortitude.

[Tommie38]

That looks fantastic. Do keep us up to date.

[ferrisbueller]

The standard Top Gear link:

https://youtu.be/EL1bCGCsvhg

[fastgerman]

Amazing old Top Gear vid, this followed which is equally incredible - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gf20FKWrbM4

I’ve started following Ratarossa who has a few YouTube videos on fixing 456 suspension actuators and door modules. Quite a few parts shared with other cars and companies that refurbish parts or offer improved solutions. Worth a follow if you have a project Ferrari