Ferrari Mondial . Net

If you are looking for the ultimate personalized UK number plate for your Ferrari Mondial then a nice guy called James has “MON814L” for sale. You should be able to see that this is about as close to MONDIAL as you can get. The chap is open to sensible offers, if you are interested drop me an email at steve[at]ferrarimondial[dot]net or leave a comment on this blog post and I will pass on your details.

I thought this was worth a post, well done for my co-pilot getting this well timed snap of a momentous occasion… the 40000 mile mark for my ’85 Mondial! Remind me to dust my dashboard before I get to 50k miles

After seveal weekends of rain some sunny autumnal weather finally materialized, so we decided to make the trek up to the north of Oxfordshire for the Auto Italia Autumn show. The “trek” was actually an idyllic drive straight up the M40 towards Banbury, and as we cruised along we were lucky enough to bump into a rare Lamborghini Espada making it’s way to the same destination. With it’s throbbing V12 and elongated yet incredibly low profile body, it was a sight to behold!

On arriving at the event we found the organisation was good, marshalls were on hand to guide cars into spaces based on their marques. There were about 20 Ferraris present: a Dino 246, 330, Testarossa, 308/328s, 355s, and a also an F430 Scuderia in light blue, which was the first one I had ever seen. On the Mondial front we were parked up alongside a very dark blue (or maybe black) 85 Mondial QV, there was also a Mondial 8 in attendance, but I don’t recall seeing any 3.2 Mondials or a Mondial t. There was an impressive turnout of other Italian marques too, plenty of Alphas, Lancias and Fiats. The real jaw dropping sight was the collection of so many Lamborghinis, especially pristine Countaches and Diablos, many of them in the classic pin up poster colours that adorned many young lads’ bedrooms in the 80s/90s (see photos). The scene resembled a squadron of space ships ready to take off from Battlestar Galactica.

The Heritage Motor Centre is built on the grounds of the old RAF Gaydon which was built as a secret World War 2 airbase and operated until the 1970s when the land was bought by British Leyland, who turned it into their own top secret research and development centre, complete with a high speed test track. After the decline of the British Leyland the site and main building were modernised by Rover and lottery money in the early 1990s as a museum to the British motor industry, and the main building now holds the largest collection of classic British cars in the UK. The £10 entrance to the Auto Italia show included admission to the Heritage Motor Centre itself, which is great value for money as the meuseum is well worth looking round. Rather than just an endless line of cars there are plenty of interactive and educational displays to keep kids entertained too (and hopefully they might learn something!).

Another hightlight of the show was that for an extra £20 you could take your car around the test track in one of the three sessions throughout the day. There are a few sensible rules: speed limit of 90mph, no overtaking, and strict following of the pace car, but it’s a chance to put your foot down at least a little bit. I didn’t take up the offer this year but might do next time round. The only disappointing thing is that there is no viewing point of the test track for observers to watch the sessions, also any kind of filming or photography is banned on or near the test track. This is deliberate because Aston Martin have a hangar containing all their latest developments, and they have understandable concerns of industrial espionage. One chap we talked to worked in the industry and told us that a few years ago, when Aston Martin were developing and testing one of their new models, light aircraft would appear and circle every time the hangar doors opened up. Clearly the motor car manufacturing industry is big business, and rival companies will go to great lengths to find out what the opposition are up to… just look at Formula 1!

Photos from the day can be found here.

This was a great event last year at the spectacular setting of Highclere Castle, so I was interested to see how the new venue of Newbury Showground would work out. Clearly the venues were very different with the showground less of a backdrop but offering a much improved circuit for the charity rides, which was the purpose of the day after all. The whole of the track could be seen whilst wandering through the display of parked Ferraris, the sight and sounds of the cars whizzing round was quite something. There was even an F40 giving rides, I hope the people who were lucky enough to get the F40 felt as honoured and excited as I would have been! Overall the day had a different feel to last year, due to the venue, but was still a good event, and the amount of money raised by the charity rides exceeded last year’s total, all in aid of the Three Shires air ambulance helicopter fund.

Photos from the Ferrari Funday 2008 can be found here.

There has not been much luck for this event with respect to the weather for the preceeding two years. Last year the event had to be postponed due to flooding, and it inevitably rained on the rescheduled date too. This year the forecast was the uncertanty tinged “sun and occasional showers”. On the morning itself we awoke to glorious sunshine, so off we set on the fairly long drive from London to Walton Hall in Warwickshire. Even before we hit the motorway, dark clouds were gathering in the sky, and quickly “occasional showers” turned into a morning of driving through absolutely torrential rain! With the M40 being closed compltely at the exact junction needed for the event (presumably due to cars being unable to drive underwater) it was almost enough to make even a hardcore Ferrari owner turn back and head for home. Luckily my newly purchased TomTom One satnav saved the day and it calculated an alternative route through the countryside to avoid the closed motorway.

Our persistence was rewarded in the end, as on arriving at Walton Hall the clouds broke and the house, lake and lawns were bathed in sunshine. Thankfully only a few minor showers materialzed in the afternoon. As always everything was impeccably organised by the FOC (British Grand Prix on big screen, excellent!), and the turnout of cars was surprisingly good, though I’d guess not as many as last year at Broughton Castle. What amazed me was when we strolled round to the back of Walton Hall where there was a fantastic turnout of the really classic and priceless, rare cars, includingan ex Steve McQueen 250 SWB and Chris Evan’s £5.4million black Ferrari 250 California previously owned by James Coburn (Fistful of Dynamite always a fave film of mine). When you sit back and think about it £5.4 million is a lot of money, but after seeing the car I can safely say it was worth every penny Just a shame I had forgotten to charge my camera, so in the end I only have photos of it in general shots before technology let me down. As usual the concours cars were immaculate, of the 4 or 5 Ferrari Mondials present there was a very striking one in dark blue, unusual colour but I really liked it!

Limited amount of photos can be found here!

Following on from this post I was amazed to find myself on the end of some more Ferrari Mondial related fame, no less than two people emailed me having spotted the following article on the Top 50: great ’80s cars published on MSN UK.

Yes it’s me again, I seem to be popping up everywhere… surely I must be entitled to royalties?!

Given the unpredictable nature of the UK spring weather we were fortunate to be blessed with a beautiful warm and sunny Saturday for the first big national Ferrari Owners’ Club (FOC) event of the year. Blenheim Palace is situated in picturesque Oxfordshire countryside, and it’s dramatic grounds and architecture provided a yet another stunning backdrop for an impressive turnout of FOC Ferraris. Parked centre stage in the main palace courtyard was a historic mix of supercars, both old and new, including F40s, an Enzo, a yellow Daytona, three 250 SWBs (one confirmed to be worth around the £2 million mark) and an amazing 4 cylinder 500 Mondial racer from 1954.

There was a good turnout of Ferrari Mondials, as always, I was pleased to see again the Mondial cabriolet I had viewed when looking for my one over a year ago, good to see it had found a new home (hi J & J!). I also saw the sera blue Ferrari Mondial I had declined to look at back then due to it not being Rosso red, that colour, for me, seems compulsory for a first Ferrari. On inspection I regret a little not going to see it, and a glance at the odometer did indeed confirm a mileage of only 14k miles in 23 years!

View my photos here

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Whilst heading off to the second classic show of the year at Shuttleworth House in Bedfordshire I spotted a Ferrari at the South Mimms M25 roundabout. Pulling up alongside it at the lights confirmed my suspicions of it’s tipo… a Ferrari 599 Fiorano, wow! That’s the latest two seater Grand Tourer from Ferrari, with the engine lifted from the Enzo and tuned up even more, making the 599 the most powerful production Ferrari ever made. This give it an awesome set of stats: top speed 205mph, 0-60 3.2s, 611 bhp.

That wasn’t the end of my geeky Ferrari spotting induced excitement, as looking in my rear mirror I could see at least 4 other Ferraris behind me in the queue at the lights. Pulling away from the lights it really was my lucky day as they all followed me onto the A1(M) towards Hatfield. It was a pleasant drive, they were clearly a group of Ferrari friends or club members out for a Sunday drive, maybe off to an event too. The other cars were two 360 spyders, a black F430 and a 355 spyder. So it must have looked an impressive convoy. To top it all off we soon arrived at the Hatfield tunnel… the noise that reverberated through the tunnel as it filled up with six Ferraris was deafening, and put a smile on my face for the rest of the day!

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I had been looking forward to this event as it was the first one of the year. The weather was warm and this seemed to bring out lots of traffic on the M25. Finding the historic Brooklands circuit was also a little challenging, I was a first time user of a (borrowed) satnav system, and had to turn it off when we arrived at our so called destination…. a row of small shops in a village?! Anyway we somehow found the venue in the end after asking the gatekeeper at Mercedes-Benz world for directions. You would have thought the Auto Italia event organisers would have put up some temporary signs along the routes off the main motorways and A roads.

My other gripe was the parking stewards at the event were awful, on entering we were given a badly photocopied, ultra confusing map: it would have helped if it had some kind of “you are here” marker, or the steward point out where we were, then given us some instructions on how to get to the Ferrari parking (ie a simple “take the first left, parking on right”), and also some signs would have helped (eg at each junction car makers’ names with arrows pointing which way to go, or even a steward intelligently directing marques). I rolled into the event, went right (as did numerous other Ferraris) and ended up being told by a steward to park in a line of neatly arranged Fiat Coupes…. not very good for me or the Fiat Coupe owners club. After parking and having a wander round the event I finally found Ferrari parking with ample spaces left and was able to move, but the whole thing could have been organised a lot better to save hassle, and in total I had to move my car three times!

The event itself was not bad, if I hadn’t been moving my car around so much I’d probably have enjoyed it more, but there was a big plus point: it was the first event I’ve been to which had the modern ‘big three’ (in my opinion) Ferraris… yes there was an F40, F50 and Enzo all present (if only they had parked them side by side!), accompanied by a great collection of other Ferraris and Italian cars.

Photos from the day can be found here.

Overall this is actually a fairly simple process, and a sports exhaust really gets a mean sound out of the V8 engine (see before and after YouTube video below). Also it has to be said the the original, factory silencer box is pretty big and ugly, it’s also very prominent with there being no rear grill (something Ferrari introduced from the 3.2 Mondial and 328 onwards). The exhaust I bought was a generic stainless steel one from Eurospares, it’s at least half the price of a Tubi or X-Ost. The fitting should be pretty much the same for a Ferrari Mondial as a Ferrari 308/328.

Bear in mind that you may be changing your car from it’s factory state, so if you are worried about future re-sale value you might want to keep the original exhaust to put back on at a later date (pretty simple to do as you will see).

All parts ordered from Eurospares (unless otherwise stated).

Parts needed:

• Part No. 118353 Stainless Steel Sports Exhaust Ferrari Mondial QV 1985, Total: £450
• Part No. 118338 Gasket (O rings), Quantity: 2, Price: £6.80, Total: £13.60
• Exhaust/tailpipe compound/sealer 80-100ml, Price about £5 (eBay)
• Metal clips, Quantity 2, Price: not a lot

Optional parts that would be useful to have in case needed (due to corrosion on the existing parts):

• Part No. 10519601 Washer, Quantity: 20, Price: £0.02, Total: £0.40
• Part No. 114748 Nut, Quantity: 10, Price: £0.31, Total: £3.10
• Part No. 119632 Screw, Quantity: 6, Price: £1.50, Total: £9.00 (I couldn’t get these as they were out of stock)

Easy access to under the car is also preferable, though I could just about imagine it would be possible to fit the new exhaust without the car on a ramp, as everything is really near the back. Warning: If you do use jacks or anything like that please be very careful and ensure nothing can slip, 1.5 metrc tons of Ferrari on your head can be bad for your health. An extra pair of strong hands will come in handy too, for catching the old exhaust as it comes off and holding the new one in place while it’s bolted on.

Luckily for me a nice guy called Dean let me use his hydraulic ramps (yes handy to have your own ramps in your garage!). So a big thanks to Dean and especially Paul for their ramps, tools, help, and expertise.

The procedure is as follows, assuming, like me, you have a replacement exhaust which does not need the 90 degree mounting brackets. Instead the box has long bars coming out each side which should align with where the brackets would have been. If you are re-fitting your original exhaust obviously make sure you have these brackets (either from the current exhaust or kept from the original removal). Make sure you don’t scratch your shiny new exhaust (or the shiny tips of the old one) so have an old blanket at the ready to put them on:

1. Undo the three nuts mating the exhaust to the manifold, and repeat on the other side (fig 1), remove the screws, nuts and washers. Use plenty of WD40 as things will probably need some loosening up.
2. The main securing of the exhaust comes from the pins seen in fig 1, these attach to the right angle brackets. Get your helper ready to catch the old exhaust and remove the pins on each side, when you remove the pins the exhaust should come free. On one side of mine everything undid easily and the pin could be gently tapped out, however on the other side the bracket and pin had seized up, repeated application of WD40, heat, G clamp pressure, and moderate violence all failed. In the end Paul had to delicately cut through part of the bracket until the pin would finally budge. The cut bracket won’t be usable again, but Paul did a good job to avoid ruining the pin, as this was needed immediatly for fitting the new exhaust. Ferrari spares shops should have replacement brackets as this kind were used on a number of models (308 GT4, 308/328, Mondial).
3. Your old exhaust should be off now, wrap it up and keep it somewhere safe in case you decide to go back to it or you want to put the car back into it’s original state. It’s a good time to clean out the ends of the bare pipes, the old O ring gaskets are likely to be corroded and in bits. Tap them out gently, don’t hit the manifold hard as the vibrations could could crack it further up, if some force is needed have a helper hold the end of the pipe still as you tap it. Clean up any fouling and corrosion, leaving the two pipe ends ready for re-fitting.
4. Coat some muffler/tailpipe sealer around one side of your new O ring gaskets, place in the end of the bare pipe, and coat the exposed gasket side with some sealer. Tricky bit next: get your new exhaust in position, obviously you need to mate together the pipes, then secure the exhaust by putting the pins back in (securing depends on the fitments but basically will involve pushing back in the locking pins into either brackets or the support bars of the new exhaust to hold it in place), and finally replacing the screws/nuts/washers x3 (using new ones if you have them) on each side, making sure they are done up tight.
5. Secure the retaining pins in place by passing the wire your wire clips through the holes in the pins and folding the clips round the pin. This will make sure the pins don’t slip out.
6. Check the alignment of the pipe ends with the cut away sections of the rear of the car (next to the fog lights). Make sure there is a little space around the exhaust pipes so that it won’t be rattling against the bodywork, you might need to bend the pipe coming from the box a little to achieve this, but be gentle and take care not to scratch your shiny tips.
7. Start her up, have a listen and check the seals for any leaks (apply tailpipe sealer as needed). That’s it, you’re done, go and find a tunnel!

Once again a big thanks to Paul and Dean as none of this would have been possible without them.

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