I have been thinking of a name for the new car and I came up with Bella.  A great Italian name for a great Italian car.  Due to other projects around the house I have not found much time to sit down and tune Bella.  Since I have been neglecting her I bought a few “presents”.  At T. Rutlands Ferrari parts I found some Pommello Fissaggio Coperchio and Fascetta. That is Italian for Air Box Nuts and fuel/vacuum line clamps.  Sounds much better in Italian! The air box nuts are often lost and the car arrived with only one of the original fasteners.  Also since I plan on going through the fuel and vacuum system I will replace worn clamps as I go with original replacements.

The Italian references you see throughout the site are due to the fact that Ferrari’s are Italian (duh!) and to illustrate the fun involved with translating the owners manual, shop manual, and parts diagram.  Luckily all these were included with the car.  The owners manual is actually the original with the original binder that came with the car! The books are translations from Italian, and sometimes the translations are a little rough. More reason to learn Italian!  It will also come in handy when I go visit Bella’s homeland.

Dylan in the Ferrari

When the car was sold to Grand Prix Classics the owner drove the car for fun.  The only change he made was to the wheels.  He installed the current Etoile wheels on the car since the previous set was cracked (probably from racing!)  He sold the car to purchase an offshore boat.  The car, with 58,032 miles, was off to the fifth owner…in Michigan.  The car was given a major service in June of 1999 and at 61,929 miles the car was sold again and resided in Wisconsin.  The owner in Wisconsin did not drive the car often and put about 500 miles on the car before selling the car to me.  So that leaves me as the seventh owner of this beautiful car.  The car has been well cared for and always kept garaged.  This is evident by the fact that it still has the original paint and interior.

Custom Front

As I wrote about earlier the car came with a “baby book” including all records and repairs.  The car was purchased in January of 1980 from Ferrari of San Diego and was delivered in March of 1980.  At 11,000 miles the car was sold through Ferrari of La Jolla.  The second owner added the front spoiler to make the car look like a Euro version.  He also installed the rear spoiler, which was a factory option.  The engine was given new cams and re-jetted to european specs.  The suspension was also stiffened.  A custom Alpine stereo was installed, and a Harris Alfa-Telephone (which is still in the car) was added.  The phone at that time cost $3450!  All work was done at Bobileff Motorcar Company in San Diego.  At 23,000 miles the car was sold to the service manager of Ferrari of La Jolla.  The car was reworked and toured at track events with the local Ferrari Club.  During this time the car received the fastest car of the day at Riverside Raceway during one event.  Everything on the car is original except the grill, bumper, rear spoiler, and the wheels.  There were approximately six other cars in the La Jolla area that were customized in a similar manner.  In 1986 with 37,565 miles on the car it was sold to Grand Prix Classics.