This car is a Series II (single headlight) 330 GT, serial number 9161. Built in late 1966, we purchased it from the original owner (who bought it from the factory) in May of 1994. It had 33535 miles on the clock. After a small bit of work, we drove it home from Houston and have been enjoying the hell out of it since.

Mechanically excellent, there is a small bit of smoke at idle, some noise in the differential between 60 and 80 mph, and the paint could use replacing. Nothing major. We put 4000 miles on the car in the first three months we owned it, culminating in a trip to Ferrari Week 1994 in Monterey.

Finding this car was a task in itself. I wrote the story up for the Exotic Cars mailing list a while back: motivation, investigation, frustration, and satisfaction. ( Sempre Ferrari published a version of these articles over several months, complete with photos and a web version .)

On January 19, 1995, I was at the wheel, enjoying the car as it was intended, when I had an accident. Getting the car repaired was a saga in itself.

After we got her back, I decided it was time to tackle the cooling problems we'd been having, especially in traffic. While I understood that Enzo never cared about this problem (his solution was to pull over and drink espresso until traffic cleared), I figured that there had to be a better way. You can read about my findings (and the ultimate solution) here.

Update on the cooling system: Regutting the existing relay case wasn't a great idea, it turns out. The relay is mounted upside down (contacts up), and after a couple of years, the collected moisture in the unsealed relay corroded the points again. Luckily we found this in the garage, not on the road! This time we took a different approach: installed a modern, sealed Bosch relay on a nice little bracket. This part is hidden away under cover, so I'm not concerned about looks - and I still have that NOS relay.

Over the 2004/2005 winter, we went through the brake system completely, since I was never completely happy with the brakes (and never got over the nagging idea that this was part of the accident cause). Booster and master rebuilt by Power Brake Exchange in San Jose. Porterfield R4S brake pads. Johannes Huwyler at Dino Motors rebuilt and repainted the calipers, made up stainless/teflon brake lines, and did all the labor. The brakes are now simply awesome - the kind of braking performance I expect from a modern 911, not a mid-60's Italian car.

Now I have the utmost confidence in the car, and we're driving it regularly again. Her first major outing was the 2005 Alpine 500, where she was the belle of the ball.

If you're interested in Ferrari, I highly recommend that you check out the official Ferrari factory site.

Last updated Nov 17 2006 by cak