Ferrari abuse

Dr.Jeff

Dr.Jeff

True Classic
The other day my sister came to visit with my mom, so I made myself scarce and hid in the mancave for the day. Got bored (I'm too hyperactive to sit around like that) so I turned on the TV. Really nothing worth watching, but I happened across a "marathon" of old episodes of the original 'Magnum PI' show. The content was really dumb, but I enjoyed identifying all of the 70's-80's vehicles in the background along with seeing the Ferrari 308 (Magnum's ride) run around. Fun to see all these "vintage" cars as "new". Apparently they had a contract with VAG in addition to Ferrari because there were a lot of VW's and Audi's featured.

But man did they thrash on the Ferrari. In multiple episodes it got wrecked, very badly (totalled) a couple of times. And otherwise in pretty much every episode it was thoroughly abused. The repairs and maintenance just to keep it running must have been a fortune. And I wonder how many of them they destroyed for the sake of a TV show? I'm sure they used a couple of already wrecked ones for some scenes, but still. They all appeared to be "real", not kit cars. Although in those days 308's were cheap (relatively) to buy; being the lowest priced model at the time, the Ferrari purests did not really recognize them as "real" Ferraris yet. And I'm sure Hollywood budgets are huge, so maybe it wasn't a big deal then. But at today's prices they spent a fortune just for one featured vehicle.

I came from a family in the automotive industry, and was taught to take proper care of my cars. So I found it a bit painful to watch every time they thrashed that poor 308. But it was nice to see an original 'new' one driving along some beautiful tropical backdrops. Sure brought back memories.

Although I've never been one to watch movies or TV much, there have been many that featured excellent vehicles. What is your favorite?
 
Used 308s were not very expensive in the 80s. I worked with a couple of guys that bought them for well under $20K. I thought about getting one at some point but they were more show than go.
 
308s were very pretty cars. Interiors were nice, ergonomics sucked. Maintenance was a nightmare compared to our lithe little rides.

They were really one of the prettiest Ferrari's, certainly better than the later generations of 8 cylinder cars that came after. The current cars are very pretty and ungodly fast.

I could enjoy owning a 308 if they weren’t such finicky and expensive things.

There is a great blog by a normal guy like us rebuilding one to a very high standard. It is a very good read.
 
One that was burned in my brain is the pilot episode of "Hart to Hart." I forget what the heck was happening, maybe they were flirting while driving fast in separate cars along the coastline, one in a Mercedes the other in a Ferrari Dino 246GT. Something dramatic happened and the Dino was totaled and I figuratively crapped my pants seeing them destroy that beautiful car.

Thanks Jeff, now I am all "triggered" again and have to search out a safe space to rock back and forth while picking my nose for a few hours...
 
One of the maintenance nightmares was the exhaust headers. Both guys I knew with 308s had to replace the headers due to cracking, and it is a not very fun job on those cars. The recommended replacement back then was ceramic coated steel headers. Stainless steel did not seem to be in play then. I seem to recall an episode of Wheeler Dealers where Edd replaced 308 headers after much work.
 
A couple of random thoughts on the subject....I never watched an episode of Magnum PI back in the day, I did work for the Seattle Ferrari dealer for 20 plus years. Tom Selleck was in town for some reason and Ferrari North America requested we give him a 308 GTS Quattrovalvole to drive. I delivered the car to his hotel on a cool, gray typically Seattle day. He requested I remove the roof which made no sense to me until I realized he was too tall to keep the roof on!

I heard from FNA personal that the Testarossa’s used on Miami Vice were absolutely trashed, one car was the “beauty” car the other used for stunts...FNA supplied several cars as well as some technical backup.

On a more personal level I replaced a much loved “Euroized” Lancia Scorpian with a 14,000 mile 308 Coupe in 1984, I had wanted a Ferrari since I was a kid in the late 60’s. The same way people disparage Fiat’s as being unreliable the same could be said of Ferrari’s. I drove mine 14,000 miles in 85 with the only failure being a water pump.

These days it has 80,000 miles on the clock and drives very well though the suspension has been gone through once. Last year I put about 7,500 miles on it. By today’s standards it is slow but it brings a smile to my face.
And it gets to share the garage with an 850 Coupe and an early 124 Spider. I am looking for either a 74 X or else a Bertone to join the fleet.
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Unlike most 42 year old F-cars this one gets used and dirty! Some young kid chastised me a week ago for having mud in the wheel arches....


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EU bumper and deeper front spoiler?
Looks great.
Fast is all relative. Sometimes the noises and feel are more important than how fast (in acceleration) the car is.

Reliable,yes, easy to maintain, no.

308s and the Boxers of the era are so much lovelier than the later cheese grater sided cars of the Testaroid era.
 
The various comments above about maintenance and repairs on a 308 reflect one of the two principle thoughts that came to my mind while watching those Magnum TV episodes. That being the effort and expense that must have gone into keeping the 308 going for the shooting of the series. Especially considering how badly they thrashed on it.

The other thought I had was much like the comment made about the Miami Vice show; how many 308's they demolished for the sake of making the show. As a side note, I once read something about the initial Ferrari used for that show (Miami Vice) was a fake. But Ferrari did not want fakes representing their name so they provided the remaining cars for free.

I never saw either show when they were popular. In fact the episodes of Magnum I saw the other day are the full extent of my experience. But now I'm wondering how I can convenience a car maker like Ferrari that I need access to a bunch of their cars in order to film a TV show?

And speaking of making a 70's era TV show, there were a couple of other notable items of interest that were apparent to me while watching those old reruns - aside from all of the cool 'period' vehicles in the background. Every episode featured at least one or two beautiful women in it, and several of them in some shows. And being from that era, none of those women had things like breast implants or other "enhancements". I'd forgotten how nice a "natural" beautiful woman looks. I also realized how far other technologies have come. I've never been one to watch TV or movies, so I hadn't paid any attention to the level of realism that has evolved in them. Those old shows had terrible quality in every aspect. Consider that computers were just being developed and the internet was not even a concept yet. But I'd gladly take the lack of technology in exchange for the various benefits of living in that era again.
 
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Dr Jeff makes an excellent point about women pre plastic surgery, they look so much more natural and beautiful to my eyes. I am 62 and wish I had been born 10 or 15 years sooner....the cars and gals were so much more interesting....unlike the 80’s and 90’s which were more or less a barren wasteland of mediocrity....
 
Ok, I used to work at Universal Studios here in Los Angeles, and one perk of the job was having complete freedom to run around the back lot and explore the various sound stages and film shoots going on around the lot.
There's a section in the studio tour where the tram drives by a line of parked picture cars. One of those cars is the 308 from the Magnum PI series. Sooooo, me being the car guy that I am, went over one night when the tours were over and took a closer look at the Ferrari.

It's fake.

Its a fiberglass Ferrari body over some other car. I pulled aside one of the tour guides and asked him if he knew anything about it. According to his info, the studio didn't want to risk skyrocketing budgets, so they put fake Ferrari bodies over what he says are NIssans. They had a few real ones, but they were never used for action sequences.

I tried digging more into it, but they keep their records in a top secret vault. I mean, I can believe it. They have all the Fast and Furious cars in a warehouse gathering dust and most of them are fake as well. Usually a body over a tube frame with a Toyota stock 4 cylinder. There's a Plymouth Roadrunner on display and it has one of those hoods with the scoop and if you look through it, you can see the carbs. What you don't know is that the engine and carbs are made out of cardboard!

Movie magic, folks!
 
I loved driving my dad's 308 - it was so much more car than the dino even if not as pretty. the 328 was another leap ahead, got to drive a few of those, too. It's been fun working my scorp as it's the same year as pop's 308 was.

photo circa 1986 - that's me and my '77 rabbit, and the 308.

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