A couple years ago while Judy and I were vacationing at our favorite spot on Earth, Lake Como in Northern Italy, I got into a conversation with a local antiques dealer about cars. Pretty much all the tourist towns and villas are located on the North side of Lake Como, while the south side is far less populated. This man told me about a very reclusive character who had a large shop there, that specialized in building recreations of all kinds of Italian classics.
Some years earlier, I had heard tell of a man in Northern Italy that could build you what you wanted in early Italian cars. This guy had had a few run ins with the law over alleged counterfeit Ferraris in the past and had even done some prison time for this very reason. Well, I had to meet this man. The antique dealer knew another gentleman that actually had a car rebodied by this man and knew him well. We phoned this man and asked if he could get us into this shop. After a few phone calls and pleadings, we got permission to go there the next afternoon. As we drove around the South side of Lake Come, we came to this small village and a very non-descript warehouse-style building with no sign or anything conveying what might be inside. Afterall, this is Italy and nobody wants to publicize anything, especially somebody whose life, for over 30 years, had been centered around rebodying Italian classics.
My guide called a number on his cell phone and this little man appeared at the door to open it for us. He was very wary of who we might be, but since I spoke to him in Italian, he warmed up and admitted us to his building with the proviso we would be discrete and not mention any names or locations. Wow…Was I unprepared for what I saw. All around me were priceless Italian bodies of everything from Ferrari, Iso Grifo, Bizzarrini, Alfa, Fiat, Lancia, Stanguellini, Osca, Maserati with a few rare Aston Martins thrown in. I am snapping photos clandestinely hoping he doesn’t notice.
I truly believe this guy could build anything in either mild steel or aluminum. I was looking at the proof. He told me that he could build me a complete body chassis, just like an original, of a Ferrari 275 NART spyder (one of the best-looking cars of all times). All I would need is an old donor Ferrari 330 GT 2+2 or another not so sought-after model, maybe wrecked or rusty. This would give me all the running gear, seats, gauges, steering and suspension I would need to make it into a truly “believable example”. My head was spinning at the possibility. It would take a year and over $150,000 to accomplish this feat, but I saw plenty of proof that he could, indeed, pull it off.
It all was a bit too dodgy for me, but I truly felt I was in the presence of a true artist in the “Old School” fashion. One that might be a little fuzzy about what would pass for “socially acceptable“ in the eyes of Ferrari club members back in the USA, but let’s face it, this is what makes Italy, Italy… Capice?