1960 Ferrari 250 PF Cabriolet

The old Ferrari just had like a big cedar box there. It's a race horse. You let it stretch its legs. You're like a Durant. Yeah, let it roll. Stretch its legs. You hear that music? It sounds fabulous. Welcome to the episode of Jay Leno's Garage. Once again, some automotive royalty. My favorite era of Ferrari, the 1960s. This is a 1960 Ferrari 250 Cabriolet by Pininfarina. We'll learn more about exactly what it is from the man who just finished an immaculate three-year restoration on this car. These are not easy to do, as we will find out in just a minute. As you can see, just beautiful. It's painted in the original colors. It's 100% authentic. It's designed to be a driver-user car, although it's still a show car. Well, let's find out more from the man who did the restoration. He owns Black Horse Motors right here in Los Angeles. Carl Stewart. Carl, come on in. How are you, my friend? I am good. Nice job. You look exhausted. You just finished this thing? Just last night until midnight I was working on it. Well, it turned out great. So how does this work? Did you seek this out? Did you find it? Was it brought to you? How did you get to do the restoration? It was brought to me by one of my clients. He knew the widow of the guy who died, and we contacted the widow. And from there we made a deal and went down and looked at it. It was in poor shape. The guy tried to restore it himself, but it was not even close to what it is now. But we made a deal on it. I promised her I'd make it new again. When I got back to the shop, once we stripped off the clothes, the paint, it had a lot of rust. It was just rot everywhere. Underneath the rocker panels, the back. It was in some kind of saltwater flood. Oh, wow. I had to cut all that cancer out and replace it with new metal and everything. So it was a big project. It wasn't that easy at all. He had the car quite well. He paid $2,500 for the car. It's hard to believe, but there was a time when Ferraris were just old Fiats. Bigger Fiats. They were just old cars. All you have to do is look at the back page of Road and Track magazine from the late 60s and early 70s. GTO must sell. $2,500. Please. Somebody buy it. It seems almost crazy now. It's hard to believe. And this was an extremely desirable model, right? This is the 250... PF Cabriolet. Series 2. And how many of these did they build? They built around 200 of them. About 200 of them. Okay. And this is the 15th one built. And they were all convertibles? All convertibles. And this has the Colombo V12. Colombo V12, which they used the most out of all the Ferraris. Right. And the fascinating part about... What is it? Is it a 3-liter? It's about 3-liter, yeah. About 3-liter. But this 3-liter V12 is half the weight of a 3.4-liter Jaguar Twin Cam 6, isn't it? Yeah. Could be aluminum block. Jag used cast iron, so this is all aluminum. Ferrari knew what they were doing back in the day. But in defense of the Jag, you can find one of those, been sitting for 50 years, clean it up, and she'll run. So cast iron is heavy, obviously. But it lasts a long time. It doesn't warp. Can we open the hood and see what it looks like in there? Am I on this side? It's in the middle right here. All righty. Safety latch. You know, this is the engine everybody thinks of when you think of a Ferrari. Yeah. Front engine, V12, the Weber carburetors. I mean, just so sexy, this motor. Especially when you compare it to just American V8s of the period, you know? Yeah. I mean, I grew up with Chevys, and I thought they were the best. Until I got into Ferraris, and wow, this sings. These engines sing. Yeah. The Chevys, like, loud. But this sings. Yeah. And it's half the size, isn't it? Half the size. It wasn't designed for torque. It was designed for high-end racing. So it's not a drag car. So it's more higher RPMs for racetracks. That's what it was designed for. It's funny, because it seems so simple now compared to a modern engine compartment. I remember opening the hoods of these when I was a teenager. Like, oh, my God. Look how complicated. Sinking all those carburetors and getting that linkage and just changing plugs and whatever. You know, just all of that. Yeah. I believe you. I had the same way. I didn't know they made a V12 back then. I thought Chevys just built V8s and didn't know they made a V12 yet. Right. Yeah. So, like, V12, wow. Well, actually, Enzo got the idea for the V12 from the Packard 12. Really? In the World War I, Packard came out with what they called the Twin Six, which is two six-cylinders put together. And that was the first V12 that Ferrari saw. And he was so taken with it, how smooth it was compared to, you know, because back in the day, the Italians had, you know, big three-liter, four-cylinder, big four-cylinder motor. And all of a sudden – so he patterned – he designed his V12 to mimic the Packard, which is kind of interesting. Yeah, because their thought back then was smaller piston, faster up and down. Right, right. Bigger piston, slower. Right. Also, and, of course, the crackle finish on the valve cover. Yeah, that was a trademark thing, kind of. He always liked that. And I don't know why I thought it was sexy at the time. Well, I guess I still do. The twin oil filters. Yeah, because back then, these – before I designed it, it was like it's two separate engines together. Right. Two coils, two – everything was separated. Right. It just shared a crank together and a block together. But everything else had separate sides to everything. But, you know, I sort of like that because everything works independently on its own. Nowadays, everything is always – everything is so connected. I remember the first time in the 80s, I had to replace a stoplight switch in a Ford. And I thought it was going to be easy. No, no, it goes through somewhere under the dash and the computer. It was like a whole big deal as opposed to just simply replacing a brake light switch. Yeah, because if you lose, like, six cylinders, you can still get home. Right, right. So you had a fallback bank of, you know, cylinders. And it sort of signified racing. Two coils, two distributors, two oil filters. Yeah, I mean, all of that because nobody else was doing that. Certainly not in America at the time. No. Yeah, and it's what an engine compartment should look like. You know, there's still enough room. You can still see the ground. I like any engine you can see through, like motorcycles, a Vincent V-Twin, a Harley V-Twin. We can see through it. I like that on this, too. And, of course, nobody had an air cleaner like Ferrari. Those were always kind of sexy. We just had the big, giant thing on there. And that's a period correct battery or battery case? It's not period. The original ones were like a tar top. Right, right. And I found a modern one that looks close to it. But the battery, it says borrowed. Oh, that's a sticker. Oh, I see. Oh, I thought it was cast in the plastic. I got it. No, that's a little fake, sorry. That's all right. And, of course, Barani wire wheels, the greatest looking wire wheel. These are the Carlo Barani before he sold the company because the later ones were called Root Barani. Right. This is the Carlo Barani ones. He's the one who started the company back in the day. And these always had sort of a, well, he used to call it a manly look. I mean, the spokes were shorter and thicker because it's to sort of connote the power that the engine had. Mostly about these, what they did back in the day, to balance them, they put a little lead wrap around them. Right, right. It's on there now, but you can see it. Yeah, yeah. A little lead wrap around it. That's how you balance the wheel in the day. Yeah, yeah. Because you use lead now, and they call it EPA, and you're in prison, and you can't get in the back of the car. And asbestos these days, you just can't use it anymore. Asbestos spray. Yeah, you can't poison yourself in the new car like you could back in the day. I know. Boy, that sucks. I miss those days. What else we got here? Let's see. This is your. That's the brake booster. Oh, of course, brake booster. Oh, yeah. That's your brake booster. So he was using power brakes back then. You know what I love? I just love this. Oil filler. Well, you know, I just love. Takes an hour to screw and unscrew, but. Yeah, I just love how many threads there are. I love that it's sort of knurled, and when you tighten it. It's aluminum. Yeah, I mean, I just like all that stuff. You had a clutch fan, too, so when you got the temperature, the fan would kick on. Right, right. So you don't waste horsepower. That's right. No electric fan. This predates electric fans in cars. Yeah, yeah. Clutch fan. You forget how old it is. This is 1960. I mean, Ferrari was only. This is like the first year they started using disc brakes, too. Yeah, only 12 or 13 years old. Because Ferrari was not a progressive company. He stuck with drum brakes long after. Ferrari did? Everybody else did, yeah. Well, the road cars stop at 59. Yeah. 60, all disc. Right, right. He also used to say, aerodynamics are for people who can't build engines. You know, the idea that. It's just old school, you know. He was a tough guy. Yeah, he was a tough guy. He was a tough guy. And, of course, Pininfarina did the body. Just a beautiful. And, you know, it's really timeless. I mean, I'm not saying you could build this today and it would look contemporary. But compared to other cars of 1960, it really. And it's a big car, isn't it? Well, Ferrari, he just built the engine chassis. Right. He shipped the chassis over to different bodybuilders. Pininfarina was like his biggest company. But it was Bellano, you know, Michelotti. He shipped the chassis to everybody. So, they got to play around. This should be about the same wheelbase as maybe a Mustang? Or is it shorter? I think it's longer. It's like a Cal Spiro, almost. Just a different body. And, of course, you have a full-size trunk. Yeah, so you can put a dead body in there anytime you want. Give it a little. Yeah, look at that. I mean, yeah, you could take this. Actually, I did fit in there because I was fitting the trunk to make sure I could adjust it. So, I did go in there and close it on myself. Really? I swear to God. So, if I could fit in there. Yeah, okay. Because I was lining up everything. That's pretty amazing. Yeah, so it's a good size. Golf clubs. And what would this have been new? This probably would have been around $12,000. Maybe $11,000, $12,000. Yeah, something like that, which was crazy. It was like $150,000 back then. I mean, a Rolls-Royce was maybe $16,000, $17,000. So, these were not inexpensive cars. No, he catered to the upper-end clients. It wasn't just the public. This was kind of like, these cars, the road cars, it was racing habits. That's all it was. It's like a drug dealer. He had to sell these things to go feed his drug habit. I mean, my parents paid $21,000 for our house in 59. Yeah. So, this was almost the price of a house. I wish they'd bought this instead of our house. It's hard to get your dad to buy a two-seater car when you have no place to live. Well, it's just beautiful. And, of course, the classic. Are those Abarth exhausts? They're Abarth. It's a reproduced Abarth exhaust. Right, right. And they didn't come in until, like, 64. Yeah. But they're all Abarth back then. When I was a kid, there was nothing sexier than those four pipes sticking out the back. You know, you used to watch movies from Europe because the Playboy would always pull up in the Ferrari, you know, with the cigarette. The girl has a cigarette holder. You know, all that kind of stuff. And, of course, the twin flags on here. The ashtray for smoking. Yeah, the ashtray right there. Why, in a convertible, the ashtray. Yeah. They even had locking gas caps back then. Oh, yeah, yeah. So, they saw the future of stealing gas. Yeah. Even back then in Italy, gas was very expensive. True. And most of these were for export, weren't they? Because 1960, it was still, World War II obviously was over, but there was still, you know. The U.S. was still, I think, their biggest market. Yeah. Because you notice all the famous cars came over here. Right. One-off prototypes. They all came to California, mostly. But the U.S. was their biggest import. This was the era when people would buy a Ferrari, and when it didn't work, they'd complain to Enzo, and they'd get in a fight. Peter Monteverdi bought one, and he didn't like the clutch. And if I go start drunk, he started Monteverdi. Lamborghini. He had trouble with his clutch. He started Lamborghini. I think Ferrari started more car companies, some guys who were pissed off, than anybody else. But it's just fascinating. Just a beautiful, beautiful car. Was that the original steering wheel that was on it? Yes, it was. We had it refurbished. Refurbished. How many miles on the car when you got it? Was the engine pretty exhausted and worn out, or was it okay? It was pretty bad. We had to rebore it. Got to do pistons for it. Reworked the rods. Redid the heads. Actually, I left the original miles on it. 87,000. Right. Okay. So I didn't roll it back, so I left the original miles on it. Well, that's a lot of miles for a Ferrari. I mean, people walk away. You know, it's so funny. When I would see Ferraris for sale, for a while I was looking for a Daytona. Every one had 27,000 miles. And then you'd look back in the Ferrari registry when it was sold back in, you know, 74. 27,000 miles. So somebody's doing something. But it's great to see one with that kind of mileage on it. People think Ferraris only last 50,000 miles, and you're going to throw them away. Right. They'll last 100. You maintain them. They last as long as a regular car does. Well, the worst thing you can do with these cars is let them sit, isn't it? Yeah. People let them sit, and then all the fluids go to the bottom. And then you start it up, and there's friction because all the fluids have drained out. They don't change the brake fluid. So consequently, that kind of ruins the master cylinder. And then you don't drive it because the brakes don't. And that's kind of what happened here, too. It's kind of like having a racehorse and never racing it. Right. Just keeping the stall. Hey, it's a racehorse. Like, eh. You ever raced it? No. But hey, it's a racehorse. Well, speaking of racing, let's take it for a ride. Can we take it for a ride? Let's give it a shot. As you can see, we put the top up. We didn't film it because we only had seven hours of film in the camera. So it's tricky to put these up. It's very tricky. I've done it 20 times, and I still can't do it right. Yeah, so anyway, we got it up, and it's raining today. That's why I put the top up. We'll take this thing for a ride. Let's hop in. Let's go. Actually, there's plenty of room in this wagon. Got it on my head. Old Ferrari used to have, like, a big heater box there. Yeah. That's all. I remember we bought, like, a Ford Falcon. Window mirror was $250. Heater was $12. You know, that kind of stuff. Not anymore, so. What was the rated horsepower of this? About 250? I think it was, like, 245. I think it was. Yeah. But once you get these cars up to speed, it's all about just revving it up. Right. Redline and just the sound. It's just the beautiful sound of these things. If you change the exhaust on the old GTO, like, the different pipes on it, those are the names of the swirl pipes. If I can remember back in, I guess it was the 80s, I was on Sunset Boulevard, and they used to be one of those car dealers that they have, like, one car, and they put it in the window, you know? Yeah. And they had a, I guess, maybe 64 GTO Ferrari. Yeah. And it was $40,000. And I said, well, that's crazy. Nobody's paying $40,000. That's out of their mind. You know, so much for that. Yeah, it was an awful lot of stock. It was crazy to put money on one. I wonder how many of the 200 are left. I'd say probably maybe 100. Yeah, about half. Because they wrecked a lot of these in the day. Like you said, they were just normal cars back in the day. Right. They weren't like collectors like they are now. But they got wrecked and smashed. Just kind of like a modern day is today. Like, it was raining before I could drive, all the new guys bombed on our car. They crashed and wrecked them. Same thing back then. They drove my brother's cars, and, you know, people have money. They can afford it, but they can't drive it. It's all right. What's the one thing you dread on Ferraris when you restore them? Is it alignment? Has it been tweaked? Is it... The engines are pretty straightforward, right? The engines I love. It's getting the body to fit, you know. Because like you said, they were hand-built. And get all the panels to fit just right. And, you know, if there's been an accident, they're going to rework the whole thing. That's the worst part. It's probably to say most of the cars restored today are better put together than they were when they left the factory, wouldn't you say? Oh, completely. There's no quality control on these cars. Right. Sometimes, like, the final wine bottle on the door panel, like, I swear to God, it happened once. Some Luigi was getting drunk at lunch and just threw it in the door when he was done. But... Have you been to the factory? You've been to Italy? I've not been to Italy yet. I'd love to go just to see... Yeah. Was your dad in the car business? No, he liked cars, like I said. He loved Corvairs. That's funny. So, I'm born and raised in a Corvair. I love Corvairs. You sell my Yanko stuff. My first car is a... Well, just in case, I don't know. Huh? It's like a fuel pump. Oh, the fuel pump wasn't on. No, there's a mechanical one, I'm saying. Keep going. It's a racehorse. You like it to ride? Yeah, let's go. You like to run with the pump on all the time? Uh... I thought I might have been starving there, or I don't know, something was going on, but I was just loading up a little bit. Do you like smoking? No, I don't. You're Italian. Okay, so you started buying some old Ferraris. Yeah. So, with three liter, twin cam. Twin cam. Well, single cam on a bank, right? Yeah. And it's a two valve, not a four valve. Two valve, twin cam. It's got regular closed springs. Earlier, they just had these mousetrap springs. Right. Oh, I love those. Yeah. He got rid of those around 1958. Right. I've got them on some old motorcycles. They work, but, you know, they're just a mousetrap. That's where I first found out about hydrogen embrittlement. Really? Where you... What that means is, you chrome... If you don't... If you chrome metal... Yeah. And you don't... And you don't prepare it, eventually, the chroming weakens it, and it'll shatter it. Yeah. And I brought my brother, Sapir, and I cranked up one of his... Bing, bing! Just valve spring pieces go... And it's a spring, so it goes... Like the... It just shaft bucked, just flying off all over the place. Yeah, I had that problem once on a Ferrari. It just came loose. Now, this car originally was shipped to Belgium, is that correct? It went to Belgium originally. It's found its way to San Francisco, and then... Yeah, and the gentleman that you got it from, who passed away, he paid $2,500 for it, right? That's... Yeah, yeah. For guys like that, they saw the beauty in it back then. Yeah. Back then, people were just buying Chevys, Fords, they didn't care at all. You saw the beauty of the cars back then. But you know what's fun, though? What's what? Like, I bought that yellow Lamborghini Miura, that was my first car, first real sports car. And we sanded it and painted it to shop, because it was just an old car. And they learned about it, figured out... I mean, it's obviously not a... a first-class restoration, but... It was just fun to do. I mean, now these things are so valuable that you gotta put Italian air in the tires and all that kind of wacky stuff. Yeah, you'll do that. No, for me... I like making stuff to do again. Like, ride. L.A., a Coke machine means something totally different. You're talking about a Coca-Cola machine, correct? Yeah. Yeah, not like somebody from a Johnny Depp movie, no. Yeah, a Coca-Cola machine, sure. Yeah. But, yeah, to me, Ferrari's like... It's kind of like Hugh Hefner. Like, oh, my God, you see those girls over there? And you're like, eh... You know, I've been around so long, it doesn't mean anything. Like, it's just a car to me, but... Yeah. People are like, oh, my God, it's a Ferrari. Like, eh... So, I'm immune to the cars, but... And you get spoiled in L.A. I mean, I grew up in Massachusetts. You never saw a Ferrari. No, I... Maybe at the auto show. It's funny, um... Does it put this fuel pump back on? I think it's just loading up a little bit. It's funny, because when I was a teenager, my auto shop teacher had a Ferrari. Yeah. 308, like... I'm like, oh, my God, wow. Like, where'd you grow up? Redondo Beach. Oh, right here, okay. That's where I grew up originally. He didn't get the money from being an auto shop teacher buying a Ferrari back then. But I guess during the summer, he'd go to Alaska to fish for salmon. Right. So, he came back to school, he bought a Ferrari. Like, he was an auto shop teacher. I was, like, working on hot-rod Chevys when I was 15, building engines. I didn't drive yet. So, I went... If I got into the auto shop, I just did what I wanted. The teacher was like, um... Yeah, I was a radical guy. Funny, later on, when I graduated, I became a Ferrari technician. He called me up all the time asking me to fix his Ferrari. That's funny. So, I was like, don't do what Carl does, Well, I always said that whoever the sales guy was, talk Ferrari and put an overdrive in there. Instead of, what, fifth gear? Best salesman ever. Was that standard or an option? Standard. They did all the 250s, 330s, 2-plus-2s, all that overdrive. I used to love the 330 GTC. It's one of my favorites, yes. Just because it has that... Like an Italian Mustang. Long hood, short deck, yeah. The 365 is even better. Yeah, right, right. Bigger engine. I used to take care of Tim Allen's 330. Black Horse Motors, right? Black Horse Motors. It's like, funny story, I was just like, talking about this story at my own shop, and a guy I used to work with was like, what are you going to call it? And I'm like, I look at the badge of Ferrari, like, I don't know, Black Horse Motors. Oh, okay. Because you were just primarily Ferrari. Yeah, I was Ferrari, but Porsche has a Black Horse, too. Now, does the factory give you any help, or they don't like you being independent? No, I work with the dealer all the time. If I have a problem, I'll help him out. I help everybody. I'm a competition. How about, do you do much with modern Ferraris, or mostly the classic? I work with all the modern stuff, too. I learn programming. Yeah, I know computers and new stuff. I really appreciate it. It's a treat to drive one of these. It's one of those ones I've always seen pictures of and heard about, but to actually get behind the wheel is really exciting. It's really a lot of fun. And this is just the classic Ferrari. And this is the most popular engine, isn't it? The 250 is the most popular. It's the best sounding. Yeah. It's why I'm too busy just selling toast fries. Well, thanks for bringing it in. Boy, what a lot of fun this was. Well, I think you mentioned it. It's my Ferrari now. I've got to get a Ferrari. You can fix it. Yeah, I can fix it. Black Horse Motors. Check it out.