100 point restoration. Original tools and books. Just fabulous and ready to show, event or simply enjoy on the road.
Originally sold to Dr Richard Lonas a prominent Seattle eye surgeon.
The car came into the US new through Modern Car Motors, Reno Nevada, Bill Harrah's Ferrari dealership. Dr Lomas and the next owner of 10789, Mr. Bob Sale, a retired Section Chief of the FBI had their cars serviced by the same factory trained mechanic for several years (Mr. Sale had a GTE at the time). Mr Sale had been understandably enamored with 10789, having seen it on occasion at the mechanics shop and had expressed his desire to own the car. Dr Lomas sold it to Mr. Sale in the 1974 timeframe.
Mr. Sale sold it to the next owner a little over 3 years ago. The car had been sitting for most of the last 12 or so years and although complete, unhit and in general together, was extremely tired. When initially purchased the intention was to get it running and drive it was. It had it's original interior with a very tired top and one poor repaint. He removed the engine, rebuilt the water pump and delivered it to Patrick Ottis for evaluation and dialing in. The car had only a few thousand miles on a factory trained technician rebuild. He then had it dynoed by Patrick at the Hasselgren Dyno facility in Berkeley, Ca. It ran according to Patrick at roughly 96% of a new engine and he said it was essentially perfect. He told him he'd be a fool to touch the internals. After this, he consulted with Brian Hoyt of Perfect Reflections and agreed that the car was perfect for a Ferrari National level restoration. He and Patrick, along with Ken Nemanic on the interior side, did exactly that.
The interior is spectacular. Original hides were found using the complete originals as examples. He found the Italian supplier of trunk and cabin carpet and orderd it from them directly. Impossible to find, and ofter missing correct rubber was either sourced from Italy or made by hand from originals. The car scored 97/100 at the June 2011 Savannah, Ga FCA event, easily earning Platinum, and in addition won Tropheo Gran Turismo for Best Pre 1975 Ferrari. One of the four major awards and a significant honor.
Two plus of the three points were for picky items such as left turn signal bulb loose (He didn't know there was a 15 minute timeframe to repair it and it took him 20 minutes to find the bulb - a friend took his out of his already judged car! Regardless he was too late), the radiator and overflow caps were reversed(according to Patrick Ottis'tech- - they run better that way....but he forgot to alert me to reverse them back!), a couple of the exhaust clamps were sideways, as opposed to up and down, and they forgot to reinstall the wire spring clips on the intake manifold breather hoses. He missed all of these tiny things, but was told by Parker Hall, his head judge "to not worry your car is spectacular". So he waited, joined the other Platinum winners off to the side while each of the judges evaluated the cars for major awards. He was elated to be awarded the trophy as the cars there were special and spectacular (an original owner NART Spyder was there along with several extremely limited production cars).
So many details were there on this car, such as the correctly sourced original woven cloth covered Aeroquip AC hoses that he found in a warehouse in Ohio - supposedly the last two rolls available anywhere. These have the correct Aeroquip part number on them, and also have something rarely seen, which is the original Ferrari band tags and part number on them! Just one small example of the details addressed on each of the many subsystems on the car. At the Savannah FCA show, the car was surrounded all day long by admirers. The Pino Verde Metallic is in his opinion the very best colour used on the 60's era cars. It's got a fair amount of blue in it and changes colors as you walk around it, and as the time of day and lighting conditions change.
In the words of judges, participants and other marque experts, 10789 is the nicest 330 GTS in the world. It's been carefully done to Pebble Beach standards by the judges themselves...
