Meeting at Euro

The Club is indebted to Michael Sheehan and all the people at European Auto Sales and Restoration in Costa Mesa for hosting our May Membership Meeting. It was an unexpectedly unique event because of special guest John Lamm from Road and Track, which is just down the street in Newport Beach.

The shop was as interesting as always. There were Ferraris of all types everywhere, from an old Formula 2 car partially disassembled, to a fire damaged Daytona Spyder undergoing restoration, to a fully restored 512 M race car parked out front. And many more in between. Mike had all aspects of the shop open for members to view, including: the sales office (complete with the crushed 308 coffee table), the parts department, the service bays, the metal working shop, the paint shop, and even the dyno room with V-12 hooked up and ready for testing. .

All the cars had been moved out of the showroom to make room for tables and chairs for the meeting. Mike graciously provided sandwiches, pasta salad, desert, and beverages for everyone to enjoy. Chalk up yet another free meal to the FCA. Thanks Mike! .

But the highlight of the evening had to be the slide show from John Lamm. You should have read about the CD-ROM software title "Le Legend Ferrari, Volume 1 - The Road Cars" that I reviewed in last month's Sempre Ferrari. Well, I hadn't realized that accomplished car photographer and editor at large, John Lamm, had taken all the photos displayed in the "Models" section of that program, but he did. Not only that, but he has been traveling the world visiting the most private and respected collections to take photographs for the next title in the series "Volume 2 - The Sports Racing Cars." .

I'm sure you can imagine the wonderful pictures represented by these historical Ferraris and lucky for those at the meeting, John brought a carousel full of slides to show us. With sometimes comical narration by Mike Sheehan and Steve Tillack, who seem to have owned every one of the cars shown at least twice, the slide show was a once in a lifetime experience for Ferrari lovers. .

Finally, to cap the night off, the guys at the shop couldn't resist firing up the yellow ex-Derek Bell 1970 512 M s/n 1030 at 9:30 PM to back it into the shop. The neighbors must have jumped out of their beds as that 600+ horsepower beast exploded into a raucous, lumpy idle, bellowing hydrocarbons out its snaked, unmuffled headers. What glory! The car is a true race car with an interesting history worth noting here.

Chassis number 1030 was originally built as a 512 S Berlinetta and was delivered new to Jaques Swaters in 1970 where it raced for Ecurle Francorchamps in a number of races with decent success:

Year	Race	#	Drivers	Finish
1970	Spa 1000 km	23	Bell/Fierlant	8th
1970	Le Mans 24 Hrs	12	Walker/Fierlant	5th
1970	Kyalami 12 Hrs	03	Bell/Fierlant	6th
1971	Buenos Aires	18	Gosselin/Fierlant	6th
1971	Daytona 24 Hrs	26	Gosselin/Fierlant	DNF

After the 1970 Spa 1000 km race, the Berlinetta was returned to the factory and fitted with a Coda Lunga (long tail) body for Le Mans, including a flared out tub just in front of the rear wheels. Later, after the 1971 race at Daytona, s/n 1030 was converted to 512 "M" configuration and continued to race for Ecurle Francorchamps:

Year	Race	#	Drivers	Finish
1971	Le Mans 24 Hrs	9	Fierlant/Cadenet	DNF
1971	Watkins Glen 6 Hr	63	Cadenet/Motschenbacher