Michael Mann's Testarossa Up for Auction


Daytona74

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Michael Mann's own 1986 Testarossa is coming up for auction at Sotheby's:

http://www.carscoops.com/2017/07/miami-vice-directors-ferrari-testarossa.html

1986-ferrari-testarossa-blue-m.jpg

 

I have to say I really dig the color scheme... :thumbsup:  Michael Mann had taste on and off the screen...

Any bets for what kind of price this one will sell? It's been fully restored and certified by Ferrari itself... so it's as good as any other top condition Testarossa...

Edited by Daytona74
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Not a color you see everyday on any Ferrari. Nice! I wouldn't mind having the Testarossa that belonged to the guy that made Miami Vice!

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hm... I just saw the odometer... it says 40 miles... that can't really be, can it?

Do they roll back the odometer at Ferrari when they do a restoration? A car doesn't just look "worse for wear" after 40 miles since new, even if you put it in storage for ten years... :) and 40 miles is barely one test drive. And that isn't even counting the testing they put every Ferrari through on Ferrari's own test track before it gets delivered to a customer...

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Yes a great looking car in blue! There was a similar color to a car in the episode the "Home Invaders," which looked cool. Overall rare on the show, I think. 

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4 hours ago, Daytona74 said:

hm... I just saw the odometer... it says 40 miles... that can't really be, can it?

Do they roll back the odometer at Ferrari when they do a restoration? A car doesn't just look "worse for wear" after 40 miles since new, even if you put it in storage for ten years... :) and 40 miles is barely one test drive. And that isn't even counting the testing they put every Ferrari through on Ferrari's own test track before it gets delivered to a customer...

Really surprised by this as well unless that is a trip readout. I recall at one time someone referring to Michael Mann 'tooling around Miami' in his Testarossa so it wouldn't take much to hit many more  miles that that. And pretty sure rolling back an odometer is illegal so I wouldn't expect that here.

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I think the trip readout is the one below that, because it has the decimals on it like trip counters usually do.

There is one legal way to have your odometer showing less miles than the car has actually done, at least here in Europe, and that is if it's a replacement odometer, either new or used (from a junkyard). But to make it legal, you then still have to have it put into the car's papers at what actual mileage the odometer was replaced and how much the replacement odometer was showing at the time. You can simply reprogram newer digital odometers, but adjusting an analog one to fit your car's actual mileage isn't/wasn't always a DIY job.

I want to say it's kind of unlikely that somebody would have paid Ferrari tens of thousands for a full restoration and then not made sure that the odometer, even if it got replaced, was adjusted to the old mileage. On the other hand, maybe that's the way they do a full restoration at Ferrari. Maybe they actually put in a new odometer that read zero miles and then annotated the car's papers. Analog odometers are known to fail occasionally after 20 or 30 years, no matter the mileage. Happened to a friend's car once, his analog odometer quit after just 100K miles.

Edited by Daytona74
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Think you are right about the trip readout. As to the apparent odometer readout I did a quick search and I could not find any legal exceptions other than the example you also provided when an odometer is replaced and cannot be rolled back to the correct mileage, Documents must be retained showing the actual mileage at the time of repair, affixed to the inside of the door frame, and identified in any title transfer. But the ad for this car shows the mileage very clearly as if to identify it as a low mileage car, so to me that is a representation of the actual miles. Otherwise it may be construed as fraud by the seller, which I wouldn't expect here. So as far as I can tell no restoration should legally include a rollback unless the odometer is replaced under the conditions you mentioned. The seller is apparently representing this (from the photo) as actual miles.   Just is hard to believe.

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Then again, somebody who buys the Ferrari at auction will probably have spent some time studying the car's papers, before putting down somewhere around $120K. If you buy the car and know the odometer doesn't represent the actual mileage, it isn't fraud.

I still don't know what to make of "worse for wear" if the car actually has only done 40 miles. If you've had a car, any car in storage for ten years, you are going to have to indiscriminately replace any rubber and plastic parts at all around the car, New water and brake hoses, possibly new calipers, timing belt and water pump, definitely new tires, and maybe even a new exhaust, although the Testarossa did have factory stainless steel exhaust. And a number of other things. But it doesn't seem to warrant a "full restoration" directly at the Ferrari restoration division. Any local Ferrari dealership could do that kind of job.

Edited by Daytona74
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if you are a good mechanics you can touch one for less than 70k. that car will be sold for much more that the market price

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The RM Sotheby's listing is here: http://rmsothebys.com/mo17/monterey/lots/1986-ferrari-testarossa/1703822  The estimated value is $150 to 200K and it is no-reserve.  The listing definitely says that a complete restoration was completed.  And the odometer was obviously zero'd.  In the US cars after a certain age can declare the mileage as "total mileage unknown" - but the car will then be stuck with that for the rest of its life.

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I think that's kind of a grey area here; most bill of sale forms here contain the words "mileage as read from odometer", but it'd be fraud if you don't tell the buyer that the true mileage is unknown and/or considerably higher. Then again, if you overlook a flaw on a car in gross negligence, then that's on you (extreme example: you buy a car but don't bother checking if the engine starts before you sign). Nobody can believe that a total full restoration would have been necessary after just 40 miles.

Should be interesting to see what kind of price Michael Mann's Testarossa actually fetches. $200K and more for a restored and certified TR with a rare trim and such a well-known previous owner doesn't seem all that unlikely.

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odometers AFAIK are reflecting the engine mileage. so if major engine parts or even the whole engine have been replaced i don't see any abnormality in an odometer showing 0.

yeah you can expect such price for a celebrity car with a state of the art restauration. above 200k is just non sense. the average price for a Testarossa is around 100k

the deep blue is gorgeous, and fits well with the art deco design of the car

Edited by jpm1
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vor 14 Minuten schrieb jpm1:

odometers AFAIK are reflecting the engine mileage. so if major engine parts or even the whole engine have been replaced i don't see any abnormality in an odometer showing 0.

 

The overall mileage is also about the general wear that a car was subjected to. A car's body shell and frame are affected by the mileage just the same way as an engine, the wheel suspension, the whole drivetrain, you name it. Every bump in the road wears on almost every part of a car. This is why cars with high mileage which were put through their paces often appear "soft" and shaky. I'm not sure just how far they have taken this full restoration at Ferrari, but unless they have changed the entire frame and body shell, then a mileage of, say, 50K will just be "in the car's bones". Even if you rebuild the engine (and a rebuilt engine still isn't the same as a factory-new one), of if you reupholster the seats and put on new exterior paint.

Edited by Daytona74
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