My plans for my Daytona replica

[alleycat]

yeah,I see what you mean,she is a beauty

[Kavinsky]

Now with the testarossa's new color the main problem with its milk white paint job vs the daytona is how dull it looks without any sort of special lighting like they had in S3 under natural conditiions

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2fB22zpASw&feature=related

Vs the Testarossa under the same conditions roughly in S4

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUuNSlzbfas&feature=related

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SnIhtkqLSI

and the car upclose and personal even in the daytime like the sideshot of the mirror here at 1:00 and at 0:59 that gives us a good shot of the bumper and the front looks downright UGLY

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE_Gc0qc21A

now while the daytona had its issues with the rear tail pipes disapearing when the light didnt hit it directly making the lower half of the back end downright disapear and seem really featureless as while when the tail pipes were horziontal in the pilot they always showed uphttp://www.flickr.com/photos/mtnman867/5350577677/the post pilot tonau cover not being fully flush with the back end of the body and not covering that hole it left between the seats, the camera making the flares seem like the stick out of the body too much from low angles, plus carl never fixed the damn chrome strip over the windshield that showed up on occasion throught S2

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ig1ozUyscnw

vs how it looked before it was damaged

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1o-NWNmQLM

and the grill getting covered in wet sand early in S2 causing the grill to oxodize before they got around to cleaning it

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=8eBLveddSfM

it never a 100 looked ugly in any shot and could have easily had those issues fixed for S3 if ferrari didnt intervene with some work, the testarossa in white however DID look a 100% ugly on occasion like here

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=eunPHC4t3_E

hell the only thing the testarossa really has one up on the daytona is the interior in my opinion which with the new door pannels its got now, the lowerer carpet in the back of the seat now mating with the carpet in the back, a matt black center console it now looks as good as the testarossa now if not better, save for the now non matching carpet under the dash that was there to match the wood center console, although even that doesnt look bad on it.http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5033&stc=1&d=1321571540although truth be told I still really miss the pilot seats which were changed because they werent ferrari authentic with its striping and the headrest might not have been too comfortabile, or it blocked the cameras shot, which is probably far more likely consdiering how much room it took up vs the current seats

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=E1o-NWNmQLM

http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5031&stc=1&d=1321571156http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5032&stc=1&d=1321571158I mean you can pretty much see just how much more the pilot seats stuck out vs the redone 78 seats they used for the show post pilot

[Icemanmike]

Thanx for posting the 4th video. '71 GTO convertible. In Lucy blue no less. Ah... she sure gave the Testarossa a good run, didn't she? Funny thing, the late 80's, early 90's Testa's can be had for $40-$60K right now and a restored GTO convert 70-71 would cost you the same and will only go up. A great investment you can enjoy. Kind of a shame as I looked into a Testa recently and it's the upkeep costs that killed the idea for me. Mike

[Kavinsky]

Thanks and yeah I think the minimal running cost of a testarossa is about somewhere between 3 - 5 K per year insurance included provided its got a limited to 5,000 miles per year deal going with the insurance company like leno has with all of his 200 cars and your above 25 years of age with no marks on your recordnot counting the ferrari/italian car rule of warming it up for five minutes and then taking it easy for 6 miles before you get on it, or let it sit for 15 minutes fully warming it up because of the amount of power the car has, specifically in second gear, hence why till its fully warmed up you skip second gear as thats where all of the power is in the transmission

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=2fWv0Lz3yxA

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=h3FhhthFAu0

ditto for the actual ferrari daytona and all ferraris more or less

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=TBBy-4tnWoM

god damn it though had to choose the ONE ferrari daytona in blue with a tan interior (my favorite color combo for the actual thing) and use the only one with that stupid bumper connector in the front and rear, running the sleak look of it.anyways hence why they've got such a reputation for being unreliabile, people get on them when they're cold and damage the mechanicalshttp://www.jaylenosgarage.com/at-the-garage/super-cars/1986-lamborghini-countach/and judging by lenos 70,000 mile countach here they will last as long as a normal car provided you adhere to the warm up rule although the same rule applys to any car in a away but it shouldnt take that long to warm up on a normal american V8 as they dont have a dry sump lubrication system like ferraris and lamborghini's do which is why the oil takes so damn long to warm up in colder climates, and I live in a colder climate so it'd probably take me god knows how long to warm one up if I could even afford it! another reason why the replica trumps the actual car here in america.also ferrari started standardizing maintenance on there cars when the testarossa came out in 1984, one of the jobs is a 5,000 USD job of replacing the clutch every 15 K miles, something you dont need to do on the countach unless its been abused and on the daytona it was the same way as the countach, when it was needed it would be done and not at set intervals like all of the post 1970's ferraris.although they also might have put in some sort of new hyper powered clutch that doesnt last that long in them in the 1980's after all ferrraris are race cars for the roads, lamborghinis are primarily road cars and that is or was the major difference between the two in the 1960's till the 1990's when they started to copy each other.although truth be told if I had to choose between an 1970's/1980's ferrari of some sort and a countach, I'd take the ferrari as I could atleast see out of the damn thing, specifically an early euro spec ferrari 308 without the kit car bumpers as I call them that were on the Magnum PI ferrari, or that black 328 GTS Don Drove in one of the episodes.

[Kavinsky]

Now as to why ferrari's are rigged up that way, first off the warm up issue is a non issue in italy because of the hot corsican sun, so its only about 5 minutes plus a few miles to warm it up.second off is in europe they typically dont have the speedlimits we do, specifically on the autostrada atleast the last time my father was over there in the 1960's for work when you asked how long it took to get somewhere they'd ask what are you driving, and chances are if you said a ferrari the trip would be about an hour to two hours for 200 miles, ditto for germany as you could get across the whole of europe in about 6 hours with no speed limits or very little speedlimits vs days with the 65 mph speedlimit here in the US which was also why for the longest time european cars were better in pretty much all regards to the american cars, save for reliabilty because they had to be rigged up to handle those speeds and americans getting on them before its warmed up, hell my father rented a 4 clyinder BMW 318I for a family vacation in germany in the early 1990's and even that small thing handled a 120 mph on the autobahn without any trouble.third is that dry sump lubrication system is put on so the engine can have a lower center of mass to help better stabilize the car for high speed driving, and mixed in with the rear mounted gear box of the daytona called a trans axel alowing the engine to be further back in the car infront of the driver for a more centerered weight balance and the split rear 30 gallon tank over the the rearafter all without that big tank it would be at the refuling station every couple of hours mid trip if it had a 10 - 12 gallon tank like a US car if it was capabile of those kind of speeds and power. so its little wonder why the daytona used to be the king of the original supercars of the late 60's till 1987, and it was the car Dan Gurney drove in the cannonball run at a 172 mph in 1977 in hard top forum.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=L93hF8DcAAE

and then Porsche and ferrari took that title away from the daytona and by default the testarossa which had only real held that distinction since 1984 and was only 3 mph faster but heavier than the daytona, although apparently thats also because the american spec testarossas are heavier than the euro spec even though they look the same, something to do with the body pannels being made of heavier aluminumn in american specand then RUF with the yellowbird at 220 and Mcclaren F1 blew them out of the water with 240which is also why the testarossa is so undervalued, everyone blew it out of the water before it could become a classic like the ferrari's before it, ditto with the 308 - 348 series. Plus ferrari had released 2 revisions of the car that were faster and someone slightly better looking than the original testarossa although they never could figure out that the bumper should look like the rest of the car to match the style of the back end and the air intakes, the morons and ill get into that next before I get into why I want to go with black metallic for the daytona.so that's why its so impractical as a road car here, it cant even be used for its purpose of getting across a continent fast here unless your in the cannonball run, still doesnt mean that they're no reason to own one though, probably would be great fun to live with in arizona with it or some sort or rural area with long roads, but not really miami or calfornia unless your a cop using it as a squad car against bad guys with high powerered cars and even then the stalling problem with the testarossa's early fuel injection system with a typical 180 turn would well not help you very much in that particular instance.although strangly enough you can actually buy a modified bolt on C4 and C5 chasis for a C3 vette, allowing you to probably have the same sort of weight balance the real daytona had with the replica if you used the C5's or C6's mechanicals with that version of the corvette's trans axel and further back centerered engine, although it would be super expensive and truthfully pointless for american roads as a 140 top end is way more than enough for america unless you took it to europe where the max you could use is about a 160 and even then on the actual daytona spyder at those speeds the roof would cave in at a 130 mph if it was up.which is why for the longest time ferrari people werent seaking the convertibles and called them hair dressers cars, although ironically they would be useful for normal american driving then.and that's why ferrari has as moved on to the retractabile hard top for the new ferrari californian recently and why mercedes has been using that system since the mid 1990's, hell even the murcielago roadsters soft top comes off at a 120 just like the daytonas did back then and they're only 5 years old at this point.

[Kavinsky]

Now with the Testarossa's design the main problem lies with the bumper (which it actually looks better without like here) most notably in its introduction scene where its the most evident as they focus in on, making you wish Crockett had asked for his Porsche back from "Forgive Us Our Debts" instead of taking the Testarossa as a replacement for the Daytona, Or even Phil's Jalpa repainted black from Phil the Shil except with a cream interior instead of bright white leather and grey carpets.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMfbMoJnY5g

as it looks overly blocky compaired to the rest of the car which save for the engine cover not being black like on the latter version of the testarossa the 512TR looks downright fantastic

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=xTsQEinS234

although I do miss the black striping of the old engine cover shown in the photo above here anyways that's because the 512BB's front bumper wasnt properly redesigned to match the rest of the car as the cars got a very angular like theme going for it much like the Lamborghini Countach or the Lotus Esprit (and the 512BB/365BB was the testarossa in its original form minius the two radiators that were added for the testarossa revision) and it was also the original predecessor of the original Daytona

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=fj31EkxuPpQ

Sorry the copywrite Nazi's took down the english version of it down

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=jGwokPpDy3A

hence why I think Crockett was also driving a Berlineta Boxer in the Pepsi Comercial too as that must have been taken when they knew they were going to be switching over to an actual ferrari and probably thought it was going to be an older berlineta boxer or they got the closest they could to the testarossa in Miami, otherwise why not use the Daytona for it? It was still being used in the show at that point after all.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HByh60JAlc

and heres the Testarossa equavalent of the same comparison between the countach and the ferrari

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dvf5AT-ebFg

and as you can see looking at the BB the bumper sticks out and then arches down at a very steep angle matching the angular look of the car http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5046&stc=1&d=1321835721 But not so on the testarossa, not at all http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5045&stc=1&d=1321835690 its more or less completely flat, flat ontop of the bumper where it meets with the trunk and sticks out over the grill, is then tucked in and then sticks out above the lower spoiler which is also pulled in making the boxyness of the nose all the more evident and downright ugly at anything but steep left or right angles where the rest of the car catches your eye first and draws you away from the improperly shaped bumper, like on the shots below and only two things can hide that, the color black (as a damn near matt white does not look that good on it) and the latter 1989 turn signals which were much smaller in the front and drew less attention to the lip above it, but nothing else besides removing the bumper itself and replacing it with a sleaker front bumper can rectify it which actually has been done on a few examples, some even using the original bumper as a template but yet still fixing the original deisgnhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5047&stc=1&d=1321836272

[Kavinsky]

Now the way to rectify this would be to go with the Koenig Testarossa Bumper on which takes out all of the protruding lips, angles the top of the bumper to better mesh with the angle of the trunk, but it also puts some sort of odd cover on the grill that's painted the body color and the spoiler on the bottom is made to significantly stick out infront of the bumperand while it looks good I'm not sure how it would look in real life and at I havent been able to find one without that modified front grill to see just how it would look with the testarossas normal face on it as this is been the closest example I can find

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6Jxm-mCPDA

http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5048&stc=1&d=1321857075and this one from 2:11 - 2:25

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=opOt9fGtI-4

the next way to fix it would be to have the bumper replaced by the one off of a ferrari 512M which this person did to an original testarossa, along with removing the air intake covers, changing the wheels and painting a matt mettalic of some sorthttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5049&stc=1&d=1321857077http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5050&stc=1&d=1321857078http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5051&stc=1&d=1321857081Basically remove the ferrari badge in the middle of the grill and it'll seem like its pretty much there, although I Miss the black accents on the bottom and Im not sure how well that would translate to the 512M bumper, although honestly its the only thing worth saving off of the wreck of a car that was the testarossas last revisionand if you think that's bad wait until you see the rear!

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LI5rt0Ti_Jk&feature=fvst

Basically in my opinion ferrari never got the testarossa a 100% right as with the 512tr they removed the center console I liked, fixed and yet broke the bumper yet again and removed the seats I liked so much and removed the black accents on the back of the car and the sides that I liked on the Miami Vice car.and with the 512 M, well look at it and its for these reasons I dont think the testarossa could ever look good in a bright color and while the white does look somewhat good on it

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Y9hDzleIn8

it lacks the depth of the black daytona and black mettalic paint job it originally had, honestly I think they should have either left it alone, painted it a white metalic called Bianco Fuji like on this 458 to get the same visibilty in the night scenes if they had anything like that back then

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LzPjwXeix9E

or this color for it

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIkwP9Jq1kE

which is basically the color Michale Mann used for the 430 in the Miami Vice film, so chances are he felt the same way 20 some years latter and he probably had a hand in selecting the ferrari's color scheme to begin with and judging by how well matched it was it seems like something someone would have put alot of thought into and did.

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=oVfBreSgfAM

http://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_46600-Ferrari-F430-Spider-2006.htmlnow that would have been the ultimate color for it regardless of the blocky unrefined, frankly slapped on american bumper, not just a plain jane silver but a beautiful dark mettalic silver/grey

[Kavinsky]

also that being said the interior was significantly changed between the Testarossa and the 512TR and left that way for the uglyfied 512M, ruining the only thing I pretty much liked a 100% from the testarossa save for the boat like Steering wheel which could easily be switched for another Momo Unit as airbags had not been standardized on US cars till the early 1990'shttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5054&stc=1&d=1322109383screwing up the beautiful seats I loved the look of and bunch of other small details, plus they didnt even bother to put the damn handbrake in the right place with the first and second revisions of the testarossa and put the damn thing in the middle where it should have been in the first placeNow even with that being said the thing about that black metalic paint job is that even though even basic black looks downright dull on the testarossa in the light

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=OTf6Ijk_CQY

metalic black looks downright fantasic on it, and this is an example of it with the same color interior as it had in the show originally toohttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5056&stc=1&d=1322109386http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5057&stc=1&d=1322109388hence why I think they originally went for a metalic paint job from the getgo as black metalic significantly hides the front bumpers lipshttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5055&stc=1&d=1322109385

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=UO3lFQg7xLw

yet when the light shines on it it highlights the lines of the car and gives the car a unique silverish black glowhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5056&stc=1&d=1322109386vs the daytonas blue glow in midnight blackand it got me thinking now if that's what that color did for the testarossa what the hell could it do for the daytona?and also this is why I everytime I look at the testarossa in the latter seasons I think, abliet frankly to myself god damn it you should have left it black metalic! especially with the cinematography of the third season, specifically forgive us our debts, I mean can you just imagine how much cooler those shots would have looked with the original paint job of the testarossa gleaming in the red sun?as even with the ugly front bumper it would have atleast seemed like a worthy successor to the daytona in that color, discouting the trouble they had with the thing stalling in turns and the close up camera car being used for pan shots of the testarossa with visibile missing parts off of it like the rear bumper and including the rear window in Down For The Count Part 2 when Crockett receives the payment notebook from his deceased buddy as you can see a little bit of plastic blowing through where the rear window should have been when Crockett and Tubs are talking in the car right afterwards.

[Kavinsky]

also forgot to post these two, one of which showing the testarossa at night in black VS the white paint jobhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5058&stc=1&d=1322115687http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5059&stc=1&d=1322115688http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5060&stc=1&d=1322115822also PMT in the same outfit that he had on when the Daytona got dusted

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=NOzuoY9Blcg

as to why Don is dressed like Dick Tracy I honestly dont know lolbut here's the others I found of another one with a black metalic paint jobhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5061&stc=1&d=1322115824http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5062&stc=1&d=1322115825except with a tan interior and as you can see if you look closely and it doesnt quite work as well as it did with midnight blue like it did on the Daytona, although that might be more the red carpet doing that.

[jama555]

It was a crime to destroy his car....It killed me to see that idiot blow up the daytona.

[Kavinsky]

yeah and the fact that Don did a double take and let him do it anyways, when he had ample time to pull out his 645 and say point that at my car and the deal and your life are done PAL! plus PMT's reaction which was too damn cold for someone who Crockett trusted enough to drive his ferrari in the hitlist.

[Kavinsky]

Now with the idea of going with another color everything is going to show up with I need to figure out what seemed off about the flares and I may have cracked the nut just now about what bothered me about them on the MV car, in particular the back of the front flares which from the photos I have actually arent cut to match the rear ones in the door areaand its only something you pick up looking through the history of the C3 corvette, now in the book I'm reading "Corvette 1968 - 1982" by Tom Falconer for 1970 they added flares to the car to help keep mud and dirt from spraying on the back of the car, and only just the back of the carthis alone explains why I have such a love hate relationship with the chrome ones as something about the early 1968 and 1969 models has always looked off to me, plus it mentions that the tire size grew 1 inch in width per year between 1967 (the last year of the C2 corvette) to 1969 the second year of the C3 and that they raised the ride height of the C3 by one inch in 1970 because of the bigger tires and probably to get more air to the cars engine as the C3 takes its air from under the nose of the car, hence why on the 454 cars of 1973 and 1974 theres actually two rubber sort of air spoilers/ directors that are behind the radiator to direct the air up into the radiator area and better cool the engineand it does mention that on the early big blocks they actually cut two big holes infront of the radator to direct air up into it for cooling, something Sonny Burnett's Mechanic was talking about doing to his even though he found out latter that they had put one of the cooling fans in Bass akwards and it was only ment for the big blocks, not small blocks although there is some sort of airdamn put on the mcburnies, but its infront of the radiator from the looks of it and could possibily block the engine airflow to it instead of redirecting it into the radiator like its supposed toa design oversight on mcburnies part and it might explain why the bottomed out front end of the daytona was never repaired as it might have actually helped cooling despite looking badly uneven from the low down shots, specifically the bought and paid for chase http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeL48-oPhSz4at 0:51 and remove the dash between 8 and o for some reason it shows up as something odd for no reason.on the otherhand it could do the opposite as well tooanyways with the flares on the actual C3 vette of 1970 onwards they are stopped by a rocker paneland the rocker pannel itself was there to draw more attention to the coke bottle like shape and also it stops the flares themselves at a point where they stop just at the point the ones on the very front and rear do, making them look even overaland this guy accomplished the same thing on a mcburnie by just painting the area the rocker pannels would have been in in another color all together, hence why it looked as professional as the normal C3 to me when I first saw ithttp://corvette.canney.net/webvettes/customized/c0069/index.htmlbut on the Mcbunrie/Markadian replica it doesnt, it goes all the way down the entire side of the car, drawing more light away from the side panels and its at odds with the lower angle of the sides of the car, specifically that last final step it has where the rocker panel would have been had it been a normal C3 vettehttp://corvette.canney.net/webvettes/customized/c0058/index.htmlfunny thing is though on the MV car the back flares were cut before reaching that spot where the rocker pannels were on the normal C3 vette, but not the fronthttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5088&stc=1&d=1322982414http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5089&stc=1&d=1322982415which is where they always put the camera in the first season, the thorn about the flares that's been bugging me for some time that I just couldnt figure out

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_dbZyuG0RU

at 0:31which perfectly explains why head on I liked the look of the car when the back of the front flares werent visibile and the back flares were, yet from scenes directly behind the car which illuminated this area it drove me nuts as I always thought something looks off like someone forgot to trim something about the flares down0:44 - 0:51

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRrfkvhDSCs

at 0:14

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPdj5_Qyaj8

[Kavinsky]

Now with the windshield frame when going with another color, any color from red to black metallic it seems like the only way it looks good in any form is to go with a semi gloss or a matt finish in the color as the rest of the car as those were the finishes used on the actual C3 vette winshield framesemi gloss chrome:matt black:and thus when you go for any sort of a gloss coloring it reflects too much light away from the thin windshield pillars on any and all examplesand while it looks okay it just doesnt look as nice as the matt black or semi gloss chrome examples as the car is rigged up in such away that the pillars are pulled in away from the body, not strictly a 100% part of it and thus straight gloss on the sides draws attention to this while matt or semi gloss allows it to blend in with the frame perfectlyhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5183&stc=1&d=1324681864to the point that when the light doesnt hit it it makes you think its gloss and thus it blends perfectly in with the body, although as you can see the windshield is already gloss so a possibile theory to why this is is because a gloss frame overpowers it, hence why only semi gloss to matt works when it comes to the windsheild frame of any C3 vettealthough going with a straight matt black frame on a red or brightly colored car is a mistake or any car that isnt blackso it looks best with either a chrome windshield frame or a semi gloss to matt windshield frame painted to match the cars body based on the owners personal preferenceunless the frame of the windshield is widened like on the carl roberts windshield, but that only works if all the parts of the winshield are utilizednamely the chrome as the chrome is key to making the thin pillars of the windshield thicker and thus more balanced otherwise it looks like something is really missing from any and all examples utilizing italthough the chrome looks off when compaired to the real car as the entire winshield and door tops are covered with chrome on the real car complete with the vent windowswhile on the C3 corvette everything from the windshield up is either matt or semi gloss with the chrome windshield trim in place

[Kavinsky]

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrvZJvG3iZU

as only the sides of the windshield are chromed on the carl roberts job although It might be possibile to use it with everything included like on the one in the gallery here if it was painted matt black, where it seems to be matt black with semi gloss chrome on the sidesand thus looks really nice in its own regard all together, funny thing is you dont pick up on it unless you look closely at it, although thats true of anything that's well put together, you dont notice the finer details untill you see one that looks similar but yet looks off compaired to the original somehowand the funny thing is that since the 1978 corvette the corvette has been using matt black and gloss black winshield frames when they thickened the frame for the C5 onwards corvette although the new ZR1 is using a matt metallic frame and this with the color change that I'm thinking of for the daytona would probably work best with itAddtional: forgot to mention something else ferrari themselves have been using a gloss black windshield frame on some of their new ferrari F458 italiashttp://www.imcdb.org/vehicle_418530-Ferrari-458-Italia-2011.html

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahsIOVx93zs

yet another thing they've nicked from the corvette after the shift patern of the F355 and the magnetically polarized shocks of the corvette C5 that have been standard on all ferraris and part of that red knob switch for the past 10 yearshence why they could change the hardness of the shocks at the flick of a switch with it and on the C5 vette without manually replacing them like you used to have to do back in the 80's since 1995.

[Kavinsky]

I have to admit though one of the things I want to change from the getgo after thinking this over is to possibily paint/teflon coat, beadblast or have the chrome strip ontop of the windshield brushed to give it a matt finish on the top of the windshield http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5186&stc=1&d=1324685914http://www.corvettec3.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1151437008/2http://www.corvettemagazine.com/2006/january/blackout_touchup/blackout_touchup.aspas I'm now thinking that's probably what makes the top of winshield frame seem so thin compaired to the rest of the car in the show, as its matt black right next to gloss silver top, ontop of the matt black side pillars making the top half look thin compaired to the rest of the windshield frame as the chrome cuts into the matt black frame itselfhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5185&stc=1&d=1324685913hence Carls windshield frame which covers up the top and front of the chrome from the look of it, giving the windshield a more sturdy and balanced look from the front, atleast on the top half before it mates with the side pillars of the framehttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5187&stc=1&d=1324685915and the reason why its like that on the 78 onwards and not on the chrome cars is because the corvette used have an entirely chrome semi gloss windshield frame with a polished chrome top, so the difference didnt seem so jarring, plus on the coupes it was covered up by the painted to match the body T topshttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5184&stc=1&d=1324685911plus the corvette convertibile was discontinued due to low sales in 1975, 3 years before the 1978 revision that introduced the matt black windshield frame and thus they thought nothing of changing the chrome to match the windshield frame as the T tops when in place would cover them up perfectly, not like the daytona with it's top up in Cool Runnin'although I think with the black metallic paint job or even the basic black I may want to have it painted atleast semi gloss body color to make the top of the windshield look more sturdy and bigger in addition to matching the rest of the windshield and the body thus making the whole windshield look alot better and much more professional looking, problem is figuring out how to do that as its chrome, not steelalthough I could possibily have a steel replica made and have the thing blued like a gunslide, or even have a replica made out of fiberglass, yet another reason why I want to go with a testbed car first as I could try this out on a 75 convertible and see how it looks mixed in with the frame and hell maybe even sell it to other corvette owners.

[Kavinsky]

also I've been rethinking the mirror thing over (along with the reverse light or lights but ill get into that latter) as I've started to really like the look of the mirrors being mounted ontop of the door frame and much closer to the windshield like on this one and jurrasics which also mimics the way it is on the actual carhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5194&stc=1&d=1324788384so I think the Gen 5 Chevy Camaro mirrors would be far better suited to this look than the corvette C5 and C6 mirrors

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuIR2pEGiMs

as the C5/C6 mirrors look like the vitaloni tornado mirrors except abit more rounded and stuck in one position http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5196&stc=1&d=1324788406http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5197&stc=1&d=1324788407and the mirrors for the gen 5 camaro are mounted on door pannels that look very similar to the ones on the daytona replicasatleast from the front where the mirror would be mounted and it would look closer to the vice city stories version of the daytona that I like so muchhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5198&stc=1&d=1324788409

[Kavinsky]

as at the very least it would be an interesting inbetween between the two vitaloni mirrors that most replicas use and alot of italian cars in general, although I dont think the ferrari 308 mirrors work on the daytona replicahttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5201&stc=1&d=1324791252nor do the painted corvette C3 mirrorshttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5199&stc=1&d=1324791249but on the other hand it looks like the C3 mirrors could have a potental to work if mounted correctly so they're arched towards the driver and not straight back like on this example and model I found photos ofhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5202&stc=1&d=1324791253http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5203&stc=1&d=1324791255http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5204&stc=1&d=1324791420http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5205&stc=1&d=1324791650and how funny is that the offical kit of the daytona from MV has a vette engine in it in addtion to the painted corvette C3 mirrors? and its not mine by the way, its just photos I found of the kit on the internet that I likedand there is quite a difference look wise between painted and non painted vitaloni mirrors to say the leasthttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5200&stc=1&d=1324791250so to say the least there is a fair number of options when it comes to mirrors that could potentally work and I've found that the mirrors are typically what makes or breaks the car next to the windshield trim and the seats.and theres also this one using yet another corvette C3 mirror, an early chromed one that oddly works for it and its the only one I've seen with one mirror like the testarossa that could pull it off.http://www.indat.de/enzo/e_anzeig.htmhttp://www.indat.de/enzo/daytona.htm

[Kavinsky]

Now with the rear of the car I've noticed that on a few daytona's actually have dual reverse lights mounted under the rear bumpershttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5207&stc=1&d=1324842220http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5208&stc=1&d=1324842222which seems to give the rear of the car good extra symmetry and the corvette in 68' when the C3 first came out did actually have twin reverse lights but they were soon deleted for 1969 although I have seen them retrofitted to latter C3 vettes and thus I think I'd like to try them out on it too, plus well it seems like a lack of a reverse light is an odd omission in this day and age http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5209&stc=1&d=1324842223plus looking at both the replicas and the real ones with no reverse light I always thought something was missing between the bumpers and the tail pipes and having them mounted under the bumpers could be a good inbetween of the two looks of no reverse light and one reverse lighthttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5206&stc=1&d=1324842219and remove another extra area that dirt could build up under as the mufflers in that position would block most of the road grime anyways as they would be directly in line with the reverse lights.

[Kavinsky]

Just thought I'd post about the testarossa again as I noticed something else off about it that would also explain why people who actually own them are actually taking the "stalks"? off and destalking them like on these two exampleshttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5253&stc=1&d=1325226114http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5250&stc=1&d=1325226109now I've noticed that what's off about them is that where the stalks stop at the end of the doors in the fronthttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5249&stc=1&d=1325226107the stalks are not trimmed properly and were left that way throughout the testarossa's run which was with the testarossa from 1984 to 1994 ending with the frankly uglified 512M as the stalks for a better lack of a word are too thick on the ends that face the front, sticking out from the sides like somone put a gigantic ungainly comb over the side air intakeshttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5251&stc=1&d=1325226111yet they look great from the back where they properly flow into the cars hunking shoulder line at the rear, which is the best looking part of the carhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5252&stc=1&d=1325226112

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SnIhtkqLSI

now the way to rectify this would be to simply thin the stalks down at the ends so there not that thick towards the front and so they blend into the doors better, not cut them off completely as well plenty of cars have dual side air intakes like the new mclaren MC12 nowadays

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahsIOVx93zs

and thus taking them off would basically ruin a unique feature of the car that was unique to the testarossa making it seem more modern yet at the same time more generic and forgetfuland this also feeds into my theory that the design of the testarossa was rushed as well all of my problems with it have been fixed by the aftermarket work by everyone else like Koenig and are being performed by many testarossa owners to their own personal examples as a little extra work to make a much more seemless bumper front bumper and flusher stalks would have made the testarossa a much more coveted respected ferrari rather than a yuppie car as some people refer to them as, as even devoted ferrarists who love the old ones actually do despise the testarossa like Jerremy Clarkson hence its low entrance fee of 40,000 grand for a good example vs the entrance fee of 90,000 bucks back in the 80's even though its one of the last old school ferrari's made before old man Enzo bit the dust back in 89'

[Kavinsky]

Just finishing up some odds and ends here before I get to the interior as I think I figured out why it seems like the latter testarossa's for whatever reason look better than the earlier ones and yet they also look better than the latter revisions the 512TR and the 512M regardless of the turn signal indicators and I figured this out while I was going through my testarossa section of the daytona file, renaming them to show the purpose of the photoNow looking at this photo look how the blue light reflects off of the spoilers below the bumper of the post 89 car here, making it look bigger and thus not as blocky as the earlier cars making it overal more balanced and profesional looking http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5358&stc=1&d=1327166430although this seems to have been done by the owner, not ferrari with the testarossa.but anyways yet on ones like the MV car it doesnt reflect at allhttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5355&stc=1&d=1327166425http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5359&stc=1&d=1327166432the spoilers are painted a matt black making that whole area seem much smaller and thus making the car look much more blocky above that particular area and also overal making the car far less reflective and thus far less addaptive to the colors reflecting off of it in the miami climate, basically giving the car a much more washed out look than it should to an extent, the other half doing that is the non metallic solid white paint job they decided to go withand I believe this is why the 512 TR and 512 M despite being a step backwards in almost all regards sytling wise yet somehow seems more modern.http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5356&stc=1&d=1327166426http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5357&stc=1&d=1327166428 discouting the more modern style of wheels it has on it (which arent as nice looking as the 86 rims there, nor the 89 ones) as the spolers below are painted to match the gloss body of the car, like on the 89 there making the thing look more professional from the side yet mixed in with the new bumpers and the other styling changes much uglier than the testarossa, hell the only plus side to the 512's revisions are the fact that they redid the clutch so you didnt have to break your arm to shift gears and the engine was moved further forward to make it more stable at high speed and cornering although honestly about the only things it needed are a lighter clutch and gearshift and for the body to be smoothed out and made more aerodynamic looking yet still keeping the good syling cues of the testarossa, yet make them more modern, ie painting the bottom a gloss black instead of a matt black plus replacing that momo wheel with one that doesnt seem to sink down like a boat wheel and making the wheel adjustabile, and cutting the stocks back to be more flush with the body yet still keeping them and removing the double lip from the front bumper and the receding the lip on the door that covers the stocks in the first place)anyways the gloss bumper thing also explains what seems wrong with the testarossa in the first place first and foremost in every video of it I've sen in addition to the new turn signals that helped relieve this problem and even the testarossa owners seem to be picking up as well judging by how many of them have been destocked and have had some form of spoiler color mods done to them by now

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=LH0OWdopWRc

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=39aVOmLwbXo

and even that matt black spoiler shows up with the original color in Irish eyes somewhat

hence all the more reason I think they should have left it in its original color to cover this up and the shortcomings of the testarossa's design, basically nothing but black could have covered it up and the rear bumper they took off for the camera car on occasion and left off for the outside shots by accident from time to time

[jurassic narc]

Now with the rear of the car I've noticed that on a few daytona's actually have dual reverse lights mounted under the rear bumperswhich seems to give the rear of the car good extra symmetry and the corvette in 68' when the C3 first came out did actually have twin reverse lights but they were soon deleted for 1969 although I have seen them retrofitted to latter C3 vettes and thus I think I'd like to try them out on it too' date=' plus well it seems like a lack of a reverse light is an odd omission in this day and age plus looking at both the replicas and the real ones with no reverse light I always thought something was missing between the bumpers and the tail pipes and having them mounted under the bumpers could be a good inbetween of the two looks of no reverse light and one reverse lightand remove another extra area that dirt could build up under as the mufflers in that position would block most of the road grime anyways as they would be directly in line with the reverse lights.[/quote']The dual back-up lights were mostly on the "American" models of the Daytona. The single tail light was on the european version. But, Ferrari was notorious for mixing things around. The American model also had the deep set rear side markers and all red tail-lights.

[Kavinsky]

The dual back-up lights were mostly on the "American" models of the Daytona. The single tail light was on the european version. But' date=' Ferrari was notorious for mixing things around. The American model also had the deep set rear side markers and all red tail-lights.[/quote']indeed as this daytona apears to be an american version yet it has the single light on the backhttp://www.finecars.cc/en/detail/car/14122/index.html?no_cache=1&tx_anamerashowroom_pi1[pointer]=1-2&tx_anamerashowroom_pi1[RET]=63&tx_anamerashowroom_pi1[MODE]=make and theres new photos of it too as it just came back on the market, 1 million 5 for a car you cant even get up to a 130 here, hence the reason why one of the guys at the ferrari forums was talking about selling his daytona till he illegally drove it up to a 130 in california during a meet and then fell in love with it again.and thats probably why its come back onto the market so soon with the black one, as it was for sale only a year ago in california and regardless of the plate and number change thats definitely the same daytona as you just cant wind up and enjoy a car like that over here unless you live next to a race track, have it stored in europe for use on the autobahn or the autostrada, your name is Sonny Crockett and everyone in the police force knows your car and leaves you alone when you shoot over the highways to stop a bad guy or if you live in arizona or nevada where the roads are long and open, theres hardly any cops around and the climate is warm enough so that the engines can easily warm up and there is a surprising amount of exotics in the south and other desert like areas probably for that very reason, although having an exotic in california just seems highly impractical given how disconnected their laws are from real life in general with everything, especally their laws in regards to cars and the huge populous of people, atleast in the well known places making it impossibile to really enjoy a high speed machine like that as it was ment to be used, atleast without threating the lives of a great many people while doing it.anyways also I noticed something very interesting about the rowley vette I've been looking at for the past two years concerning its windshieldhttp://www.photos-automobiles.com/shootings/ferrari_daytonaspyder/index.htm but I need a break so ill post about it latter, but to say the least its a very subtile but yet very big change that can easily be done to any daytona or corvette for that matter to make the windshield seem sleaker and better balanced, hell I didnt really notice it till I was sorting out my daytona photos and saw the difference between the white pearl one with its chrome windshield and the rowley one with its stock modified oneand also this can be done to the chrome windshield cars too.also I have a development about the grill ill get into on the daytona thread latter as it turns out it may have actually been replaced during S2, but not in the way you would think it was.

[Kavinsky]

Now what I'm refering to with the windshield is a spare trim piece that's part of the windshield trim seen herehttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5378&stc=1&d=1327542514http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5379&stc=1&d=1327542685as you can see its two pieces on the top of the chrome car here, while the sides are one piece alone making the windshield look thicker on the top than it is on the sides yet on the rowley replicas there is only one piece, the piece the chrome for the top sits onmaking the whole thing look more balanced and overal much more in tone with the style of the body, so it can easily be removed or left off from the look of itand the reason for its existance is that it was an extra piece stuck onto the top ment to further intensify the coke bottle styling of the corvette C3 as its wide in the nose which is what the top of the windshield would line up with while its only one piece on the sides to match the pinched doors of the stock C3's and seeing as the daytona replicas have more or less removed that pinched styling from the doors it seems oddly at odds with the sleak design of the replicas, yet it seems perfectly fine and completely inline with the C3 stylingand to give you an idea of how subtitle this change is I've been looking at those two rowley replicas with this subtitle change for two years, liked them for some odd reason that I couldn't explain and only picked up on it now as while looking at that chrome car as the chrome made it apparent that it wasnt what I thought it was at first as I thought that extra strip on the top was a weather strip for the windshield, not an extra trim piece that was stuck on to create a subtitle effect on the windshield to intensitfy the coke bottle styling of the C3

[Kavinsky]

also its kind of funny after finally figuring that out that it also sheds some light onto what exactly Carl Was trying to do with his windshield frame, he basically instead of removing that piece of trim oppted to double the thickness of the side pillars from the outside to counteract that fact about the corvette windshield, to try and make it look more balanced using that extra piece of trim as his basis, opting to go the opposite way that rowley did with their replicas:http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5381&stc=1&d=1327558544http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5384&stc=1&d=1327558549yet it made the windshield seem too thick and blocky and at odds with the car, even with the chrome around it, atleast when its painted something other than a non matt paint job like the one in our gallery that belongs to ace ishttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/photoplog/index.php?n=6750so what I think I'm going to opt to do is have that extra trim on the top removed to make it look more balanced and have the remaining windshield frame painted to match the body like on this car http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5382&stc=1&d=1327558546http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5383&stc=1&d=1327558548and you can see that the only part that seems at odds with the car is the top bit, which is the painted extra trim that I just pointed out that seems at odds with the now straight, non pinched sleak body of the replicasand the reason for this is that with painted mirrors that perfectly match the gloss body the windshield will stick out against it in its matt black form like on that rowley with the light reflecting off of it in this photoso at the very least I'd need to go with a matt midnight blue of some sort or a matt black mettalic for the frame to get it to look right against the painted gloss mirrors or even go for a semi gloss finish for it as a straight non matching black just doesnt look quite right to me although I do want to make the windshield seem bigger by going with a gloss paint job to match the body after thinking it over as with color differences if its matt it makes it look smaller like the windshield frame and mirrors of the vice car, this carand the air spoilers below the bumpers of the testarossa http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5359&stc=1&d=1327166432and I just want to make that particular part of the car seem bigger somehow by using the color differences to my advantage.and you can actually see this matt thing in the photo of the daytona right after its retirement thanks to the photos contrast going out of wack from age herehttp://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5385&stc=1&d=1327559565see the way it reflects off of the mirrors and the windshield frame? and actually jurassic thats probably what seemed off about your windshield frame to you, you had matt black mirrors against a gloss windshield frame, while the vice car was matt/matt like aces car in the gallery there and actually that photo illustrates another point as well, showing that the reason why the gold spinners worked so well is because they matched the turn signals.and also gloss makes something look bigger like the hood of the daytona, althought that also means that the right middle ground might also be the semi gloss option to get the best of both worlds in this regard.basically its just a matter of what do you want to seem bigger about the car, if you want something to seem bigger go with a gloss of some sort, want a middle ground between the two? go for a semi gloss and if you want it to seem smaller go for a matt of some sort.

[Kavinsky]

Also just looking at the photos of the actual car I've picked up on something that I also like about that rowley replica:http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5437&stc=1&d=1329191121http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5439&stc=1&d=1329191124The cars angled so that the rear end is ever so slightly aimed upwards not unlike a hotrod of some sort with big fat tires in the rear and small ones in the frontSimilar to Sonny's car:http://www.miamiviceonline.com/attachment.php?attachmentid=5438&stc=1&d=1329191123although I think I'd want to acomplish this simply by making the shocks in the rear set to make the car sit up a little higher make mixed in with the 16 inch wheels of this one:intead of using bigger tires for the rear as honestly while the normal 14 wire wheels look good on it I just like the 16's more because their inline with the tire size of the actual car and having one size of tires in the front and a different one in the rear just looks really off from the rearso about a 15 - 16 inch rim is what I'd be looking for, probably 15 as I really like the look of it on this one http://www.vetteweb.com/features/vemp_0209_vintage_1973_corvette/viewall.htmlsorry about the photo quality on their website, it looks like they recently degraded it.and if it looks good on the corvette chances are it will look great on the replica but anymore than that and it can and will actually make the car seem smaller like this one with its 17 inch rims as the tires seem too small for the car

http-~~-//www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrvZJvG3iZU

http://www.finecars.cc/en/detail/car/132405/index.html?no_cache=1&ret=20&request[filter][offset]=0&request[filter][rowcount]=6making the whole thing seem kinda weak looking, plus the tires in the front are smaller than the rear by a signficiant margin making the damn thing look ugly