Dennison International Visit

I had the chance to visit Butch Dennison's Dennison International restoration shop.  Butch was responsible for the restoration on this year's (2008) Pebble Beach Best of Show Alfa Romeo 8C 2900B Touring Berlinetta owned by Jon Shirley.

I was invited down because they are restoring the 'Golden Car' which was rebodied by Drogo from a 330 GT (7979GT).  In particular, they wanted to compare an original 330 GT to see what areas had been modified by Drogo and what was still original as built by Pininfarina.  So I drove my car down to Puyallup, about 40 miles from my house.

At this point, the body has been stripped and new sheet metal being put in where needed due to rust or prior poor repairs.  The car must have been hit on the right front at some point as the whole right fender was a nightmare of small panels all brazed together.  Clearly not done by Drogo as the rest of the revised body was welded with hammered flat seams just like Pininfarina.

In addition to the right front fender being hit, the door must have been badly damaged too as it had been replaced.  The Pininfarina body number for 7979 is 389 as stamped on a couple of parts.  However, that door was stamped 158 which links back to 6747, a 4 headlight RHD car that was badly damaged when in for servicing at Maranello Concessionaires in the UK.  Since MC was responsible, the owner was compensated and the car was returned to the factory for repair.  At that time, the 2 headlight cars were in production, so Pininfarina put a new 2 headlight body on 6747's chassis.  Obviously the old crashed body was sold off with the door ending up on 7979 after its crash.

The current owner, John Goodman (Goodman Racing), is having the job done right, even going back to the original large metallic flake gold paint from the current red.  A section was found under the door hinge cover plate.  See the comparison with the later small metallic flake gold under the red on the gas door.

In addition to the metal working area, the shop has a complete machine shop and a clean room for engine assembly.

There were several other rare Ferraris there, including a Schumacher F1 310B, 250 LM, 250 TDF and a 275 GTS.