Dennison Visit 9/18/20

I received an email that the car was back from the paint shop, so I went down for a visit and pictures.

I had recently gone to a WA licensing office to get the car titled and registered in my name.  I had not done this since I bought it in 2003 as I was never sure if I would get it ready for the road or end up selling it off as is.  Since the sales/use tax in WA is over 10%, I didn't want that expense unless I was going to get to drive it.  Well, in a couple of months, it should be together and ready for me to drive it home.  This is during COVID, so you wait outside of the office, 6' apart of course, waiting for your turn.  After about 15 minutes, I was ushered to a window.  It took about 45 minutes to process the paperwork (CA title from 1989, bill of sale from 2003, application for a WA title and to register it on WA restored plates).  But I walked out with a permanent registration and the promise that the WA title would arrive in 4-6 weeks.  There was some issue with the price on the bill of sale, but once I called and got the CA dealer's number, that issue was solved.

I took the registration, insurance card and license plate down to Dennison so they would be legal for test drives.  I had taken the time to make a plastic backing plate for the license plate.  I've used one like this on my 330 GT ever since I put the Italian plate on the rear.  It's simply some stiff flexible plastic that I put nylon nut inserts in.  The bolts in the license plate fit into the inserts and hold the plate away from the plastic.  Then the sides bend, allowing them to slip into the gap between the Italian plate and the frame.  Once the sides are in place, the whole assembly is slid down so the plastic is captured on three edges.  The nut inserts hold the frame away from the frame. The whole assembly can easily be removed at a show and put back on afterward.  The plastic came in a roll, so there is a natural bend to provide pressure to keep it in place.  The one on the 330 was slightly crooked and let the plate rub on the license plate frame, so I made a new one for it too.

The car came back from the paint shop with the color coat all sanded and buffed out.

   

 The engine and passenger compartments and trunk are painted black.

       

   

Of course, there are areas that will need to be touched up as the car is re-assembled.  You can see the battery frame in one of the pictures above and that will been to be welded back on and painted.  They also added mounting places for the retractable 3 point seat belts I asked to be installed.  The left picture is where the retractor mounts while the middle picture shows where the swivel mounts.  You can seen the mount for the loose end receiver in the right picture.

       

If you remember, the tunnel had been cut and bent apart when I bought the car.  As you can see in the picture above, it's back to original.

There wasn't room in the trailer for the hood, trunk lid and sunroof when the car was picked up.  However, they did bring back the doors along with the extra paint.

   

It turns out that the paint color they matched the Rosso Bordeaux to is a Mercedes color, Desert Red.

   

My car is in very good company at Dennison's.  It's right behind a Michael Schumacher 1998 Ferrari F310B Formula 1 car.  Note, the skinny tires are for ease of moving the car around in the shop.  There was a stack of race tires off to the side.

In addition there is a 275 NART spyder (one of the 10 real ones!) in for a full restoration and a 330 GT (almost identical to mine) that is just being finished up.