Curse of the Dino: Murphy’s Law Strikes Our Editor’s $25K Ferrari

Two funerals are now part of my car’s restoration story, a sad twist I never imagined when I started this project three years ago.

The shadow of death has marked these cars from the outset: Dino was Enzo Ferrari’s short-lived sub-brand that was named after his son. Alfredo Ferrari, nicknamed Dino, worked for his old man until he passed away from muscular dystrophy in 1956. He was just 24 years old.

In January 2021, I paid $25,000 for a 1975 Dino 308 GT4 that spent some 20 years hibernating in a SoCal garage. That 25 large was, I knew, only a down payment on this project car. I’ve had some success with previous machines and realized a long time ago that I enjoy the DIY portions and getting to know the craftspeople I hire for the jobs I can’t do, like painting and interior work. There’s the learning aspect, too—a chance to practice and improve my self-taught mechanical skills.

While the car was with a semi-retired painter in 2022, he unexpectedly passed away. I had known him for about a decade, and I always enjoyed stopping by to catch up on my car and life. One thing that I’ve learned over the years is to look for people who enjoy their craft and cars as much as I do. The shared enthusiasm brings added joy to any project.

Scrambling for another painter revealed years-long waiting lists. Through a friend, I found someone with excellent references and an opening for spring 2023. The week before I brought my car to him last March, a fire destroyed his paint booth.

Meanwhile, I’d identified a similar late-career trimmer to restore the interior. This gentleman had a one-man shop and took jobs he enjoyed rather than ones that merely paid the bills. He saw my 308 as a way to hone new skills and experiment with different interior materials. We debated colors and fabrics with vigor and I usually deferred. He took great joy in a technique he developed to replace the destroyed driver’s-seat foam. Last summer, he unexpectedly passed.

Oh, man. What is it with this car?

I’m not superstitious, but you have to wonder. My wife declared she wouldn’t ride in the car even if I finished it. Her aversion to exhaust fumes suggests, however, that the car’s potential curse might be a convenient excuse.

How does one press on? I’ve now had two painful episodes in which teary-eyed families helped me dig through soon-to-be-empty shops for car parts. How does one be respectful, but also make sure parts weren’t lost? In one instance, a shop landlord locked the doors, imprisoning my seats until the estate was worked out. I know that the GT4’s sun visors are gone. What else?

All this on top of the fact that, as regular readers may remember from my last dispatch, I had to get the engine rebuilt twice due to it burning too much oil—and smoking out my entire neighborhood in the process. Is the GT4 karmic retribution for past sins?

Last summer and fall, I waited for the new painter, who also had some family emergencies, to regroup. A June delivery date was pushed to August and then to November. I wanted to be understanding and felt like I had been, but at the same time, I was eager to get the car back. My car friends all told me to just let it ride, as the waiting is part of the game. By December, I prepared a mental script to inform the painter that I was coming to get the car in January, painted or not. I called, and before I could say anything, he told me he was painting the car next week. The pictures here were shot a week before the end of the year.

I also found another trimmer, who plans to finish the interior this winter. With any luck, I’ll drive the car this summer. Is it misguided to feel hopeful? The evidence suggests, no surprise, that I am probably the fool. My car—and some subsystems—has sat for months at various places despite assurances of reasonable timelines. I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve heard, “In two weeks,” only for that time to come and go without even an acknowledgment of the missed deadline. To be clear, I’m not talking about every shop I’ve worked with, but at least half have operated in this way. It’s no secret that the pool of skilled automotive craftspeople is aging. One of the consequences, it seems to me, is that those who remain in the field have lots of power and the paying customer has surprisingly little. More often than not, the deadline is, “When I get to it.”

Am I simply the jerk or pushover who is repeatedly pushed aside for other projects? Possibly. I seek out the small, one-person operations because I get closer to the actual work and talent than I would with a big operation. I usually ask to work alongside for a day or two as a dumb set of hands so I can learn. I cherish those days. The downside, I now know, is that my strategy leaves me vulnerable to life events and capricious schedules.

Since I’ve never worked with larger organizations on a car project, I can’t advise on the difference. These restorations look straightforward, and maybe they are for well-known and popular cars like Corvettes and 911s. Oddballs like the GT4 truly are ventures into the unknown, so it could be that I’m merely a victim of bad luck.

I hope the car’s not cursed. I met another GT4 owner last fall and asked to drive his car, which refreshed my memory that I love the car not only for its controversial design, but also for the driving experience. That short jaunt brought back all the enthusiasm I had in January 2021 and reminded me why I had searched for the right Dino for many years.

For now, my Dino restoration experience offers two seemingly opposing lessons. On the one hand, we don’t know when life will end, so get moving. At the same time, perhaps, it’s a reminder that we should be patient—because sometimes, we just don’t have a choice.

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