1040 - And part of the GT40 Sbarro Story

[Jim Rosenthal]

Welcome aboard, Ronnie; we are honored to have you. Sign me up now for an autographed copy of the next edition of your book, if you don't mind....

 

[Eric Johnson]

Great reading Ronnie. Thanks for the interesting story of car 1040. Obviously I have your book as well and it is well worn.

Welcome to GT40s.com !

 

[Geert-Jan]

Ronnie, great to have you here.
And yes, what kept you so long?

I guess we are all looking forward to your next post.

Maybe you can react to the 2 threads about P1029 and AMGT40/1.

And +1 on that autographed copy

 

[Dalton Veitch]

Ronnie, welcome. We all knew the truth was out there.
You've only just started posting on this Forum and already I've learnt a great new word, "provenancable". I like it. May you continue with the fascinating information.

 

[Ron Earp]

Re: 1040

Can someone get Mr. Spain an Honorary Memebership Please!

Done.

 

[Ronnie Spain]

Hi All,

OK, hands up all those of you who thought I had made a single posting and then dropped off the radar again? 1,2,3.4,......... Oh, as many as that? Sorry then. I'm still in the USA, having come back out for Monterey mid-August after having had to go back home for a family funeral at the beginning of August when I had already been over here for seven weeks by then. So that's me just passed 15 weeks in the USA in total this year, getting everything I need accomplished over here that still needed done for the new book. I've got just about a week left to do, then I can finally go home to the lovely Scottish weather I know will be waiting for me.

The point of all this is that I have been absolutely tied up in what I've had to be doing ever since I made my first posting, and I will still be so until I finally finish over here in a week or so and finally get back home. Once I am there I will at last have the time to make some more of the postings I so much want to make.

But I would like to take this opportunity to say thanks for the welcome to the forum, and to thank Ron for the honourary membership, which I was certainly not expecting.

So my apologies to all for my delay in following up my initial - long overdue - first posting. I will make up for it when I am back home.

Best to you all,


Ronnie Spain

 

[Pat]

Ronnie, like others, I want to thank you for your participation in our forum. You provide a touchstone for us to GT40 history and your posts, like your book, are an insightful pleasure to read. Please let us know if you plan a book tour with your new release or would ever consider some public appearances to discuss GT40s, history and restoration. I for one would book a flight and be there in a minute.

Thanks again.

 

[Jim Glickenhaus]

Re: 1040

Hi guys,

Like many of you, I’m sure, I thought it was about time Ronnie Spain finally posted a message on the forum. But unlike the rest of you, I happen to be him, so I can make him finally do so!

So here it is. My first ever posting on the Internet. It will not be my last.

I imagine there will be quite a few grumbles amongst you along the lines of, “About time too! Thought he was never going to make a posting”, and I can’t say I blame you. Truth is, I’ve been a follower of the forum for many moons, and have almost always liked the way discussions have gone, and the results they have come up with without my intervention, so I have stayed off line, as I kind of feared that if ever I made a posting I’d be swamped with enquiries that I simply would not have the time to handle. Well, now I’ll find out.

So why change the habit of a lifetime? I’ll tell you.

In this world there are two things. Truth, and lies. This is a universal maxim. Even down to things as humble as cars, this is true.

I am a strong believer that everything has a right to exist for what it is, but that nothing has a right to exist for what it is not. Unsurprisingly, I feel this most strongly of all when it comes to GT40s. There is truth, and there are lies.

So let’s start first with the good.

THE TRUTH

Ford GT40 P/1040.

On August 19th this year I had the privilege of being present at Quail Lodge for the public debut of the post-restoration GT40 P/1040. This Scuderia Filipinetti team car ran in 1966 at the Le Mans Trials, the Monza 1000 Kilometres and the Le Mans 24 Hours, and in 1967 ran again at the Le Mans Trials and the Monza 1000 Kilometres. Monza was the car’s last race, as, as has been well recorded, the car suffered an engine fire near the end of the race which sadly was not put out until the car was burnt out. It then suffered the further ignominy of being hoisted off the track by its roof, which, strong though the Ford GT40 chassis is, bent upwards due to the weight of the car. The stored car was later apparently supplied from Georges Filipinetti to former team mechanic Franco Sbarro, as payment for work done. From Sbarro the unrestored car moved on to Charles Gendroz. It was Gendroz who restored the car, straightening out the roof structure by the simple expedient of pulling the car between two tractors (now there was a photo opportunity that was missed!) and working the top of the roof until he was happy with the end result. He then rebuilt the car and painted it gold. The car next moved via Rob de la Rive Box to Harley Cluxton in America, from where it was bought in 1978 by Don Silawsky in Maryland USA, who owned the car for more than the next 30 years. Sadly, much of that time for GT40 P/1040 was spent apart pending a restoration which Don never actually got completed. In 2008, GT40 P/1040 was purchased from Don by its new, and current owner, who entrusted its long postponed restoration to the supreme talents of GT40 restoration specialists, Racing Icons. And on August 19th, as I say, I was present at GT40 P/1040’s post-restoration debut at Quail Lodge.

This, in the most concise terms, is the true, and absolutely provenancable (new word for the English language there!) history of Ford GT40 P/1040.

You can make up your own minds as to the standard of the magnificent Racing Icons restoration from the following few photos, and can check out the restoration on the company’s website at Ford GT40 Restoration - Chassis 1040.


Photos




And with these photos, the true history of GT40 P/1040 is brought bang to rights up to the current day.

Absolute provenance as the same, original Ford GT40 throughout. I’ll probably post proof of that provenance on the forum sometime soon.

Ford GT40 P/1040.

End of story!

And so with that, I hope, established absolutely clearly, we have to sadly move on to…….

THE LIES

Over the years there have been - and indeed still are - certain people with their own agenda who are prepared to claim cars as genuine Ford GT40s which are anything but genuine. Though there are others, and they all know who they are, for the sake of this posting only one such person matters, and that one person is the same former Scuderia Filipinetti mechanic who once owned the true GT40 P/1040, Franco Sbarro.

How to sum up the GT40 activities of Franco Sbarro over the years? Where do I start!

After having been a Filipinetti mechanic, and having worked on both GT40 team cars GT40 P/1039 and 1040, Sbarro left to set up his own business. Sbarro has stated in legal situation that he also helped build Georges Filipinetti’s road car GT40 P/1033 at the factory at Slough, which is totally untrue, as I have documented details of the flight he arrived in England on, on February 7th, to help in the building of 1039 and 1040 and to be instructed in GT40 practice, and GT40 P/1033 had already left for the Graber coachworks on January 16th.

Let me say at this juncture that despite the endless lack of truth, shall we say, regarding GT40s which Sbarro has sadly put in print and stated under legal questioning over the years, I still have a tremendous admiration for the man as an innovative engineer and designer. And he is certainly a most personable individual. But unfortunately, when it comes to GT40s, the truth and he are almost exclusively strangers. I find this very sad, as the bad he has done regarding GT40s has severely tarnished the good he has done in the other outlets of his genius.

But sadly, I must go on.

Because after having owned and disposed of three genuine original Ford GT40s in the 70s, GT40 P/1033, 1040 and 1079, Sbarro then in the 80s built up a series of at least ten chassis of his own to enable himself to build GT40 lookalikes, and despite having long since ceased to be in possession of any of the three original Ford GT40s he had once indeed owned, Sbarro decided to “rebuild” all three of those cars, claiming three of his own brand new scratch built chassis to be the original chassis of GT40 P/1033, 1040 and 1079.

Utterly outrageous!

To the rest of the world the mathematical equation was simple: 3 – 3 = 0. But totally undaunted by this mathematical full-stop, Sbarro rewrote the laws of mathematics, and coming up with 3 – 3 = 3, he then “rebuilt” the three cars he had long since ceased to own!

I can’t state things any clearer than that, and to anyone with a brain in their head I shouldn’t need to.

But some people are either not so numerically equipped in the brain department, or were duped entirely by Sbarro, as Sbarro found customers for each of the three fakes he built up and claimed as the original Ford GT40s, and despite voluminous proof now being in circulation courtesy of myself, astonishing claims to those three fakes being the originals in question went on for years, and still go on in at least one case, though I live in hope that the same claims seem to have quietened down for the other two

And the shameful known continuing claim, is that the fake scratch-built Sbarro 1980s car of Pierre Bos, is the original 1966 Scuderia Filipinetti GT40 P/1040.

Mr. Bos’ delusions have now reached an all-time high, and on his website he is claiming that “experts” have valued his “original” “GT40 P/1040” at 1,850,000 Euros. God help the poor sod who pays him that for his fake.

Because “fake” is precisely what Pierre Bos’ car is, as long as it continues to be claimed as a 1966 Ford GT40, when it is a 1980s scratch-build by Franco Sbarro.

I was going to illustrate the Sbarro chassis of the Bos car here for the world to see how extreme are the differences between a Ford GT40 chassis and a Sbarro, but I’m not going to do that after all, as I will not sully the true GT40 P/1040 by including photos of the fake in this same first posting.

So I will settle for having used the photos I have done of the beautifully restored true GT40 P/1040 from Quail Lodge, and will hope (no doubt forlornly) that Pierre Bos will finally come to his senses, and stop the ridiculous charade of claiming his car to be a genuine Ford GT40, and accept it for what it instead truly is, a genuine Sbarro.

I will hope, but I will not expect.

But I still must cover another few points before I finish this first posting on the forum.

Because though the fake 1079 has apparently long since disappeared from the horizon, the fake 1033 Sbarro built up is still out there, and when last heard of, was still being claimed as the original 1966 car. An unbelievable coincidence is that the very day Sbarro entered into a contract to …. “restore” …. “original chassis GT40 P 1033” …..“from 1966” ….for customer Albert Eggs, the absolutely proven genuine GT40 P/1033 had that very same day, 23rd August 1983, completed its restoration at the hands of Phil Reilly in California. A coincidence par excellence.

And Sbarro was caught out lying in court in 1994, changing his story from his previous vehemence under previous legal questioning that he had used the original chassis in his “rebuild” of 1033, to him instead admitting having used one of his own chassis. Asked about this change in his claims, Sbarro said that due to the heat of the fire 1033 had had (in 1970), plus all the subsequent years stored outdoors, he had had to at the last minute decide to utilise one of his own new chassis in the build up, for the safety of his client. [Couldn’t have had more to do with the fact that you hadn’t actually seen the original chassis since you sold it to David Piper 9 years earlier, so you didn’t have it to use anyway, could it Franco?] Unbelievably, as opposed to denouncing Sbarro as the liar he had been caught out, in court, to be, the court then proceeded with Sbarro’s trial, without even breaking stride, and even more incredibly decreed at the end that Sbarro was entirely innocent…..and then further ruled that the by then at last admitted Sbarro chassis was the original Ford GT40 P/1033.

Utterly incomprehensible!

The absolutely provenanced (another new word) GT40 P/1033 was photographed by me in action at Laguna Seca the very next day after Sbarro signed his fraudulent contract to rebuild that self-same original chassis for Albert Eggs. The true GT40 P/1033 has been a regular attendee until recently on the American historic race tour, and is currently available for purchase in California through Bruce Canepa.

I’ll be happy to help any interested purchaser with all the information they could possibly want. Similarly. I would be happy to prove the absolute authenticity of the original GT40 P/1033 and GT40 P/1040 in any court, in any land, and to supply the proof that the other car is a fake. The authenticity of both the true cars is absolute! No claims for any other cars to be either of these two genuine Ford GT40s can be treated with anything other than the utter contempt they deserve.

But, sadly, one more Sbarro fake needs yet to be dealt with. Because Sbarro has also built up a fake which he claimed to be GT40 P/1048. Having taken in the genuine GT40 P/1048 for the intended purposes of restoration in December 1979, Sbarro instead built up one of his own original Sbarro chassis, and supplied that car to the owner of the genuine GT40 P/1048 after his “restoration”. Oh yes, almost forgot to mention. In June 1980, six months after taking in the genuine GT40 P/1048 to restore it, Sbarro, despite not apparently being its owner one would have to assume, sold the still totally unrestored original car to Italy!

And I think that’s about it for now.

Three original GT40s owned by Sbarro.

Three original GT40s sold by Sbarro.

And with that, no GT40s any longer owned by Sbarro.

Everything after that fact perpetrated by Sbarro or his customers in the name of those three original Ford GT40 chassis numbers is fakery and lies.

And as for Mr Bos, all I can say is you have brought upon yourself whatever damage befalls you regarding your fake Ford GT40, since, and I will say this now one last time, though your car is a genuine Sbarro, it is a fake Ford! And you have known that since day one.

So to the forum members and readers I say, enjoy the beautiful continued existence of the genuine, original GT40 P/1033 and GT40 P/1040.

But unless the Sbarro “1033” has now at last been accepted for the true car it is, a Sbarro (which it may have done, in which case congratulations and thanks to its owner), and as long as Pierre Bos continues to perpetuate the lie that his car is genuine Ford GT40 1040, treat those cars as the fakes they can only be regarded as.

And I close with what I almost began with: - “I am a strong believer that everything has a right to exist for what it is, but that nothing has a right to exist for what it is not.” No matter what you chose to call them, replicas, recreations, kit-cars or whatever nomenclature, provided it is not being claimed for what it is not, I’m all in favour, and more power to all your enthusiastic elbows. You have my full support.

But lies are an entirely different matter. I won’t tolerate them.

So to the owner of the freshly restored GT40 P/1040, and to whomsoever is lucky enough to be the next owner of GT40 P/1033, I say, enjoy your beautiful original Ford GT40s.

I’ll deal with the lies of the other cars for you.

End of first posting, guys. Much more to come.


Ronnie Spain

A few thoughts.

In the day these were tools to win races and when the race was over they were tools that were no longer needed and many were unceremoniously discharged. If they were damaged at that time they weren't worth rebuilding/restoring and some very important pieces of history were thrown out.

In the case of one of mine I was yelled at by Ferrari for using a chassis and other parts taken from their trash bin to resurrect a car but they did allow that these were "Glorious Pieces". Personally I feel that so long as EVERYTHING IS FULLY DISCLOSED all is good.

Full disclosure isn't something that always happens and this Ford GT Chassis # isn't the only car claimed by more than one car. When a car has stories it will never be worth what a car with only good stories has. Never. That is true about BOTH of these cars and my 0846 although as there's only one of those and a legal proceeding has established that mine is legally 0846 that is a little different.

The point remains that's all's good until the fog of time coupled with non disclosure mutes the truth.

Modern FIA papers don't impress me and as an aside they no longer issue papers attesting to anything other than a car meets construction standards of the day.

There are organisations such as FIVA and ASI that do delve into these matters and I would urge the owners of these car to submit them to FIVA.

The market is usually smart and with the Internet getting smarter. If either of these cars comes to market potential buyers can and have to deceide for themselves.

Experts come and go and Experts often make mistakes. J5/J6 for example. The experts were wrong. I wasn't...

 

[Allan Feldman]

Hi Ronnie
I hope to meet you personally soon. I hope your book answers all my anorak questions
i.e. 1) Was P1020 Ford France the test car for the early Gulf rear body Clip?
2) 1966 Le Mans saw two GT40's running with 6 spoke wheels (American made). What were their Chassis number? I have chassis numbers P1007 and P1040 is this correct? I have an article with colour pictures.
3) In 1966 the Holman and Moody MKII's only had the No 4 rectangle, No 5 diamond, and No 6 circle-half circle on the rear clip drivers side?
Unfortunately, I heard that Banbury Road Slough trading estate has been redeveloped and the units have been changed.
I got a great book on P1016 from my friend, I would like you to see it.
I hope all my questions will be answered in your new book?
Regards Allan

 

[Dalton Veitch]

Sadly, Ronnie, you have just lost all credibility with your reference to "lovely Scottish weather"

 

[Jim Rosenthal]

Hear, hear. I have old books which refer to the Mark IV cars, and get it wrong. Jim had it right, as he says.

Looking forward to seeing you again, Ronnie.