The Restoration

The other car in Gary's shop was an early S and mine is a very late P400. I have always wanted an S, and if there were a completely dismantled S in the shop at the same time, I could be assured of accurate upgrades. My wife encouraged me. I wasn't getting any younger. Okay. I would do it. The fever had me.

The flatbed tow-truck arrived in March 2000. The rusty chassis and body shell were loaded up and sent away to begin the long-dreamed-of restoration.

These pages will document progress on the restoration. As I take photos of the progress, I will add more pages and dates so you can follow along. You can follow the project from the start, or jump to a new page you haven't seen yet.

March 07 - An Interesting Discovery

As I started to inventory my parts closely, I found many had the production number stamped on them. When Miuras were built by hand, parts were fitted to individual cars. The production number was stamped on the parts so they could be reunited with the car in the final assembly. Sometimes the numbers don't match. I asked Claudio Zampoli about this. He said that some parts, like the eyelashes, were made in batches, and then sent to be finished. When the eyelashes came back, sometimes they wouldn't be put on exactly the same car. When asked about the American zeal for "matching parts" cars, he said as long as the numbers were close, they were probably the original parts.

What I found as I looked at my production numbers was more interesting. Many of them are stamped not with my car's number, 254, but with 127. Here are a few examples:

Under the left door handle

Inside the door trim

End of the eyelashes

Inside the heater/defroster box

The Last P400

There are many other parts stamped 127. It was not unusual for cars to return to the factory to be rebuilt and emerge with new identification. What is really interesting to me is that the Coltrin book lists car 127 (chassis 3297, engine 1681, built 7 Feb 1968) as a blue car with mustard interior with the comment "Brambilla car!" I have researched this, and found that my car is both 127 and 254. See the Acquisition page for the history. It was the last P400 to leave the factory.