400i's original owner gets in touch
From: Britt2Asa (Britt2Asaaol.com)
Date: Fri, 4 May 2007 10:03:11 -0700 (PDT)
Have any of you with an older car ever wondered about its early history? Ever 
wondered why it was ordered and by who? Last night I got an email from the 
son of the original owner of my car. I reproduce part of it below (hope you 
don't find this boring....).

I knew my 400i was originally yellow with a black interior which would have 
been striking to say the least; however it has been painted twice more in the 
past each time changing colour (now its red). As sent to me here is a (partial) 
copy of the email.....
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Hi Britt,

Great to see Dad's old car is still around and hasn't succumbed to the fate 
of so many 400s, languishing with owners who can't afford to treat them as 
they should. What follows are my recollections of the car when she was new.

After a series of exotics through the 70s (E-Type V12, Astons DB6 and DBS 
V8) business sucess allowed my Dad, Alan Siggs, to consider a Ferrari.

Some time in 79 he went to Coopers of Leicester (we are based in Nottingham) 
who were a Ferrari and BMW dealership before Graypaul became the Ferrari 
dealer for the East Midlands. He drove a 308 GT4 from their stock - blue 
with blue (I think on an T plate) which he ended up buying to fill the gap 
between the order and delivery of his 400i.

The company he had started in the early 70s and which was effectively paying 
for the car (and to which it would have been registered) had a Yellow and 
Black Logo (www.kompress.com) so this was the obvious colour choice for 
Dad's new toy. He asked the people at Coopers for a yellow 400iA with black 
leather but word came back from the factory that yellow was not a factory 
colour for this model and perhaps Sir would like one in Black, Blue, etc. 
but Dad was adamant that the car must be yellow and that he would cancel the 
order if his request could not be accomodated. Apparently Maranello 
Concessionaires offered at this point to bring in a white car and strip and 
respray it yellow before delivery. Family folklore says that this is when my 
Dad suggested that if Ferrari wouldn't sell him a yellow car perhaps he 
should direct his requirement for a yellow supercar to those chaps down the 
road at Lamborghini.....

Eventually it was agreed that the factory could make a yellow 400i but Dad 
ended up paying around £3,500 extra for the special paint colour - at a time 
when the list price was in the region of £35k. Quite why it was so difficult 
remains a mystery to me - the cars were pretty much hand made at that time 
and there must have been the odd tin of Giallo Fly lying around! To my 
knowledge it was the only yellow 400 ever made, and I have always thought 
the car looked great although the kids at my school nicknamed her the flying 
banana!

Rather than take delivery in late 79, the decision was made to wait until 
Jan 80 so the car would be 1980 registered. Incidentally, having bought the 
308 on what turned out to be a bad lease, this didn't go back in part ex and 
for a while he had both and he has also told me he was offered a red Boxer 
around this time but thought 3 was probably over the top!

On delivery Dad used the car every day to commute the 20 odd miles from our 
Derbyshire home to the factory in Nottingham and I remember some mornings 
hearing the car leave our driveway and go up and down through the gears 
between home and the junction at the end of the road about 3/4 mile away. 
Similarly I remember family trips with Mum and Dad up front and my sister 
and I in the back (I would have been 7 when the car was delivered) with Dad 
trying to convince my sister that the rev counter was the speedo and that of 
course he wasn't driving too fast! Overall my memories are of effortlessness 
and the real surge of acceleration that came on kickdown as that beautiful 
V12 was given its head and lesser cars were left standing.

As an aside, Mum - a confirmed lover of automatics - always enjoyed driving 
the car and Dad's mum, who had passed her driving test in her Austin 1300 
automatic in her 60s was very nearly persuaded to take the car for a spin.

You may have found when you restored the car that there were a couple of 
holes in the front edges of the rear wing tops and the underside of the dash 
on the driver's side - Dad was a keen amateur radio enthusiast and had 2 
radios installed under the dash either side of the steering column with 2 
corresponding aerials at the back.

As for the sunroof, to stir up further confusion, I'm almost certain that 
the car never had one when it was in our ownership - Dad has always been of 
the opinion that if you have air-con you don't need a sunroof so I am sure 
he would not have ordered one at extra cost either from the factory or the 
supplying dealer. I will email and ask him but unfortunately his memory is 
not too good these days so will see if I can find some old pictures of the 
car which may or may not show it. Similarly, I am fairly sure the carpets 
were black when the car was new and I am certain that Dad specified the 
sheepskin overmats in black of which more later.

The only problem I remember with the car was tendency for the horn to 
suddenly go off of its own accord when the car was parked and as you will 
know those twin air horns make a hell of a racket. The cure was to release 
the steering lock and move the wheel from side to side so it must have been 
a poor connection in the steering wheel boss, but I do recall this causing 
some embarrassment to a friend and colleague of Dad's who had borrowed the 
car to impress fellow guests at a wedding!

(Note - the car was still doing this when I got her 3 years ago and finally 
managed to fix this factory wiring fault. I never knew it was a factory 
fault!!)

At some time during the winter of 82 - 83 Dad had an incident with a milk 
tanker on a narrow country lane. There was not enough room to pass and 
despite Dad putting the Ferrari up onto the grass verge, the driver's side 
door mirror was broken. He arranged for Coopers to collect the car from his 
office and take it in for repair. Unfortunately Coopers driver managed to 
get the sheepskin overmat caught up in the throttle pedal (Dad tells me he 
always pulled the mat back on entering the car as a matter of habit) and 
drove the car into the back of another one on a roundabout somewhere between 
Nottingham and Leicester.

The following weekend I went with Dad to Coopers to inspect the damage - 
secretly I think he was hoping the car would be written off and that Coopers 
would have to replace it. This was not the case and they undertook to repair 
the car. From memory the damage was to the front offside corner so you may 
have come across this during restoration. I remember Dad being less than 
impressed by the BMW 3 series loan car he was offered and picking out a red 
308 GTS from the showroom as more appropriate. This was unavailable but he 
ended up with a 635 CSI while the repairs were carried out.

This incident in some ways spoiled the car for Dad - it had been his pride 
and joy and he never felt quite the same about it after that. During the 
Summer of 83 with some new cars required for the business the Ferrari was 
part exchanged against 3 83 A plate Ford Granadas (!) with Hooley's of 
Nottingham. I saw it once after that in Nottingham but this was the last I 
new of it until now although I have often wondered what became of it and am 
glad to see her in such rude health, although I had hoped she would still 
have her unique colour combination!

I hope my memories are of interest to you and fill in something of the car's 
history and may I wish you the best of luck for this years FOC concours - if 
time permits I may pop along and will seek you out if I make it.

Kind regards,

Dan.

Dan Siggs
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Britt

BR in the UK
1986 328GTS (LHD 89,940km) Died August 19, 2006 Shrewsbury UK
1980 400i (RHD 72,000 miles)
Searching for the right 512TR
2003 BMW 530d   

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