This one will be very special

Rain & cold today, so I drove down to Monterey today to visit friends, among them a gentleman whom I consider one of the most talented, knowledgeable and accomplished metal finishers and fabricators in the vintage car business.......anywhere, Bruce Terry. Bruce runs a small one-man shop near the airport in Monterey and is a true master craftsman, an artist. He has completed several projects on Ruprecht and all I can say is, "if you are looking for exceptional results, go to Bruce".

He was working on this RS in his shop today, that has been entrusted to him for a complete 100 point bare-metal restoration, Ser.# 0858. This car was built in 3/'73 as a M 472 ( Touring) model, but over the years has "acquired" several Lightweight bits, (trunk lid, front bumper) and had fender-mounted Cibies mounted by the original owner. All those pieces will be retained.

Bruce's workmanship is his usual stellar caliber, but I just felt I had to post the attached photos as evidence of the perfect panel gaps, some of the other details, and how immaculately he resolves repairs along the way. Some items, which are simply no longer available, he makes.....one cannot tell the difference. He duplicates spot welds in a manner which renders them totally indistinguishable from the original. -- Extraordinary.

Some more of Bruce's work

and the last set of five.

Yes, the car was originally Viper Green, and was the subject of discussion last year ( about the Monterey Historics Auctions) on this board.

John,

Bruce's shop was one of our stops on the Targa CA. last Sat. (we missed you)

You're right, Bruce's work was simply inspiring...... :eek: :)

I would also add that he personally built and uses one of the BIGGEST 'English Wheels' I've ever seen....... sorry, I didn't talk a pic of it..... :o

Cheers

A portion of the wheel, its curved frame, is visible in the first photo, below right above the tip of the ducktail. In the same shot, in the extreme right hand upper corner, one can see a wooden buck he made to allow him to create an entire nose section for a badly damaged Ferrari 246 Dino.

In the second shot you can see a copper nose section hanging on his wall, involving a Ferrari 275 GTB that was in a major crash. He created the piece as a "practice exercise" to get an idea of how accurately he had duplicated the many compound curves in that piece, then made a few changes and made the piece in aluminum before joyning it to the body and frame he had straightened.

It's not easy to appreciate the full range of Bruce's abilities until you've seen some of his work and talked to him a few times.

I know that business park...one of my high school friend's dad runs a body shop over there. Tryin to remeber the name of it...

. . . at Specialty Metal Fabrication:

http://www.specialtymetalfabrication.com/

Rick Kreiskott

Thanks for sharing John. Yes, this RS is in very good hands for sure. Would love to see his shop sometime.

The last time I saw this Carrera it was being sold in Aug. '08 at Russo Steele in Monterey. Here is post from my observations of that night. I see the right rear quarter is being totally redone. As I was standing there talking with the owner that night someone examining the car in that area noted that there had been a bad repair done to area and it would need to be redone to be correct. Seems he was right, but it went for $300K anyway.

I also note now that I see it in bare metal that the left rear flair doesn't appear to be original as a series 2 RS should have a butt welded flair to the quarter panel sheet metal.

http://www.early911sregistry.org/for...0&postcount=11

Looking at the car now in his shop I think I was a bit generous in calling it a condition 2 back in 8/08.:o Good news is that it will be a condition 1 restoration when done.

For reference . . .

VIN = 9113600858
Eng# = ?
Trans# = ?



............

Here's an interesting video from Hagerty's Craftsmen's Series on an equally talented metal worker: Steve Hogue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4oqDY8w7LSY