1983 Ferrari 308 GTS
Chassis # ZFFMA13A8D0042447 Model : Left Hand Drive North American
Original Color of Rosso Corsa with Nero int. Current color Nero Daytona with Beige
Engine # F105A040-00028 Gearbox # F108AL-2071
10/87 Offered for sale by Auto Toy Store Ft. Lauderdal Fl. Ad read 1983 308 GTS Red/Black 23k miles
00/89 Purchased by guitar legend Yngwie J Malmsteen
05/07 Listed on Ebay by owner Yngwie Malmsteen with engine problems and 53k miles
05/07 Purchased by current owner Brian Gresh below are his notes
This 308 used to belong to Swedish guitar legend Yngwie J Malmsteen. In 1989 he first saw the car at the Prestige Imports dealership in North Miami Beach, Florida, and paid cash for it with about 23,000 miles on the odometer. This car was one of Yngwie's most prized possessions and he even wrote some songs about it, two of them being "Demon Driver" and "Beauty and a Beast". It has appeared in magazines, on posters, and in cd sleeves with Yngwie. He replaced the original wheels with Ruote Borrani Milano 14 x 6.5 wire wheels and had the interior reupholstered with tan Connolly leather. In 2007 the engine started making rattling noises, failed a compression test and needed to be dismantled. The car sat in the shop for 2-3 months and Yngwie decided to put it up for sale on Ebay. I won the auction in May 2007 with the car showing 53870 miles. A couple weeks later I flew down to Florida to meet Yngwie (my favorite guitar player!) and we visited for a while and I got him to sign the passenger visor. I soon got the car shipped to Tulsa, OK, and my co-worker Jerry Dunn and I took on the project of rebuilding the engine. We hoped that only the cylinder heads would have to be rebuilt. When we opened it up we found that all the pistons had interfered with all the exhaust and intake valves and the combustion chamber for the number 7 cylinder was partially melted. Also, an exhaust valve seat on the number 7 cylinder had come out and pieces of this valve seat must have been bouncing through the engine, making the rattling sound that Yngwie heard. After knowing of this damage, a complete rebuild was in order. In the process of the rebuild I’ve decided to have a few modifications performed to the engine; the compression ratio has been raised to 10.5:1 and we’re planning on converting the CIS fuel injection system with a more precise EFI system.
