This is the part where everything is coming together again. Even though this car has spent most of its life in Southern California – they had almost no rust protection and the body shop had to insert new metal in the doors, floors and trunk areas. From there it went to paint and for me, this is always THE most painstaking process. I oversee every aspect but am not always there to 100% check things so sometimes they have to change things which are not as “factory correct” as I want it to be. It starts with a special etching primer which is shot right onto the sheet metal, followed by a high-grade filler they can use to make the flat sides of this Fidia absolutely straight. That said, mostly my work also means to do it BETTER than the factory and the paint system is a good example of that. Once our paint system and undercoating (my special recipe to imitate Iso’s system to a tee) is applied, the exterior of any Iso is way better protected than any factory new Iso! Once all sheet metal is fitted perfectly, most of the time is spent on blocking, blocking, and again more blocking. The finishing coat is easy in comparison.

At this time we made the decision to make the car dark blue metallic with a red leather interior. The owner and I picked a very eye-catching shade after we showed him a few test samples. For leather, we contacted the only business capable of duplicating the Frantzi process as used by Iso and Bizzarrini. The process of finding the perfect shade commenced here and I’ll report on that later. As indicated this car was born with a brown metallic exterior and tan interior, not really a shade that makes the car stand out. In all my years of restoring such high-end cars, I have come to the conclusion in most cases it should be left to the owner to pick his own color – in the end, HE is the one to enjoy it, and I also noticed there is no negative effect on selling prices, some non-factory colors even fetch more than factory.

While the car is being painted all other parts got my full attention. Because all aftermarket wiring looms look very fake and give me more work than old ones – I restored the wiring in this Fidia to factory specs. And that means down to original spade connectors, boots, and colors. There were many (burned) shorts in the old one and even just cleaning off the old overspray took us some serious time to do it right.

The engine was being rebuilt by the shop that does all my Iso and Bizzarrini engines – we leave the outside as stock as possible and tweak the internals so we are right under the 400 hp mark. I have included the link to a video of this actual Fidia motor being dyno tested – that way I also don’t have to break in the cam anymore. As this is going to be a street car, we kept everything else (like cast iron intake manifold) totally stock. Video:

The transmission was working but had some serious damage which could get worse in a jiffy. The whole main shaft was marred and it’s bearings had a lot of tolerance; several other hard parts like the pictured gears needed replacing.

The complete De Dion tube and rear axle setup were disassembled, powder coated and rebuilt with new components. The differential was completely stripped, needed both pinion and ring gear and was painted black as all late Iso differentials are. The half shafts were still fine but in order to perfectly powder coat them they were completely disassembled and put together with new parts. All suspension parts were stripped of bearings and bushings, powder coated and assembled with new parts. A few pictures illustrate how perfect they came back. Same thing with the Girling brake calipers, they have a special gold cadmium coating to do it right. Needless to say, they came out perfect. All brake rotors were tested, powder coated, trued and installed with factory correct hardware.

All aluminum and chrome work went to the chrome shop. This is just a very lengthy and tedious process, there is a lot of brightwork on these cars and every piece needs special attention. Let’s just say it takes a lot of trips back and forth to get it right – essential to start this process as early as possible. I had to fabricate new aluminum transmission tunnel cladding, once that is taken off it cannot be used anymore. Luckily the best sheet metal guy on the planet works with me… He entered the first car he restored into the 1976 Pebble Beach Concourse and it won it’s class so he knows what he is doing – thanks Patrick! The burl walnut interior parts were all dropped off at a specialist to restore the cracks, discoloring, and delamination. That process takes about 3-4 months depending on what we have to work with and fortunately this wood was not too deteriorated.

In the meantime, the search for original or even NOS parts kept going to keep pace with the restoration work – obviously most Iso Fidia parts can not be ordered at Autozone! As usual with such rare cars, I ended up having certain parts fabricated in small numbers just to make sure I didn’t have that problem when finishing my projects. As soon as I write about the assembly, I’ll indicate what parts were specially made for this car – or for Iso S4/Fidia in general.The Ariston shocks were sent to the UK to be modified inside where we kept the original look and specs. All instruments were sent out to be cleaned, fixed, restored or whatever they needed to be perfect.

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