My guess is that Henry was okay until he over-leveraged himself with the nose that has a battery. And I'm not going to show you all the e-mails from others, as they trusted me with their stories. Here were a few of my issues (Since you asked):
This happened a couple years ago
My 100k Intermeccanica in the first weeks of ownership:
These issues happened from the time the 356 was delivered by Henry on a car carrier in Ventura, California where I flew in from Maine to pick it up and within two weeks of driving the IM across the country back home:
The special metallic paint I ordered ($450 a gallon) was sprayed over a two week period, so the car arrived in four different colors, thus its nickname Patches. Any good car painter knows when metallic is heated up to spray, it changes chemically, so each time it is a different shade. For the record, Henry refused to make good on any of the problems with my 356. Once he had my money, he turned into a different person. I’ll let you guess what kind. And the last gallon of $450 paint was sent to me in an unmarked box, without the lid hammered down, which ruined the paint when it spilled out and created a severe health hazard for all involved in its transport. Sending hazardous material in an unmarked container is a Federal crime with a fine of $200k. This was fully documented by the Belfast police department.
The 1k new Coker tires were cracked severely, were unbalanced because they were so out of round they could not be balanced on a modern machine. The Stoddard wheels were also too large in the rear and rubbed the body. The front was SO out of alignment that the new Dutch tires (with new wheels) I was forced to buy and put on the car before starting the trip wore out completely on the outside by the time I got to Ontario. Try buying tires to fit a 356 in the far northern USA. (This has all been documented in the soon to be released documentary film: Quantum Run 356.). The fronts also rubbed when turned, but I managed mechanically to lift the front so it wasn’t too severe.
The CBP 2.1 l engine, which Henry guaranteed was their most reliable engine ran poorly. It backfired, stuttered, etc. About all it would do was accelerate. In long sections driving across the country I was forced to accelerate, then coast. This for hours and hours. Remember I had a full Animal Media film crew following me on a very tight filming schedule. When I finally found a good enough mechanic to work on the engine, we found that the plugs could not be removed without dropping the engine. Some weird shrouding metal prevented getting a tool to seat on the plug. To cap it off the engine caught fire after I managed to get it home. Would you call that reliable? I wondered what the non-flammable insulation was that fell down on one side, choking the already terrible running engine. So Henry must have known his engines can suddenly burst into flame. The issue was a rubber hose dropped down an inlet and not removed, which I found last Fall when I rebuilt the engine. Also, the Webers were a nightmare—wrong jets, settings, etc. I was charged by Henry $550 for "special" carb tuning. The hose was free, I guess!
First the windshield wipers stopped working on high. Then they quit completely in the middle of a severe downpour in Watertown, New York. An old lady turned across me and it was only by a miracle of intuitive reflex that I saved Patches.
The tachometer quit. The door handles kept falling off. This just seemed funny. The engine ran so rough it shook Patches to pieces. One of my favorites was the horn simply began to blow whenever it felt like it. Since I had insisted on Maserati airhorns run on a compressor, this became quite a thing in gas stations, etc. I might have killed one very old guy in a camper! Luckily I was able to rebuild the horn button on the road. Half the documentary film is either the car in garages or me working on it in parking lots. But what did I expect for 100k?
On getting back to Maine, I rebuilt the Webber carbs. I found wrong jets, which had been doctored crudely. All the adjustments were very wrong. After fixing the Webers and setting the valves, etc., the engine ran much better. So . . . now I know why the carb adjustment (fine tuning) bill I received from Henry for around $550 made little sense since it was dated when Patches was still in primer and six months before the 356 even had an engine. The list of fraudulent charges by Henry is too long and boring to list here. But I can list them if you insist.
The fact that Henry “lost” the Jaguar ignition switch that Sir Stirling Moss gave my father is another matter. But Henry’s changing stories on how the switch got lost were certainly entertaining.
My advice? If you want to actually drive your expensive IM 356—don’t! Hopefully your paint will match so you can at least stare at it.
For the record, I am Eric Green, the known American artist and writer from Belfast, Maine. Google me.
