Racing icon restored

Rod Tempero has constructed plenty of cars over the years, but his latest project may be his best. He has specialised in making and restoring cars from the 1950s-60s from his workshop near Oamaru for the past 35 years. One of his recent jobs has been building a 1962 250 GTO Ferrari for a client in Christchurch. The price tag for the replica is high enough. But it is a drop in the ocean compared to what the real thing can fetch – an original sold at auction in 2013 for US$52 million, about NZ$62m, a record for any car. “It’s a cool car,” says Tempero. “It’s an icon of racing in the 1960s. It won pretty much every race it entered into against good competition. There were only 33 built.” As far as his replicas go, the process is the same for every vehicle he builds. Tempero starts with a donor, usually a complete one from a wrecker’s yard. In the case of the 250 GTO, its engine came from another Ferrari – a 325 GTO he says is about as close as you can get to the real thing. He then researches the car he’s building before drawing a full-scale version. A chassis is then built before the aluminium body is constructed and reconditioning of parts, followed by moulding glass for windows and the windscreen before the paint job. “We’ve built a number of different cars over the years,” Tempero told the Timaru Herald. “We’ve done Maseratis, Ferraris, Porsches and a lot of different models of Jaguars and Aston Martins. It’s something I love doing.” Tempero’s grandfather, Alan, began a coach building business in 1946, before his father Errol took over. Errol sold the business and, after working with its new owners for a short period, Rod established his own business.