He thought he'd restored his Ferrari 360 to perfection, but a professional bodybuilder tells him it needs to be redone.

For nine months, he believed in it. Nine months of sacrificed weekends, long evenings, ordering parts, making meticulous choices, fine-tuning details to the point of obsession. For Ratarossa, a British YouTuber known for resurrecting Ferrari that many would consider lost, this 360 Challenge isn't just a car: it's his everyday companion, the one he often drives, the one that embodies the slightly unreasonable passion that has driven him, for over fifteen years, to save 308s, 328s, 512 BBs... dreaming one day of stumbling across an F40 to restore. And that's just it: this time, the project wasn't a last-chance rescue. It was "his" Ferrari.

Pride in "factory-style" work

When the 360 emerges from the workshop, everything seems to tick the boxes. Complete dismantling, full paintwork, new interior, upgraded brakes, cleaned and restored engine compartment. The kind of renovation where you want to be able to get within ten centimetres, bend down, look for the little beast... and find nothing. To enhance the look, Ratarossa insisted on a very specific touch: a Ferrari Challenge Stradale-style tricolour stripe, applied to the deep black bodywork. An obvious nod to "factory style", as he puts it.

The tricolor stripe that turns dreams into nightmares

In the beginning, it's almost nothing. A micro-imperfection. Then another. And suddenly: bulges, sharp cracks, edges visible beneath the varnish. As if the paint had been "cut" with a scalpel. In his first video on the subjectRatarossa was already describing a phenomenon that was getting worse by the week: the vinyl seemed to be shrinking, revealing a step beneath the varnish. Soon, the problem was no longer confined to one corner of the hood: it progressed, climbed and stretched the length of the car, right up to the roof. And that's when you enter the real nightmare, the one that can no longer be "easily repaired".

Direction "pros": the list of defects

In his new video, Ratarossa decides to stop guessing, analyzing by eye, wondering if "it can still pass". He takes the Ferrari to what he calls "the professionals", the SG Brothers, a team he says he really likes and trusts. They've already worked on his cars. Most recently on a 308, but also on a 360 Challenge Spider, which went from Rosso Corsa to a different shade of red, with an added stripe... without a hitch. This time, the atmosphere is different from the very first minutes. He doesn't come for a reassuring opinion. He's come for the truth: what happened, and above all, how far back do you have to go to fix it properly? And the answer is not long in coming.

Sunny, one of the bodybuilders, doesn't beat about the bush: from the general state of the varnish, he gets the impression that far too many coats of lacquer have been stacked on top of each other, applied too quickly, with insufficient respect for drying times. Where a clean process involves applying, allowing to dry, sanding, relacquering, controlled repetition... here he describes the opposite: a "one-shot" construction, to the point of speaking of seven or eight coats in one go. With, as a bonus, what the eye never forgives on a black body: drips, everywhere.

The strip shrinks along its entire length, but the amount of drips is also considered abnormal. Not a small, isolated run-off to be picked up locally. More like a "tidal wave", in their words. So much so that Sunny utters this ironic phrase: managing to make drips in certain places is almost an "art". The problem is, the more runs there are, the more illusory it becomes to make up for them with simple, targeted sanding. Sunny explains that one or two drips can sometimes save the day. But in this case, the whole panel, or even the whole car, is affected. The very idea of "rectifying each defect one by one" seems like a headlong rush. And as if that weren't enough, other anomalies also crop up: areas where the paint has "blown", defects around certain joints, rework that doesn't hold together as it should.

Reassemble everything?

Ratarossa is no longer trying to save his ego, he's trying to save his budget. He says it frankly: he's already paid once. The first garage, he says, "washed its hands" of the problem. And now he has to pay again... without having anticipated such a bill. So he asks the question every owner dreads: can we avoid dismantling everything? Can we avoid going too far, back to the base, removing the windows, removing the trim? The answer is a resounding "no". But on the roof and its extensions, we'll have to remove what's in the way and redo the job properly if we want to achieve a lasting result. The episode isn't over yet. The Ferrari 360 Challenge will be reworked. It will be better. He's aiming for 2026, and he wants to believe that this time it will be the right one.