John left San Francisco on a Thursday afternoon for a weekend trip to Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates, to install some of our latest carbon fiber parts into not one but two beautiful Ferrari 458 Italias. After a long 16 hour flight, he arrived! Our gracious host, Mohammed Al Sayegh, President of ALSA Automotive Engineering (http://www.alsa.cc/) , took John out to an excellent dinner and made family introductions for a warm welcome to the city. John then headed back to his hotel (at 2 am!) for a “solid” night’s sleep before the work really started…
On Saturday John headed over to ALSA Automotive Engineering to begin work on the first car, the red Ferrari. John and the ALSA team made great progress, finishing work on the interior and exterior door handles, mirror triangles, passenger grab handle and also removing the OEM center console. The doors were done first as we had not installed the exterior mirror triangles before. Best to tackle the unknown early in an install then wait till time is short. Saturday night our generous host treated John to a tour of the Yas Marina F1 circuit, and they ate at the spectacular Yas Marina 5-Star Hotel. John even got a ride in Mohammed’s Mercedes SLR McLaren!
Sunday morning it was back to work toiling away on the red 458…until the black one rolled in! Since this one was only getting carbon fiber for the center console and doors, John took a break from the red Ferrari to complete work on the black one, finishing in time for its owner to drive it back to Dubai that afternoon. Back on the red Ferrari, by Sunday night the new carbon fiber center console was installed and the OEM dash was completely removed from the car.
On Monday, John finished up by installing the carbon dash and the door sills. A final night out with our host and his friends was a great finale to the trip. Only 3 hours of sleep Monday night assured that much of Tuesday’s 16 hour return flight to San Francisco was spent snoozing!
Hope you all enjoy the pictures.
Parts all laid out in the shop prior to leaving:
View from the hotel:
The twins:
The DIFFERENCE…you know you want it!
Center consoles assembled and ready to install:
Another angle:
Black 458′s interior, console installed:
Want to see what’s behind a Ferrari 458 dash? A whole lot of wiring…
In progress…
Red 458 interior, dash parts installed:
Red 458, mirror triangles and door handles installed:
Before:
In progress:
After:
