challenge stradale - european delivery - a story with pictures - now for sale

prior to selling it, and as a 'thank you' to the community i'd like to share some pictures of one year with this very special car. although it's rather late, it may still be of interest to some.

i ordered it in may of 2004 through ferrari of beverly hills. with a tremendous help from the f-chat community, i was able to pretty much get what i wanted within reason. the blue alcantara seats, for example, the standard front air intakes replacing the mesh-like challenge ones, the black embroidered prancing horse in the seats (which otherwise would have automatically been red) and the black alcantara headliner. a custom alcantara color was not possible, nor the fire extinguisher mounted parallel to the passenger seat and definitely no preparation for shoulder harnesses. after my '99 355 berlinetta, this is the second ferrari that i went to pick-up at the factory. i would never do it any other way, and as some have pointed out in the past, the people at the factory are very accommodating and happy to go through with it. the insurance has not been a problem for me as i have a german passport and address and was able to get a reasonable quote through the german carrier PM & Partner in Bremen (01149-421-5140400 - mr. michael podszuweit). they offer full coverage on top of the liability insurance and registration which ferrari spa organizes. it seems that the european delivery will involve the dealer quiet a bit, and because it is rather unusual and few sales people have actual experience with it and thus don't offer it, i would advise to get in touch with ferrari in italy directly to clearly understand their requirements and scheduling issues. there are a couple of people in maranello that are responsible for the US market and us, their customers, and i am convinced that they will do anything possible even if you are not eric clapton and will only pick up their cheapest 430.
whatever enthusiasm you're missing when buying it at your local dealer, the people in italy make up for it - and much more than that.
so, on september 30th '04, we arrived in maranello. the obligatory tour was partly done by frank stephenson who also took us out to lunch at the cavallino restaurant across the factory. while taking the tour, my car was sitting under cover at the factory show room. the unveiling ceremony with a bottle of champagne followed and included a photographer, a technical person to explain the car, somebody taking care of the insurance and registration formalities and mr. christian baio responsible for the US market.
and after that the real fun began, as we headed towards switzerland.
while during the first delivery of the 355, both my wife and i were able to get onto the fiorano track with an instructor, this time it was occupied by the media testing the 430. check out episode FLLFL-209 of ' life in the fast lane' with steve natt on the fine living channel (finelivng.com).
the first day driving to switzerland, we took it rather easy, leaving it in regular mode, keeping it below 5000 rpm. spending one night at the 'therme vals', the most incredible natural spring bath and spa designed by peter zumthor, the next day had one hundred tunnels and 700 miles of the swiss and german autobahn waiting for us. now, it was time to put it into race mode, which made all those tunnels even more eventful. despite free roads ahead and no speed limit at times, reaching top speed didn't seem possible, but speeds of 140 - 160 were easily reached and surprisingly comfortable.
i dropped off my friend in frankfurt and went on to my hometown of braunschweig in northern germany. the whole family got rides over a period of a week, including my grandmother.
on october 9th, i needed to drop off the car back in maranello. the 600 mile drive all the way into marnello was simply incredible. a never ending arcade-like experience of downshifting for traffic and accelerating, breaking, overtaking, fighting off any other car on the road and making sure that they stay or quickly move back onto the right lane. again lots of tunnels and rather frequent stops at the gas station that allowed for a walk around this beautiful machine in total admiration.
once in marnello, i still had to mark off a few items from my list - dinner at montana, a night at the planet hotel with a view of the factory, the model car shops and finding some typical italian photo location. on the final day, i met a gentleman from ferrari's shipping company 'sima' at the hotel and followed him for about 45 minutes through the rest of northern italy to their warehouse which was filled with ferraris and maseratis waiting to get loaded into containers. three months later, the car arrived in los angeles, though without its original italian registration papers. another seven months later, duplicates arrived and the car was able to finally get registered in california. while a european delivery is priceless, it is also a very time consuming process and may leave you without your car (and sometimes papers) for a long time. at least, while waiting for the car to come back to the states, the factory will have sent out a schedoni made leather photo album with the pictures that the photographer took on that very special day in maranello.
with literally no time to drive it due to a recent addition to the family and ongoing construction at home for a few more years, i've decided to sell it. it's as perfect as it was on september 30th 2004.
the 5,000 mile service was completed, all creeks removed, it now has about 5,400 miles and i'm asking $190,000.
a big thank you again to all the people of this forum for continuously providing this vast amount of information on all things ferrari.
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