When do Boxers become accepted as true classics as Ferraris from the 50s and 60s?

Ferrari just made so many of them...over 2000 if you count all three versions. They are wonderful cars and I have enjoyed owning mine for 3 1/2 years now.

 

From a Ferrari outsider's perspective:

I already see the Boxers as classics - spent half an hour educating my wife about them a couple of months ago...

 

The newest boxer is 22 years old, has timeless styling and a flat 12, 2 seats and killer looks. Its a classic already that will follow the daytona and dinos to the stratosphere as gay as that might sound.

 

Used to be 20, now its 30 years that it takes a car to become a classic.
One morning you will wake up and Find out that the night before,Barrett Jackson sold the first Boxer for over a Million...Then you'll know its a classic.

Still too new looking even now!
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So true...that design has aged immensely well.

 

It's a generational thing. One of the reasons that Ferraris from the 50s and 60s have gone up in value is that guys who were in their teens during the 50s and 60s are now old farts with a lot of money. Just like the muscle cars, guys are buying the cars that they lusted for while reading Road & Track during 3rd period algebra.

My guess is that Boxers, having been made during the late 70s and early 80s, are probably 10 years away from stardom. In fact, on a percentage basis, I'm thinking that TRs will boom first in dollar value as guys who came of age during the Farra Fawcett and Miami Vice generation turn into old farts.

Then as the TR market gets hot, the market will start to figure out that Boxers are truly the last of the "real" Enzo Ferraris. Trivia question: What Ferrari can be said to be the last that can trace its DNA to Ferrari race cars? The answer, of course, is the Boxer engine. Its roots go back to the 60s. You cannot say the same for any Ferrari after this point, including the F40. All Ferraris since the Boxer began life as street cars.

Dale

 

Geez, and here I thought I already owned a classic.

 

The V8's (including F40's) trace their roots back to the 64 F1 engine that surtees used to win the championship because its the same basic layout to the 308 starting in the 70's.

 

Why would we call this boxer 512 a classic??
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Ive had people refer to 308's as classic because the 328 is considered more modern/refined, a smoother version of a classic design. 308s were made until 85 so whats the difference when a boxer is older than an 85 308? I think it has to do with things other than just the age that makes it a classic. The boxer sure has ingredients that make it special and in a class all its own. I havent heard anyone shoot a boxer down for any reason...other than maintaining it I guess. Boxers are respected and will always be desired.

 

The Boxer is a a true classic, merely an undervalued one!
Steve

 

i was looking at an old forza issue...i believe it was the issue w/ the yellow 246 dino and the yellow fiat dino on the cover. at any rate, inside the mag was an article on scaglietti and his success as the ferrari coachbuilder and the rich history that existed between sergio and enzo.

scaglietti cites the last ferrari as truely being hand made as being the boxer...the last hand made ferrari!

it really was a thinly veiled race car and made in the old tradition. it will no doubt become a real classic.

mine is a keeper.

 

Don't hold your breath on that! There are WAY too many TRs out there, with a reputation of expensive maintainence even for a Ferrari. People will never pay big bucks for them I'm afraid. You'll see the same thing with 360's in 20 years. They will be very cheap to buy but prohibatively expensive to maintain.

Look at old Porsche 928's some time. People are almost giving them away.

Ken

 

I think the boxer will attain that mythical 246 status in about ten years. That is, people paying alot for really bad examples and pouring tens of thousands into restoration work. Now is the time to buy them in my opinion. The difficulty is that most buyers looking to spend +/- $100k will continue to be drawn towards the 355 / 360 / 512TR because of the modern conveniences for the next five years or so, then the boxer will start to gain favor. After about three years of boxers getting bought up and prices following up, the mystique will start to gain strength. Two years after that the legend will be cemented by many favorable write ups in the exotic publications and the status change will be complete. 10 years (May of 2016). You read it here first.

BT

 

I hope so. But, I'm a little skeptical for several reasons: 1) Ferrari made a lot of Boxers; 2) they are expensive to maintain; and 3) they were not the 'top performers' of their era. But, they are the last of the hand-made from a wooden buck Ferraris and they look and sound great...so, it could happen. I know I'm keeping mine for a few more years anyway. Let's hope!

 

As will be explained in Nathan's book (when I finally get off my ass and get it to the printer), the boxer motor came straight the F1 car. The 365 Boxer, thus, followed the Enzo tradition of using his racing expertise to sell street cars in order to keep racing.

The F40 and the 3x8 cars were designed as street cars from the gitgo. Don't misunderstand me, I think that the F40 is one of the three most important cars that Ferrari ever made (250 SWB, 250 GTO, F40). It was arguably the first ever supercar and gave Ferrari a boast when it really needed it. In fact, now that 275 4-cam cars are headed for the 7-figure market, I predict that the F40s will cross the $500k mark next.

Similarly, the migration of the Dino line into the 3x8 cars enabled Ferrari to pay the bills.

But, the F40 was never desinged as a race car, even though some did them make it to the track. The last "race car" was the 288 GTO, which sadly never raced.

Dale

 

Notice that I said "on a percentage basis." A $50k TR that goes to $75k is a 50% jump. If you assume that a good Boxer goes for $100k, it would have to move to $150K to equal this percentage increase.

My point is that once people start spending serious money on TRs, more and more people are going to start looking at Boxers. Despite Miami Vice, Boxers are a much more historically significant car.

I also don't think that you can compare any 80s Ferrari to a Porsche 928. Right or wrong, the 928 was an odd duck the day it rolled off the line.

A better comparison is a slant nose 930. If I was the type who did such things, I'd start looking for a cherry slant nose to get ready for the 80s revival that is sure to come.

Dale

PS Disclosure, I'm actually not a big Boxer fan because I don't fit in em. I don't buy cars that I can't drive, e.g., Lambos. I also don't advocate investing in cars. This is best way that I know to ruin a great passion.

 

Not sure I agree about the boxer engine coming straight from the F1 car. They only share the fact that they are horizontal opposed 12's. Just like the 64 F1 engine was a V8 and the F40 is a V8 but the 64 F1 V8 was said by ferrari to be what the current V8's evolved from. The 365 and 512 boxer engines are not race engines and never will be excluding the fact that the engine is on top of the gearbox. The 288 GTO was, like you said, to be a race car and its a V8. The wooden body buck thing for a boxer is questionable, The 308s were made with stamped panels as were the boxers so no hand beating was employed to "make" the body. They were hand assembled but the panels were made by machines not craftsmen bent over a bag of sand all day.

 

I have read that the aluminum skinned Boxer was in fact hand hammered on wooden bucks...unlike the first fiberglass and then steel skinned 308. In fact, I have seen a Boxer wooden buck for sale before. I do agree that the Boxer engine was not a race engine and in fact, it is not even a "boxer" engine but rather a 180 degree V12.

 

Ok then lets look at the panels seperately. The hood or front clip is stamped, as is the door skin, the roof panel is not hand beaten, in fact I find it impossible to believe that any of the external panels are anything but stamped regardless of material used. The door shells are stamped and so on. The days of making a panel completely by hand was long gone by this time, they are hand assembled and hand fitted but not made from scratch by hand froma flat piece of steel or aluminum.

The flat 12 is a flat 12, to say because its a flat 12 that is from an F1 car is not right. You could apply that same logic to any engine then. How many variations of a flat 12 can there be? 2? Depending on crank design only.

 

I too have heard/read that they were hand pounded.
I guess a picture of Luigi and Guiedo banging away on something that looks like a piece of Boxer would answer the question.
Unfortunately, I don’t have said picture, but would love to see one.

 

true...it is also why the clamshells from jeff's car will not be a good fit on my car...they are all a bit defferent!

again, read the article i cited in the old forza...the scaglietti article.