Cross Country in Maranello

My wife and I just completed a 19 State cross country trip from California to North Carolina. We put approximately 7,000 miles on the car. The car was better than fantastic. We found the original PZero's frightening in the rain leaving Sedona so ordered new Michelin Pilot P2s from Foreign Cars Italia in Greensboro. The tires are really good in the wet and the dealer treated us very well.

My message is for folks to get out there and drive the car. We met many interested people, the car was comfortable even on a 16 hour day, and the scenic routes traveled took on a new meaning in the Maranello.

Hope some others have similiar experiences.

 

Attached is picture of our TDF Maranello. It has gray leather with blue piping.

We used a Garmin GPS for navigation. It was perfect for releaving anxiety. We used its list of motels and booked rooms from the road. For fun I mounted a camcorder between the seats and we narrated the video. The camcorder worked great and gave a view out the front window.

Since I am in to BBQ and spend summers over a low cooking pit and grill most nights we decided to taste the best from the areas we traveled through. We started the search while going down the Blue Ridge Parkway tasting the vingear dressing on pulled pork. It was then up to Charleston WA from great ribs and chicken at placed called HOG HEAVEN in New Philidelphia West Virginia. A change of diet was in order going through the Ohio Amish Country where we found a local cafe with home style cooking. We looked up the award winning Chicago Hot Dog establishment, had ribs in St. Louis, and a great steak in Kansas City.

The Maranello holds a bundle of clothes if you pack it right. We actually felt we took too many clothes. I will save the highway patrol story for later.
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We did not see another Ferrari on the entire trip. I was surprised since we do see others here in California.

I was heading through __________ towards Colorado (Do not want to ruin this State Troopers day). It was just turning dark and we had about 45 minutes to go to reach the motel when the interior lit up like the fourth of July. There blue, white and red strobes popping and my wife says some blue air in the Maranello. I pulled over and turned off the engine. The trooper came up and informed me he had pulled me over because I was going 81 mph in a 70 zone. (I didn't protest because we averaged around 90 on the trip) He said he was only going to give me a warning. I thanked him and then he said " hell I was going to pull you over if you were doing 65, I wanted to see your car -- and why did you turn if off so soon - I wanted to hear it run." That led to a 15 minute discuss of Ferrrari's and the Red Bull Run where the local troopers are pulling over Lambo's, Ferrari's etc. He said that the second seat riders would jump out of the car and take pictures of them writing the tickets and the others in the coast to coast run would honk as they sped by. At one point he noticed my wife had a Harley sweat shirt on and we discussed motorcycles. Anyway, he was a nice guy with a young family and liked cars. When he was ready to leave he asked me "would you mind doing one other thing for me? would you get on this thing a little more aggressively than normally you would --- hold up a minute so I can turn off the camera?"

I of course fliped the "no burn em" switch on the dash and lit her up.

We laugh down the road imagining the conversations in the other cars seeing us leave that Patrol car.

You just can not have this much fun with the car sitting in the garage hoping to slow depreciation.

 

I will post some photos from the road later.
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We mounted a Sony Hi Def camcorder between the seats. The camera bracket attached to the posts on the headrest on the passenger side. We used the remote to turn it on and flipped the LCD around to the front so I could see the image in the mirror. Worked well.

I will post some pics from the road when I get the time. I was not aware that the color combination of TDF with black/gray with blue piping was rare but to my eye it is pretty classy without too much flare.
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Fred, you asked about space in the Maranello for a six footer. The interior of the car is really quite spacious. A six footer has no trouble in anyway and can still adjust the seat in many positions to keep the old bones from taking a set. My wife is a bit claustrophobic but immediately felt very comfortable in the car. She rejected completely a Lotus Elite I thought I needed.

Ferrari created a really great GT car that can be driven the longer distances. The car's road feel is good without being harsh yet it still provides a super rush running through the gears on a road like the blue ridge parkway. We did not experience the boredom heading across the plains states like you might expect. The car must be driven and the engine/exhaust sound just makes one grin. The car has a Tubi exhaust. It is unusual say from the Flowmasters on my 41 Ford in that it provides a great V12 sound around town yet quiets down on the road. The sound is rauchous up to about 2500 rpm with the sound smoothing out at 3000 rpm. Tubi's give a nice blurble when you let off of the gas. My experience with hot rod exhaust systems is they seem to get louder as you go up the rpm dial and the sound can become a little much for a four hour jaunt.