Crap car?

This is from a UK book called Crap Cars, which I saw in a bookshop yesterday.

"FERRARI 400 (1976-1979)

It doesn't take a genius to explain that the two things you should expect from any Ferrari are performance and beauty. Unfortunately Ferrari themselves completely forgot about that when they designed this monster. With a 4.8-liter V12 engine up front you might have vainly hoped that this car would be quick, but it wasn't, especially when hooked up to a smothering automatic gearbox. Couple this with graceless cornering and disturbingly feeble brakes and you had a real recipe for misery. Expensive, handmade misery, but misery nonetheless. In any other Ferrari you might have consoled yourself by slipping down to the garage and simply drinking in its smooth, sinuous curves, but not with this horror. Not unless you got really excited by large-scale origami. A sobering reminder that the intern is there to make coffee and photocopy stuff, not to design a whole car."

What a load of cobblers!

Aidan
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How can anyone say the above picture isn't a picture of a beautiful and elegant car?

 

Ironically, they chose the 400's best camera view to make their argument. Sorry, I think this car is very handsome, especially in this photo. If you want to pick on something, then look at other big cars of the era. Talk about crap... what about the 1979 Lincoln Continental.
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SO Vegas!

The first car in that book? A Yugo!

 

Beautiful picture of a beautiful car. So, how many British cars are listed in that book?

 

Yea, my wife just looked over my shoulder at that picture and said, "Pretty..." "Ferrar???" I said, "Yea. We will have one like that parked in the garage by the end of the year." She said, "Uhn, uhn (not sure if I spelled that right, but you guys have probably heard that negative utterance before too)." I said, "uha"... End of story!

James
Austin, TX

 

This book is written by a nauseating little man called Richard Porter who once upon a time was part of the scriptwriting team for Jeremy Clarkson et al on BBC's 'TopGear' programme. Like many sicophants he was so in awe of his master that he thought he'd jump on the stylistic bandwagon and try to make a quick buck for himself. After toting the original manuscript unsuccessfully around the commercial publishing world for a couple of years someone suggested that since it was such a crap book about cars why not just call it 'Crap Cars'.
Its a fact of life that if a book title is tacky enough you'll always get some moron to buy it and the UK is full of them. Even so mainstream publishers remained unimpressed and so Porter had to pursuade his employers to take it on; it was eventually published by BBC Books.

Pondlife like Porter subsist way beneath our contempt. Guys, don't let it get you down, we KNOW about these cars.

 

When selling a home these days the agents like to offer someone to come and "stage" your home. Some of these self appointed "experts" have absolutely no clue at all, but just to hear themselves talk they walk through your home in disgust with thier finger to thier chin, pointing out all the crap your supposed to relocate, remove, repaint, tear out, or block off so nobody ever see's it. The colors "YOU" picked are horrid, you need to redo in "taupe", but what actual color "taupe" is, is somehow never mentioned. And when you point out all the new model homes by all the different builders in the area to whom you chose to emulate, well, "they are all idiots" comes the terse reply.

I guess the question of the day is, who does everyone else copy? Look at the 365 and you see the Toyota Supra, the Aston Martin, the last Triumph, and many other cars from that era. Like the retarded stagers the agents send to disturb you, this man who thinks himself a jounalist just types to hear himself write his words of ignorance. If he actually had a MIND to think with, and eyes to see the world with, he would see more than a few automobiles his countrymen built to emulate the 365. Crap car? He should be forced to live with an early 80's US version Jaguar XJS-V12. Talk about a worthless freaking slug that couldnt get out of its own way to save its doorhandles if its life depended on it.

 

I read that book while standing in the Barnes and Noble. I felt that the author "mailed it in", showing very little care in dispelling the half-truths and whole lies that have followed many makes and models. The book also showed very little creativity.

For instance, the Edsel was in there, but as we all know, the Edsel was a tremendous car. It was a business disaster for Ford -- they sold very well as a percentage of the total automotive pie in recession-plagued 1958, but had success at the expense of Fords and Mercurys. It was far from "crap" -- ask anyone to find something bad about the car, other than the subjective opinion on the grill (which wasn't too different from Alfa Romeos!!!)

That book was chock-full of lazy picks (TR7, which was faster and handled better than TR2-TR6, and except for the initial year's production, was as reliable as any late-1970s vehicle.) Cars like the Yugo were called out, but not the identical badge-engineered Fiat. In the case of the 400, it was apparent that the car was judged a)without ever driving one and b)comparing not to contemporaries, but to some unreasonable modern expectation. (I've driven a 5spd 400i and found it to be comfortable, extremely fast and capable of carving turns better than most sports cars of the same era.) Personally, it's not my favorite looking F-car, but this is subjective, and it's still prettier than nintey-percent of the other cars.

There have been hundreds of horrible cars, but this book ignored most of them in creating another useless book best left on the "clearance" shelf.

 

The picture here is of my car, the shot in the book isn't quite as nice, but still nice.

I didn't waste my money on the book.

Aidan

 

I'd be interested in reading that whole book. The author probably has opinions about other cars that aren't in tune with sports car owners and enthusiasts. While I disagree with the author and, to be blunt, think he's out of his mind, the perspective seems interesting. Also, I don't think there's a better picture of the 400; anyone reading the book probably thinks the picture was mistakenly printed and that it doesn't at all match the text.

 

I saw a 400 parked outside some lofts in Richmond so I talked with one of my friends who lived there about the car, he told me that when he was drunk one night that he actually took a piss on the car. Not cool.

 

Or how about this 1977 beauty - wonder if Mr. Car Reviewer would have
rather driven around in THIS piece of work - not just for the review,
but also in 1977:
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Or it's ugly little sister:
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AH! Well, you know how to photograph it well. Great color! I've always like the looks of the 400. Compared to other cars of that time in a similar class, it had the most class and best engine in the world.

 

Here was Ferrari's "competition" at the time. The Chyrsler Cordoba with "fine coryntian leather". I bet there are more 400's still running around the world now than there are of these rust buckets made in mass production. Notice the fake gear shift lever, the plastic fake wood dash, fake wire wheel hubcaps, and the padded vinyl top with "opera" windows. Now that's what I call.... crappy.
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Hey man....don't knock it. A pimp has to drive around in SOMETHING........

 

+1
Absolutely
And also looks better than a GT4, or a Mondial !

There is a "used car buyers guide" book published here in Australia.
It doesn't rate the 4xx series highly, in particular horrendous fuel economy, complex electrics & air conditioning , massive V12 parts costs and service bills that can reach to be a significant proportion of the value of the car, and finishes with a quote along the lines of "replacing the glass costs more than the GDP of many small African nations." LOL

My car certainly lives up to this, I knew what I was getting in to, owning a 412 is not for the feint of heart.

M

 

That is so British. I know, because I am.

Aidan

 

BAWAHAHAHA Oh thats a good one!
I'm going to add it to the list of things I tell people about the car
.

 

All of those comments were just as applicable to the other 12 cylinder cars produced by Ferrari during the 15 year production run of the 365GT4 2+2 through 412 body style, so they are typically easy for a lazy journalist to make without really trying or thinking about what is being said.

For whatever reason, Ferrari is associated with 2 seaters only and the 2+2's get no respect despite being very capable GT cars fully competitive with other contemporary GT cars, including Aston Martin, Jaguar and Maserati. None of the journalists disses those other 2+2's the way that the Ferraris are.

John

 

I like the 400.

i think history will be kind to it.

Having said that, there is a single styling element i would change, that being the front yellow turn signal /corner marker. It seems a bit out of place with the rest of the car.

 

They took care of that with the 412, which has all clear front turn signals. They also changed the black bumpers, which some people didn't like, to body color with the 412.

John

 

And that's why folks, clear 412 turn signals are NLA, all the bl**dy 365 / 400 series owners buying them up, to make their cars look better. Should be a law against it.

M

 

Don't you just love this thread !