Does anyone know this car?

Hello, I am rather new to posting here. I have been lurking for months reading and reading aaaannnnddddd reading....What an incredible place to kill time! In the back of my mind I have been hopeful that I would, over time, be able to build up some "street credit" with the enthusiasts here so that those of you with important history data far a particular car would'nt mind sharing. Here I sit, without having contributed per my plan, with a question about a particular car. So here goes... I start salivating everytime I see this car and was wondering if anyone here has any history about it that a potential owner and someone new to the Ferrari world would need to know?

[I just spent ten minutes resizing a screendump only to receive an error message "sheesh" so lets try this less sophisticated approach]

ebay auction 300407311085

http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/Ferrari-308-GTSi-QV-1985-Ferrari-308-GTSi-QV-NO-RESERVE_W0QQcmdZViewItemQQhashZitem45f1abcaedQQitemZ300407311085QQptZUSQ5fCarsQ5fTrucks#v4-25

 

Looks nice enough...

The red interior is rather a tough sell, but on a black car like this it's very striking......

 

I was, of course, hoping that the red interior is the reason it hasnt moved. I think it has been relisted on ebay at least three times in as many months. (Which is about how long I have been lurking around here) I am OK with a red interior so maybe this will ultimately work in my favor. I acheived the requisite spousal approval to purchase a 308 with one caveat, "Not a red one!". She didnt say the interior cant be red though!

Thanks for the reply!

 

Great looking car!! If I were in the market again I would be very interested in this car. The black over red is my second favorite color scheme for this car and that's just personal. I'd say get a PPI and offer 32,000 and pay whatever. Having a 308 has changed my life and I love every minute of it. You will spend more money on it than the purchase price, but it will(IT DOES TO ME) feel like $ well spent. Buy the car and enjoy, or find another and enjoy. A 308 is a magical experience. I just got back from Amelia Island Concours and I must EMPHATICALLY say that NOTHING touches the 308 for the $. Enjoy, Brian

 

Thanks for the reply. If it was you who posted all the great pictures from that event in the silver forum, thanks! I really enjoyed them. I will be near this car in a couple of weeks and plan on checking it out in person but I am trying to do a little internet DD prior. PPI is something I believe in as well.

 

Black mats and sunglasses might help!

 

Cmon Dave! How do you feel about this?
Image Unavailable, Please Login

 

How's Cameron Vale doing?

 

Cam?... oh... um, he got sucked dry...almost. [if memory serves]

 

See now I thought he won...

Cam was a bad dude

 

I do believe you are correct, but perhaps a trip to the dusty aisle of my local blockbuster is in order. Now, how to get this thread back on topic after participating in its derailment? hmmm

 

I think there is a black on red GTB QV listed on hemmings. You might check that out.

 

Yes thanks, I wanted to look at that car too so I could check out a GTB but when you go to the direct web site for the seller it says that it is sold. I guess they didnt have an interest to go and take it off of Hemmings.

 

Darryl. I don't know this car at all, but I do know it has been for sale for a Loooooong time. I don't mean like, "it's been for sale for a while, but it is a nice car"...more like, "why is a car that appears to be this nice still for sale"?

Not telling you not to buy it, just to be careful. P P I.

MB

 

If this car had been for sale when I was first looking it'd have an owner post haste. I love red interiors!

 

Thanks for the feedback guys. MB, I am right there with you but was a little pleased to get some anti red interior sentiment. It keeps the dream alive until I
can clear out some garage space.

 

Darryl, Check out the Euro QV right here on f-chat. Red over black, good price and good looking car. (No affiliation).

 

The red looks great in person. Pictures don't do it justice.

 

http://www.308qvregister.com/WebMainPages/53819.htm

 

308Nut - Thanks, I had seen references to that site but dismissed it as a place for owners. I didnt realize that there was some utility there for a guy like me!

Brian - I cannot do a red exterior. This was one of two requests from the wife when I asked her what she thought about me getting a 308. The other being that I must sell something out of the garage to make room for it. Of course I was going to do this anyway so not too bad of a concession to agree to.

I am still a little loopy from the fact that she has no problem with the aquisition. I wasnt sure what she would say when I brought it up and expected a little pushback. I think she wants to cruise around with a little wind in her hair too!

Thanks for the replys!

 

Took a little side trip to the South Bay last week to see this car. I had called earlier in the week to arrange a meeting time and contact to work with.

Got a couple of things accomplished. First and most importantly I got to finally sit in a 308!!!!
It felt so right, wasn’t sure how it would feel because I am tall and I had a deflating experience years before not fitting comfortably in a Panterra. I love a Panterra but the one I went for a ride in found my head touching the headliner and hitting the roof over rough road. Years later I still yearn for an Italian beauty so this was a big deal for me to see if it fit well and... it did!

Not sure how to report on the meeting/seller experience though but I feel obligated to apologize upfront for the long post. Plus If this meeting is the norm I know I will need some help from here to get a decent car. I didn’t really connect with the salesman (not necessary but would have been nice) and he was perceived to be of the strategy that "less information is more" sort of tack (could've been a personal choice, a company policy or necessity). I guess it should be obvious, but wasn’t at least to me, that the cars there are consignment cars so perhaps a detailed monologue of the cars condition and characteristics might not be possible. I fully expected however that the car be ready for me as I had arranged a meeting from Oahu and added an extra day to my trip for the meeting. This was communicated clearly to the salesman on the phone during the setup if I recall. Perhaps they get dreamers calling everyday, who knows.

I was on time to within 1 minute and was surprised at the number of cars they have on hand. They had many, many more expensive F cars strewn all about but mine was tucked away in another building. I perused the cars on display before popping inside and one thing in particular really stood out was that EVERY one
of the interiors of the cars I viewed needed attention; varying someplace between dusty and ratty but all dry and not supple, plush, or overly cared for. They all looked a little tired and lived in and not ready to fetch full price. Maybe this is a trait of a high end vintage car market that the interiors are to be left as un-molested as possible so that the seller knows exactly what they are getting but a bottle of Lexol goes a long way and by properly detailing the cars the sellers could find and address any imperfections to fetch the most money possible. This in itself wasn’t a show stopper for me but simply something that made me feel uneasy because I obviously didn’t understand the situation. So here I am starting a meeting on the wrong side of comfortable right out of the gate.

The Car...

Pretty on the outside at first glance but I was really interested in the interior because if you look at the two computer locations that show pictures of the car there are two distinct shades of red shown. I am not a stranger to misrepresented colors on computer screens but it was high on my list to try and take in the colors during my meeting. There were big smudge marks on the glove box that didn’t rub out from my thumb and small tears in the material around the door opening behind the driver’s seat. Sort of a red/white weave looking material, if I recall. There were different shades of red between the seats and the worn drivers side door pocket trim and evidence of a re-dye or touch up around the pocket. I asked the salesman if the interior had been re-dyed at some point but he didn’t know. General wear and dust on the center console leading me to believe that the interior was mostly original and would be a large but not impossible project for me to make it beyond a decent driver. Again I have no comparative data as this was my first experience but it would have been much easier for me to digest the interior condition were it verbally parried that so much attention to the mechanicals and drivability of the car is the focus here, backed up with loads of details, of course, would be expected.

The paint looked great at first but tired and swirled around the areas visible with the hoods up. This prompted me to ask about a re-spray and he didn’t know but thought he had found evidence of one someplace on the car. Again not a show stopper but not impressed by the lack of seller knowledge at this point.

Digging Further...

Under the front hood there was no spare and no battery cover and there I was looking at a Kirkland (Costco) battery and listening to the... fact that these cars didn’t come with a spare and that it was an option. I am getting further away from comfortable at this point because of the thousands posts I have read here I had not heard this before. Again not sure of this is true or not but I am not bonding with this guy and he is not selling this car today for sure. He has the cover someplace he says.

I start to tell the man that I had started a thread on F Chat to find out about this car and that no one really had any data/info on it. I further explain that searching for info on their operation led me to the posts where Steven Tillack (not the salesman) was recommended as a person who knows these cars and is in fact someone to try and get a PPI from if you are interested in a car in this area. I tried to impress upon the guy that this is an area of concern for me because of the scope of their very impressive facility and capabilities that the shop possesses they could literally resurrect a car from the dead and offer it as sales worthy. I feel as though I am leading him to the opportunity to now finally start to sell the place and its reputation and definitely the car but I have to ask him if they even run the cars and how about their process and he says he ran this one just the other day. I didn’t ask what day but now on full guard I swear I detect a low left rear tire. Note to self: bring a tire gauge to the next car! When exactly did he run this I think? The tires looked new with almost no wear, I check this off as a positive but I am unable to process all the thoughts going around in my head in a productive way.

The Story...

It is explained that the car has come from a private collection in Texas (follow up to Texas region to follow) where the real owner has too many cars and they service his vehicles or there is some sort of relation ship there that enables them to consign the car. This is actually the first time that I am aware that the car is owned by someone someplace else. He may have the spare, "I will contact him to see". I ask about service documentation and point out that there is a picture of lots of paperwork in the ads they have run. He tells me that he thinks the owner kept it all and that it is not available for me to see. “He may have the paperwork, I will check”. He is getting further away from my Christmas card list at this point. ;-)

The sinking feeling continues...

Looking at the engine compartment, looks good enough, I ask if there is anything not stock about it? "No" How is it mechanically? "Good" He tells me that “the car recently had a full MAJOR Service... belt and bearing service, shifter shaft service AND a valve adjustment last June”. I tell him that all his ads to date (Ebay and their own website) have not mentioned the words "Major Service" only the belts and shifter shaft service. Now I am floating in a cloud of uncertainty...I would think that a full recent major service would be a selling point. I have read one or two posts about belt service here on FChat haha! but here we are, me and the "Specializes in Ferrari" salesperson forgetting to add “Major Service” in the last three Ebay ads AND on their web page. Am I missing something here? He does say that the seller and he have differing opinions on the cars value and that it was listed at 45K when it first was advertised.

The distant-unreachable-third-party gambit has left me at the mercy of the salesman’s knowledge and lack of details and less is more approach has sucker punched me in the gut, but I am not deterred. Perhaps this is the norm. I realize that I would need full independent verification of the car and ask if they are open to a PPI and he said that I could take the car to get it checked. I let him know that I wouldn’t want to take the car but that any future deal would involve someone coming to their shop if possible and using their lifts to see it. I am not sure if this is possible/affordable in the Southern California PPI world but his "taking the car" suggestion would seemingly involve some sort of agreement that I wouldn’t be prepared to make until waaay after independent analysis. He was OK with this but that I would need to be aware that there is negative competition in the area that would not work out if I made the wrong choice. Hell I can understand this. I agree to start up an email dialog with him so that as conversations with the real owner continue he can reveal all the missing details.

These would be the details that I would expect to be ready at our first meeting though.

The wrap up...

Pleasant enough meeting, just not what I expected. I accomplished one of my goals. I really like the color combo, so much in fact I am not sure if I can go with tan now but that’s just talk until I sit in one. I am aware that sometimes writings can be perceived incorrectly. For all I have said I would have no problem buying a car from these guys. They have an awesome setup and some real capability in the workshops. I can appreciate that this car may be the cheapest car in the whole place and perhaps it was presented correctly considering the pittance they are asking for it. It was not what I expected, however, and I know that some folks here might appreciate this long post. I welcome any dialog from the salesman (who was given actual notice that I have a internet post on this specific car) , or clearing up of any points that I made that were not clearly represented. This is an important thing for me to get out and documented so that I have a basis for comparison as I move forward.

Damn you guys that are already driving around in a 308. You are some lucky bastids! What a great feeling ,sitting in the cockpit, Sexy to say the least. and I didn’t ever get to hear the sound yet!!!!!!!!

Aloha

 

Is this 'Slimey John's' old car??????

Where is that thread??????

Of course, they come with a spare tire! What a crock of bullsheeit!!

They come with a battery cover too, but if you lose it they are $200.00.

I buy batteires at NAPA, a 308GTB battery is nothing really special, BESIDES it's HIDDEN under the battery cover, UNDER the spare tire!

ROTFLMAO!

At him, not at you, Brudda!

 

No, Slimey John's car was silver/maroon........

 

Man-o-man please dont let me buy a car that was owned by a guy named "Slimey John"

I was really in a tailspin after the spare tire comment...Didnt feel right

 

He was a salesman, for a 'wholesale exotic car dealer" here in town ......had enough photo equipment to be in porn, or something....made them all look good from 10' away!

Anyway...

Back to THIS car, you are missing two expensive parts, the cover and the OEM wheel/tire (it may have been a spacesaver though)...

Now you see how so many Ferrari deals go bad, I have purchased only ONE from a dealer, and got lucky, the other two at least I met the guy who had cared for the car the past 20 years or so, you kind of "see what you are getting" in that case, and both of them were very truthful and enthusiastic..