what did it for you?

The name did it for me.... hands down Ferrari is in a league of it's own.

Even ask most NON-car people and they will have at least heard the name and what they make.

 

I was a die hard Porsche fan and was planning on a 996 turbo purchase until I stumbled onto a Cars and Coffee F event one Saturday morning years ago. There was a literal sea of red Ferraris. I think I literally fell in love with my now friend Robert's 360. A Porsche would no longer suffice.

 

Saw a new red 308 GTS QV in my high school parking lot (parent's day apparently) in 1985. I still think it's one of the prettiest and coolest cars ever made. Even the modern Ferraris don't really stack up.

 

Ferrari didn't really get my attention before the F430 came. I'm always after a great driving experience and when the F430 came, EVERYONE said Ferrari was on an entirely different level - that turned me on.
Before that, the F50 made me a car guy (bought my first car magazine with a F50 cover when I was 16 years and LOVED to read it) - still got the magazine (gonna frame it and hang it up!).
I also have fond memories of a black 550 Maranello some random guy used to park outside my school, that I always admired the looks of - extremely elegant. To this day a 550 Maranello is a true pleasure to spot on the road.

I don't care about the status aspect of it, I would rock a Fiat all day if it's great to drive. But sometimes you just want a Ferrari - and that's Ferrari explained... Lovely machines.

 

Neighbor had a Dino. There was a 500 TRC in the garage of a house we would pass going to my dad's boat. I would wish the garage door to be open as we approached... and if it was beg my Dad to slow down...

 

my wife

 

I have been a car nut since elementary school. But the love for Ferrari really started when I went to a friend's house and saw his uncle's 308 GTB fiber glass in silver parked in my friend's garage. That image never got away from my head and I can still remember it perfectly... that was 1992.


It was the first Ferrari I saw up close and personal. The rest of the time was seeing them on the road. I still remember a red 246 Dino at Venice Beach. The guy was looking for parking spot... Another time was a red Testarossa on 118 free way near Northridge, CA. I was trying to follow him in my Sentra SE-R....ha ha ha.

 

It started when I was 9 years old (19 now). I was always into anything with 4 wheels...mostly Corvettes simply because I knew what a Corvette was and I knew they were fast. I was playing a game called Need For Speed High Stakes and I ALWAYS used the Corvette...until I was beaten. I simply could not win a certain race in the game...I was racing against a Ferrari (pronounced "Fer-R-eye" when I was 9) 355 Spider. I had NO clue as to what a "Fer-R-eye" was. Well, a few days later I was at Wal-Mart with my mom and I was in the toy isle looking at Hot Wheels. I saw a silver "Fer-R-eye" 355 Spider just like the one that beat me in the game...so I got it. I still had no idea what a Fer-R-eye was. That afternoon, I went to an oral surgeon (happened to be my second cousin) and he saw me holding onto the 355 Hot Wheels. He said, "You like that car?" I said, "Yeah...I don't know what a Fer-R-eye is though." He laughed and said, "I have a Ferrari (pronounced correctly). Do you know what a 328 GTS is?" I shook my head. He chuckled and said, "I'll have to pick you up some day and give you a ride." I smiled but wasn't all excited; I had no idea what a Ferrari was!
That evening, he called and asked "Hey! Tomorrow's your birthday; do you want me to pick you up in the morning and take you to school in the Ferrari?" I said, "Ok!" The next morning came and he picked me up in his 1986 Rosso Corsa/Tan Ferrari 328 GTS and took me to school. I was hooked as soon as I heard him start it up. That afternoon when I got home from school, I went on the internet and did as much research as I could about Ferrari...especially the 328 GTS. The burning passion grows and grows every-day. I've now driven three Ferraris (F430, California, and a 458 Italia) and I have become obsessed...maybe too obsesses, but I don't care. To me, nothing in this world sounds better, feels better, looks better, or even smells better, than a Ferrari. Forza Ferrari!

-G.B.

 

Watching the movie "Gran Prix" in Cinerama as a kid. Enzo was right about that. He said it would be good for Ferrari and F1 and helped in the making of the movie. I've been hooked on Ferrari ever since.

So, from a small, dry, dusty, cow town known as Phoenix, Arizona in the mid 60's, I fell in love with the machines coming from that tiny shop in Maranello.

 

When I was 6 years old Speed channel had hours upon hours of Ferrari coverage on about the 50th anniversary. I just never shook it. Then when I was 10 I visited Ferrari of Washington (Bush's inauguration day) and saw a yellow/black F355 GTS exactly like the one in the official poster. A year later a neighbor moved in next door who had a 512tr and then later added a F355 GTS.

 

My story is nothing special just the classic boyhood dream. When the F355 first appeared in my dad's R&T I knew I had to have one someday. When I was in my early 20s I made it a realistic goal to have a 3-pedal F355 in my garage before I turned 30. It happened July 31st 2010, I was 2.5 months away from my 29th birthday; mission accomplished.


Rob

 

Magnum P.I. I can't believe that I'm the only one who thought (back in the day) that being Magnum and driving around in a red Ferrari was cool...(even if he had to ask Higgins for the keys).

Aside from that, it had been my dream to own a Ferrari since I was 10 years old. I was lucky enough to sit in a Tesstarosa at 18 years old and I was hooked. It took til I was 41 years old to get my Ferrari and it was alll that I hoped it would it be.
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I was an Italian kid growing up in San Francisco (not a car friendly place) in the 1950s. Since I was Italian, I knew about Ferraris but had never seen one. I had a set of automobile bubble gum cards (like the baseball ones) and I thought the Ferraris were the coolest looking of any of the cars in those cards.

Moved to Burlingame (high end suburb of SF) in 1964. I had an after school job - walked to it. One day there was what I now know to be a 250 SWB California Spyder parked at a gas station (covered headlights, gun metal grey). At the time I wasn't sure what it was, but I sure knew it was the most fantasic car I had ever seen. Walked across the street (El Camino Real) to check it out. Of course, it was a Ferrari.

From that day forward my life's goal was to own one of those cars. Got a Fiat Dino in 1976, a Maserati 3500 GT in 1979 (paid $900 for it in Italy), and the rest is history.

 

I have always loved the look of the Ferrari....plain and simple.

 

I was hooked on this drug early on as a child playing with small toy replicas. Then when I was on vacation at the age of ~12, a red tan TR roared through the streets of London and came to a halt to allow me to cross the road. I walked as if in slow mo to take in all the angles of that beautiful car and right then and there I had the urge to sell my soul for one... But alas, I had to snap out of the daydream as I reached the other end of the crosswalk. Standing there on the corner dumbfounded and unable to move, all I could do was stare and give the driver and passenger a huge thumbs up as they sped away in the most amazing machine I had ever seen at the time. It was there and then that I knew they had me. I was hooked hard on the drug of exotics, especially Ferraris.

 

For me it was the worshipping of Italy. We would go to Italy every summer in the '70ies and '80ies. It was the land of milk and honey (well pasta, sunshine and enthousiastic people). Quite something when you're a kid growing up in cold, stiff, Holland. My dad was a car guy, and particularly fan of Alfa's. Ferrari was sort of an extraterrestrial Alfa - everything Alfa was but more, better, faster, more outrageous etc..

They were so rare. Whenever we would see one we would talk about it for weeks (my brothers and I). Those feelings haven't left me, and everytime I drive my Ferraris I feel the warmth of those summerdays in the back of my spine. I am so lucky.

Damn - I wish I was in Holland right now because I feel like walking to the garage and just smelling the leather.


Onno

 

Wanted mid engine, targa top, good looking, great sounding, non-ABS/autobox/traction controlled, moderately fast sports car for around $30k.
Don't love the Elise's motor.
Already owned a Fiat X1/9.
ergo, 308GTS

 

I've always been a car nut and loved sports cars since I was given a model of a 1958 Corvette when I was about 6 or 7 years old in the late 50's. Gravitated to an HO slot car racing setup when I was about 14 and pretended that my track in the basement was Le Mans and had Ford GT Mk II's racing against Ferraris. My first issue of Road and Track in 1967 had the picture on the cover of the 275 GTS/NART spider and I was hooked.

When I was driving Alfas as a college student in the mid 70's a fellow Alfa Owners club member brought a 250 GT SWB to a car show at the Larz Andersen museum outside of Boston with the license plate "Va Bene" and that fueled the fire even more.

 

My uncles, car nuts, had a Daytona, a 275 GTB4, and a 365 GTC. All bought in the mid/late 70's when nobody really wanted them. Later a 400i and a Testarossa came by. The Colombo block symphony has been resonating in my head as far as I can remember... Now I'm hunting for mine. And yes, it has to be a V12!