Do you remember when you first fell in love with Ferrari?

oh how well i remember......i was 15 working in a motorcycle/auto shop back in italy were my parents have a home and still do,anyway during the summer we would live there and my dad made us work during the summers..........one day during a normal hot day a mafia guy came in and wanted his oil changed and asked to have the american do it (that being me) i thought nothing of it, he gave me his keys and when i went to pull it in.........omg there it was a red ferrari 308.....and from that day on i fell in love with 3 things........ferrari, ducati, and being and auto mechanic......and to this day i have been a auto mechanic for 27 years, own a ducati, and am waiting for the ferrari..........

 

1972, Watkins Glenn NY - coming out of the Down Towner Restaurant walking to my parents car... there was a red Dino 206 ... just loved the looks of that car. I did not quite realize at 6 years old that the Dino and the race cars at the track were made by the same people... but my dad told me all about Mr. Ferrari & the cars... He bought me a little Politoy Dino that I had with me for years... was my favorite toy!

Up unitll then Matra & Jackie Stewart were my favorites.

 

You mean like this one? I have 5 308s in my collection, from the old orange/red GTB in the back to the latest GTS in the front that I bought yesterday! Second pic shows my Ferrari shelves. Sorry purists, I take them out of the box and play with them, vroooom, VROOOM!!!

I'm 42, been a huge Ferrari fan since I started reading Motor Trend in the mid-70s, and the 308 specifically because of Magnum PI. I finally realized the full-scale dream just over a year ago and it's fantastic!
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Guess it started with Magnum PI but really got going when we went to Myrtle Beach,SC in 1985 for senior beach week graduation. Some guy was driving around all week in a black/tan QV. He almost hit me running across the street once and later in the week, he was stopped at a traffic light and I touched my first Ferrari. I was infected at that point. Best infection of my life.

 

We were living in Wiesbaden, Germany in 1966, I was 7 years old. My older brother was 17 and he took me to Nurburgring (my brother was the coolest). Most folks around us thought the Cobras and the GT40s with their big bore "BLAAATT" were cool... but even at that age I knew the banshee wail of the Ferrari V12s meant they were wound tighter and and doing something very special.... And of course the look of the LM 250 and the P3... I didn't know what lust was, but I had it. Man and machine at the peak of technology... and artistically just gorgeous!!! I was hooked. I can still stand in a forest, close my eyes and hear those cars.

The following year we went to the F1 race there and saw the BRM H16 motor. I walked right up to the car and sat down on the ground and just stared for about 20 minutes. The mechanics were all laughing for a few minutes then they realized I was serious and they came over and started explaining things to me... I was mesmerized... it never went away.

Rick

 

When I was 14, living in Germany, a friend told me that the only way I would ever be cool is if I owned a Ferrari. So I knew then that I had to buy one.

Sadly, it didn't work.

 

I first fell in love with the sound! My older brother had a 33 1/3 vinyl called " The Sounds of Sebring" with drivers the likes of Von Tripps. The audio was of the cars at full song and I had to see a Ferrari because it sounded the best. It must have been at the Chicago Auto Show ,since our family went every year until parts of the display cars started missing.(that's another issue and one reason we live in the woods) Anyway the car ,I thought, was ugly but that engine with more spark plugs than I had ever seen, was awesome! Well it went from there to a Cushman scooter (I was about 10 yr.s old) then a 305 Honda then a panhead 45 chopper and then karts. My daily drivers went from TR3,TR6,TR7 to a few Corvettes,a few Jags and some other american iron. Then I bought my first race car from Carl Hass and then it happened. It was in the early 80's that I was attending the Skip Barber sch. at RA and in pulls a boxer (I even remember the guys name was Pete Styles) I wanted one at the first sight. I guess the horror stories about repairs and my cousin ,who owned a body shoppe , telling me they were fibreglass junk kept me away until I was 57. It was the first item on my bucket list and I haven't thought about the second since. Love it, it provides a sensual experience no other car (XKE is close) can bar the race cars!

 

When I was 15 or so my family and I were in Switzerland for a few days. We were having lunch on a bench when a yellow Maranello drove by. I was hooked after that.

 

For me it was just after the 1985 Canadian GP when it all started. During the race there was this grown man on TV who would jump up and down behind the fence everytime the Ferraris went by. I wondered what would make a grown man do that?? Started reading about Ferraris, saw Magnum PI and the 308GTSi Quatrovalvole was it!!

I never realized at the time how much they would cost to buy or repair. Following the passing of my parents in 2003 & 2006 I inherited enough to make the dream a reality- but passed as the maintenence costs spooked me. Also my kids may want to go to college some day!!

Today I have many 1/43rd Ferraris, still love the 328GTS, would love a 550/575 Maranello! As my brother always tells me:

"The dream NEVER dies.....................just the dreamer"

Cheers!
Terry Jones
Ottawa, Canada

 

We had this card game we'd play when we were kids.

The Boxer and various other Ferraris always "won the hand" if you had 'em . I don't think the 308 was in the game. The Dino GT4 was. I think I still have the cards! The Countach was the only competition .

cheers!

edit: there were cards for airplanes, dragsters, etc. ... think I saw something similar in recent decades ... generic airplane and car outlines on one side of the cars and a pic of the car with the spec's on the other.

 

cool collection and pics ... your car looks like a model! cheers

 

I was very practical as a kid thus I never even dreamed of owning a Ferrari, I just figured it was out of my league. I'd always had a thing for a Porsche and figured one day I would make that happen when I could afford to maintain it properly. Several years ago I moved into a neighborhood that had a Ferrari in it. Of course I had to meet the fellow because i love all cars. A couple years ago he suggested I look at a Mondial that was for sale on Ferrarichat. (I had never heard of Ferrarichat) I did and the lust crept into my system. I couldn't believe that I could afford one. I won't explain the excitement in the thought of purchasing one. But it is now mine. I have to say the love didn't come in until after the purchase. The lust certainly kept me motivated but I remember saying a couple weeks after purchase that I would not sell it for twice what I paid for it. Now, at almost two years of ownership I am really attached to my car and it has treated me very well too.

 

The first sight of a Ferrari put me in a surreal haze:

I'd sit in the back of my parents car and name all the cars that passed but don't even know that I'd heard of a Ferrari. My dream car at this point (9) was Porsche.

One day i drove my bike to the neighborhood tennis courts and while sitting there i saw this red car that stopped me in my tracks and i just stared with eyes wide open and mouth agape. I remember getting off my bike and walking over to this beautiful car and as i walked towards it i felt like i was going in slow motion like i wanted to get to it as fast as i could but somehow i should proceed with caution so i took my time step by step cautiously approaching the car but never stopped staring as i walked towards it . When i got to the car the red paint seemed so deep and the car so beautiful that my memory is like some kind of surreal dream sequence from a movie (only way i can describe it). I read the letters on the back of the car and since I'd never said the works out loud or even heard them spoken i slowly read the letters one at a time F..E..R..R..A..R ..I then put the word in my head as FERRARI and was instantly mesmerized. Something about putting a name to this beautiful creature solidified the whole package. The name sounded so cool. That car was a Daytona BTW.

A few years later i was on vacation and had just gotten a BMW t-shirt the night before and was wearing it as i walked to the beach from the cottage we'd rented. As i walked I heard this beautiful noise coming towards me and when i looked i saw a 308 and as beautiful as the Daytona was the 308 was on an even higher level and i knew that i had to have one someday.

30 years later that dream came true...still think it's the most beautiful car ever made. What's strange is that when the car is in the sun i find myself staring at the Ferrari logo on the rear decklid and i catch a little glimpse of that feeling i got as a kid seeing a Ferrari for the first time.

 

Here's the Ferrari logo just for you, Stuart, about the height a 9 year old would see it.
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We used to live down the street from Ferrari of San Francisco when I was 9 or 10. Every time we walked by the showroom, I would stare endlessly at the different cars they had in there. Never attempted to walk in there thinking they'd throw me out in a second. Then one day, a friend and I decided to take a chance and walk through the showroom. To my surprise, we weren't kicked out and was actually greeted by a salesperson. Fastforward a few years later to the invention of VCRs and Magmum PI. By this time, we had moved to the suburb, and Ferrari of San Francisco was no longer accessible but thanks to the VCRs, Magmum PI was a finger's away. I remembered going over to a friend's house (the only kid in the neighborhood with a VCR), recorded Magmum and continuously watched the part where he would kick up dirt pulling away. That will forever stayed with me.

I, too cannot resist the urge to get a Ferrari anymore. I've had many Porsches (mainly due to the intimidation of owning a Ferrari) and still do (still love them), but I am in the market for a 3x8 now, and hopefully I'll find one soon. Still doing my research.

 

me too, mine say "Racebait 308" on them. One or two of them are gold, from some gold box set. The rest are red, white, silver and black.

Still have several of them from my childhood, and I am almost 40.

 

Great thread!

I was a complete and utter beach bum in my teens, utterly hooked on windsurfing. In one of my windsurfing magazines, there was a photo of the then-hot shot Robby Naish, who as standing next to a black and tan 308 GTS, some foam on the windscreen and roll-over bar and a surfboard on top of that. Coolest pic I ever saw.

In the years to follow, my love deepened, and interestingly, I can also vividly remember seeing my first 308GT4. It was a dark blue one, parked in the village where I lived with my parents. Seeing it, I was disgusted. I walked around it over and over again and I just couldn't comprehend how on earth they dared calling that ugly monstrosity a Ferrari.

Funny, how taste can change...

 

Yeep

It sparked when was a kid watching 'the persuaders' in tv where Tony Curtis (r.i.p) was driving a 246 Dino with Modena plate.

Am still pretty intoxicated by the Ferrari virus.

Gianni

 

As a teenager living in a poorer state (think West Virginia, Wales, New Brunswick or Tasmania) I saw one day a Dino 246 in British Racing Green coming down the hill opposite our house. I had never seen a car remotely like that, and was hooked at once....never thought a car could be so beautiful. I saw it once more......until I tracked it down thirty five years later! Sadly not for sale, but in need of some TLC. In the mean time I was fortunate enough to come by one or two I was able to keep for myself....but I still think of that 246.

 

Gianni,

It is true that THAT car is a true screen idol in Europe and must have started a lot of Ferrari passion. THAT car has done in Europe what the 308 GTS did ten years later in America with "Magnum, P.I".

For the record, and for those interested, Danny Wilde's Dino was, excuse me, IS, as it is still extant:
Dino 246 type 607L, chassis n°00810; produced on March 27th, 1970 and road-registered MO221400; exterior color is Rosso Chiaro 20-R-190; interior color Nero Vinyl 161.
Sold to the producer of "the Persuaders", Johnny Goodman, in May 1970, for the serie.
After filming, sold to one italian owner; she is reported to be in the Pirozzi private collection in Naples, Italy, since jan. 7th, 1980.

Best

 

Yes! I used to love that show. The 206, aston and they used to have a couple of Porsche targas for the bad guys in that show. Tony Curtis with his driving gloves on ( all the time) and the red 206... loved it.

 

Spring 1981. It was a 1977 yellow/black 308 GTB screaming by my house that did me in. I was 13 and the course of my life was forever changed.

I remember it like it happened 10 minutes ago.

 

In the early to mid 1960's...reading Road & Track and Car & Driver mags and seeing "in the metal" Ferraris, a '56 250 Boano and a '65 330 2+2, for the first time.