Agreed. Our regular poster, IcyJ saw another perfect 911 out in TMT complete with a row of rally spotlights. Hopefully he'll post up a picture of it for us.
spotted one lamborghini LP 650-4 RAODSTER in parking, but i know the owner bought it from refined marques cars in france. very very nice took the picutre quickly as hte owner was walking back to the car Image Unavailable, Please Login
Thanks! Some more from yesterday here... http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/ Many thanks to all the HK petrolheads that bring a smile to my face every Sunday!
Driving through Western this morning, I see a gleaming red Superamerica in my rear view mirror which then pulls up next to me. I roll down the window and ask the obvious question: "Are you SirPaul?" Very nice to meet you SirPaul! Got separated from you in the traffic so didn't get a chance to say goodbye. Your Superamerica looks like it just rolled out of the showroom - beautiful!
Hi JZND. Good to meet someone else from F-Chat! Yes, you left me for dead! Your yellow 550 looks pretty spectacular too. I must say the colour goes well with the shape. I always think mine blends in with the taxis in HK. Yours most definately does not! Tell me, your exhaust sounds great. Much better than my HGTC exhaust, I think. Have you wired the tailpipe valves open or done anything to keep them open at low speeds?......or is it just that it sounds better when you are behind the car zooming away from you...and never get to hear your own properly when you are sitting in it? The secret to my looks? Use about once or twice a week when weather is nice. Never goes out in the rain (although it tried this morning through Wanchai!). Always gets covered, whether in Office or at home (so nothing craps on it and dont need to wash it so often). Gets a wax and polish once a year when it goes for service. Plus lots of TLC. 9,700Km and 5.5 years old and still looks good. Must use it a bit more though. At this rate, when I reach 70 it will only have 40K Km!!! Regards PAUL
Hi Paul, You're a dedicated owner! Mine goes out rain or shine, but gets washed and waxed regularly. Were you also at Repulse Bay this afternoon? When I came back to my car in the parking lot, there was a red superamerica parked next to it...I didn't notice your plate number this morning so not sure if that was yours. My exhaust was a result of some trial and error (I posted a bit about it in the 550 section). The previous owner of my car installed tubis (gen 1). I didn't like the resonance at 3k rpm, but IMSS couldn't find the old OEM mufflers. So I tried a custom straight pipe setup but that was far too loud. Good for a giggle, but impossible to live with. I was about to go back to my OEM center resonator but another F-chatter here with a 550 convinced me to try a custom X-pipe setup, which is what I've got now. I'm very happy with it. My friend has the same custom X-pipe, but mated to Capristo rear boxes that have had the OEM Ferrari valves spliced in. It's much quieter than mine but still sounds great at speed. If you can bear the thought of modifying your Superamerica, I can take you to the shop in Sun Po Kong which created the custom straight pipes and Xpipes for both my and my friend's car. It's all reversible and costs about HK$4k so not a huge cost if you decide you don't like it. Ben
Aah! you are assuming there will be a next owner! There's a better than even chance I will be buried with this old girl, so assuming I am still alive and kicking at 70, I still want her to look and run as if she is fresh out of the factory! Having said that, I could use her more than I am currently doing.
Thanks Ben Interesting idea. Let me consider it. I do have a bit of resonance at about 2700 RPM but not too bad. I was first thinking of putting a keyring remote button to overide the exhaust valve solenoid and open them up. I can test the result by wiring them open to start with and if the sound is good, do it with the remote. If that does not sound good, then I might take you up on the idea....although would rather not mod the car if I can achieve the better sound in other ways. BTW, we have a couple of AM Rapides in our building and they make an amazing sound...and louder than I would expect from a 4 door saloon. PAUL
There was a Capristo remote controlled solenoid system listed in the classified section a few months ago. Tried to find it again but couldn't. I haven't heard a HGTC exhaust at wide open throttle so I don't know how yours sounds with the valves open, but a number of fchatters have said that a valved HGTC with straight pipes is a great combination. I agree with you that Aston has got their exhaust tuning figured out. The rapides and the V12 cars sound fantastic. My old DB9 was, to me, the only other modern car that looks as good as the Maranellos, and it sounded incredible straight from the factory. Too bad it disappointed in almost every other respect...!
Hi ben I will do more research on this subject once I have tried the valves strapped open. I will get back to you with the result....when I get round to it! I test drove the DB9 in 2006 on the way to buying the 575 SA. Did not like it at all. Especially did not like the bulbous dashboard. I guess the fact that the demo car had blue leather and bamboo wood interior finish put me off a bit too! I also think the latest Jaguar XKR has the exhaust figured out right. Sounds like a big old american V8 muscle car. PAUL
Any SA Apertas coming to Hong Kong? With all that amount of Ferraris wonder how many are allocated for HK market?
You know when you find yourself looking through the classifieds speculating on what you might buy on a whim? We've all done it, and I was this morning when I ran across this. http://www.carandclassic.co.uk/car/C230986 Now, call me odd, but I have always liked Ferrari's V12 Ford Cortina lookalike and they only made 61 in RHD apparently. Can any HK Ferrari owners give me any ideas on what realistically the running costs and maintenance would be like on Ferrari's ugly duckling? Someone put me off now!
My first Ferrari was a 84 400i, a bit of an ugly duckling but I found a relatively rare 5-speed rather than the more common 3 speed auto. I loved it and reluctantly sold it when I moved to Asia. A ton of character, gobs of torque, comfy ride and fantastic sound. The running costs are no more than, say, a testarossa of the same age. But as a % of the value of the car, the costs are quite high. A major service at the Long Island ferrari dealer set me back about US$6k (this was back in the late 90s). Another major cost was the exhaust - the old ANSA my car came with had corroded through, and rather than do the sensible thing and just repair the exhaust, I dropped almost US$10k (don't recall exactly) on a full Tubi S/S system from the cats back. The tubi importer had never sold one before because nobody else had ever been that stupid to spend 40% of the value of the car on an exhaust. But the result was a incredibly sweet sounding Ferrari V12. Another cost was tires - I had a hard time finding new stock metric tires but they may be more common nowadays. I recall I paid slightly more for the Micheline TRX metrics (which had unimpressive levels of grip) than a similarly sized Pzero.
It might sound strange to some;but in my eyes,the 400i,412i and even the older 365GT4 looks a lot better than the 612.IMHO.
I agree but of course I'm biased, and I do prefer the 400 to the 412. If I had a 612, I would probably feel differently, I suspect. The 400i is boxy but well proportioned. Doesn't look great from the front quarter view, but the low boot/trunk line and fat tires filling the wheel wells gives it a muscle car look from the rear 3/4 view. Here's my old car in a rather dumpy setting in downtown Manhattan, can't find any other digitized pictures...this was well before digital cameras were common. Image Unavailable, Please Login
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HdeWTkBaekY[/ame] Here's what's brewing in the United States Anurag Dandiya
Some fantastic cars out on the roads this Sunday. Haven't had time to process any pictures yet though. Did anyone end up going to TMT/Luk Keng? I'd love to see pics of the 288 GTO that was there. My favourite car of all time by a long way! I'd love the opportunity to shoot one, as it's difficult to find good pictures of them on the internet... Anyway, here are some recent pics as I haven't shared anything with you guys for ages. http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6446067135/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6446040597/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6446027345/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6444762677/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6440954307/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6429864665/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6393944049/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6393669505/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6393619683/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6393532431/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6393532303/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6392623169/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6357557431/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6356254963/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6356254905/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6356254857/in/photostream/lightbox/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/48817379@N03/6348424039/in/photostream/lightbox/
Ben, Glad that even Sir Paul found your 550 sound great! Yours made me very jealous after you installed the Xpipe. Surely my capristo doesn't sound as good as yours although with similar Xpipe setup. Good coverage of our "trial & error" story throughout the past months, at least we are now both happy with our 550s! and Yes I do agree with Sir Paul that our red 550s are a bit like taxis. Seriously I got mistaken as taxi twice; once on Canton road, and once in Causeway Bay to some mainland Chinese lady, waved at me to stop. Obviously I didn't stop, and they gave me dirty look (I saw from the rear view mirror). Haha. Allan
