Another example of a nice car that's not $80K

Came here specifically to see if the community had any info/thoughts on this. I like that FChat never fails me.

I took a keen interest in this car as soon as I got the eBay alert as it is the first one close to the combo I'm looking for that is also nearby (I'm in Austin).

Really would like a Rosso GTS F1, but the rarity is making that look hopeless unless I wait for years and years. Anything non-spider is always a possibility.

Planning to possibly go up and take a look in the next couple of weeks, so hopefully I can get some decent info in person.

 

I've seen a few people indicate that test pipes or hi flow cats will make the headers last longer, but my car had test pipes starting around 5k miles and the headers still exploded at 22k. A survey of 1 obviously isn't scientific, but given the potential for bank draining damage caused by bad headers, I think replacing or at least closely examining them for holes should be the first thing any new owner does.

Speaking of new owners, there seem to be a handful around lately who disagree that these cars will make them cough up $15-20k at the drop of a hat. However, 355Dreamer is 100% correct in stating that this car could easily require that much attention very soon. There's a reason they got this reputation...

 

This is good to know. It would seriously make me question using this dealer.

 

People who fall in love with these cars do so because they have friends that own them or are around them alot for whatever reason. That is why you only buy these cars from or through people you know. It is also no use buying one of these fine machines if you dont know a good mechanic that works mainly on Ferraris. You cant buy one of these and expect the guy who does extensive work on your Honda or Ford to keep your 355 up and running the way it should. If you think he can then you will be in for a rude awakining. A good 355 does not get listed, it gets bought by those who know the car and have been waiting for it to sell. I will bet that when Jeff sees this car in a few weeks that he will say that he wasted his time going up to see it.

 

Exactly. If potential costs were not so expensive, new buyers would not be worrying about getting PPI"s and good service records.

 

Amen to that. As much as the Ferrari mechanic wants you to believe your car runs on Black Magic and mystical powers the simple fact is it's a car with an internal combustion engine. Face it every new Honda on the street has more technology then a 355.

Of course if Ferrari can't keep up thier mystic cloud that most of thier owners sit under then they wouldn't be able to over price thier labor by tens of thousands of dollars and sell them thousands more in parts that they NEED to replace because they have a hunch that the car may exploded if not replaced.

 

I agree with 355dreamer....as owners we shouldn't be intent on trying to drive the values down. Dave - I understand the heartache about pricing and Doug's 1998 355 GTB must have been hard to forget. I bought that car from Doug last month and recently had it delivered so thought I'd share my thought process. I also want to say that I am not trying to debate this....some people think like me, and significantly more people do not think like me....it's important for all of us to acknowledge that we value things differently and what's right for one of us can be completely wrong for another one of us.

WHAT I WANTED: I fell in love with the 355 when it first came out and have obsessed over having one for 15+ years. I never grew to like the 360 or 430 so those models never replaced my love of the 355. I'll have to admit I like the 458, but I am too inpatient to wait another twenty years for the 458 to depreciate into my price range! From day one I've wanted a low miles, pristine, Rosso Corsa/Tan, 6 speed, 355 GTB - - period. I have also always intended to be a long-term owner, so I haven't approached this thinking that I would take a minimal approach to maintaining the car.

MY SHOPPING EXPERIENCE: I've been a serious "money in hand" hunter for the past two years. I also travel globally a lot, so I've missed some opportunities during these past two years because of just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. I've dealt with dealers similar to the experience mentioned in this thread and it can be very frustrating; I even flew across the country to view a car that turned out to be completely misrepresented by such a dealer which was an incredible waste of time and money. From my perspective I've had a skewed view of market pricing as I just didn't find that many examples that fit exactly to what I was looking for.

WHAT I BOUGHT: I missed out by just a matter of hours in being able to buy my car when it was for offered for sale by Algar in 2011 as a one owner car with just 6,000+ miles....it took months to begin to sleep at night after that. Then here I am again almost two years later and I've bought that very same car, now at 13,000 miles on the clock. The car is super well documented from day one with all work performed by Algar Ferrari and Penske-Wynn Ferrari. It had three major services (and not just belts, but true "major" majors with everything gone through) in Oct 2002, Jan 2007, and Jan 2012. Total receipts since new add up to well over $50K and virtually all of this was routine and proactive work, and some of it certainly wasn't necessary or required...but the previous owners took a conservative approach which is inline with my own approach so I valued all of this tremendously. The paint is immaculate. The interior is immaculate with all of the stickies fixed and the dash and seats are in near perfect condition with no re-dyeing or other fixes. The exhaust system was replaced proactively at 8,000 miles with Fabspeed ceramic coated headers, Fabspeed cats, and Capristo exhaust (before anyone comments about the Fabspeeds...I am not 100% sold on them either and I've read all of the pro's and con's...I also read many positive comments about Tubi headers, but I also exchanged notes with Dave Helms who noted that Tubi has reduced their warranty to one year and he believes the stock headers are the best option now). Also, Doug at Switchcars was one of the best people I've ever worked with...and if he wasn't I likely would have walked really quickly. But he was great...he spent hours and hours with me on the phone, was super patient through the PPI process, and he is located fairly close to where I live so logistics were quite favorable compared to other opportunities further away. And I was also able to connect with the previous owner and he patiently spent hours and hours with me, and is still spending time to help me out and share information.

ECONOMICS: On the surface one might say I got hosed...the $67K asking price almost two years ago vs. Doug's $82,500 asking price today. When I saw Algar list this car a couple of years ago I immediately thought it was underpriced. I called them with a plan to close the deal immediately and give them the asking price if necessary, but it was already sold. It sold almost instantly after being made available, so apparently someone else was thinking just like me. I was told that it sold for the asking price of $67K, but who knows...let's assume it was a bit under that and round to $65K. At the time Algar sold the car it was pristine, bone stock, and about 1+ years from needing a major. Fast forward to today and the car has had approx $30K invested in it between the time Algar sold it a couple of years ago and now (all of that investment happened within the last year): $16K for a major service at Penske-Wynn that included belts, tensioners, water pump, fitment of the new exhaust, repainting the valve covers, and a long laundry list of other items; $11K for the new exhaust system (parts alone without labor), and the balance in new tires, bills from Sticky-No-More, Yoshi Shields, skid plates, etc, etc. I'm way off the deep end when it comes to being obsessive about doing all of these things....so these are all things I would have wanted to do and had I bought the car a couple of years ago I'd be sitting here today with an approximate $95K investment (albeit I'd also have a car with less miles, or with miles I enjoyed instead of someone else), or certainly a bit less if I shopped around for a less costly independent shop. Doug was clear right from the start that he wanted "too much" for it and at no point did he don a ski mask and put a gun to my head, but he was educated about the economics and the paper trail this car had and he was confident that someone like me would pony up for it....and he was spot on (and no, I didn't pay the full asking price).

I'm not trying to convince anyone else to think like me....just sharing my thought process and what worked for me personally. With that said, I am fairly sure that if I was patient and waited longer I could have saved some money, but I honestly believe I wouldn't have saved all that much money....and I am looking at total cost (car cost plus the cost of the things I want done to the car), not just the entry cost. Who knows where the next car might be, and there are real costs associated with continuing to look....travel costs, transport costs (assuming other cars wouldn't be as close to my home town as this one), etc. But after two years of passionate searching I was out of patience and it's a big relief to have the deal done and the dream realized. To me if I compare my car and this $55K ebay example it would be difficult for me to say that the ebay car is priced better or more fairly. Perhaps at a high level the two cars would be somewhat similarly priced from a value perspective assuming that the ebay car has at least some level of decent maintenance records, but in my view I couldn't imagine a scenario where it is a better deal or a fairer deal. Those that are less obsessive than me will disagree and that is a totally valid view. However, those that are obsessive about the mechanical and cosmetic conditions will tend to agree....it would be a tall order to buy this ebay car in the low $50's and bring it to the condition of my car for less total investment than what I have at this point.

 

If you can do all of the work yourself you'll probably cut the cost of maintaining one of these cars in half.

 

There seems to be two trains of thought (or maybe three) in the F-world...at least as it appears to me on this forum

First of all, the owners -- they love their cars and always think they are worth more than reality; this seems to be true for any of the sub-forums here.

Second of all, the reality -- you don't have to dig deep to see where that is.

Third -- the owners or near-owners who are trying to weigh what 'service receipts' mean in the context of a car ask. I.e. if you pay $70K and it just had $50K worth of work in the last 3-4 years it may seem like you're 'stealing' the car for $20K. See the '95 GTB (Rosso Barchetta) that was abused and needed a complete engine rebuild; now with a $68K? ask...

Am I right or am I right in my thoughts?

 

1. Thanks!

2. I saw your car when it was listed for sale....it's a spectacular car and congrats on getting it. But to me a black F1 is a very, very different market than a rosso corsa 6 speed. Had I been open to an F1 I would have had a lot more options to choose from, and because of the greater supply I observed (not scientifically of course...just my own buying search) lower asking prices for the F1's. In two years of searching I found only 3 6 speed cars that aligned with the spec's I wanted....but I'm noting that I am really nuts about the very specific spec car I've wanted. Your car at a lower price than mine would not have been a good deal for me, just like my car at a higher price isn't a good deal for you.

3. Reasonable is in the eye of the beholder....the great thing is that we all have different tastes and vastly different price ranges are available.

Congrats again on your car....I believe you chased after it for a long time like I did.

 

exotic30 - I tend to agree with you about service receipts and other investments (like exhaust systems) in that these often do not hold their value and that a good majority of the time it seems that a buyer can get a good deal with less investment than the seller. In my case however, the supply of pristine rossa corsa 6 speeds seems to be incredibly small (either that, or I am looking in all the wrong places). I would have rather bought a bone stock car and done the upgrades myself, but there's just simply been no options to choose from. I am not trying to sell my car or convince anyone to pay what I paid for it; I am sharing that the price for my car can indeed seem appropriate to some....and clearly not for others.

 

Dave,

You are right and all of us long term owners, guys that have owned dozens of F cars - are wrong. People come on to this forum and are nice and share the advice they have, and you argue stomping your feet trying to educate US on the 355 mkt - many times it is better to listen then to talk, or in this case read & not type.

I have owned 2 355's that have had over 40K in service bills that came with them, one 8k red tan car that did not but IMHO will need all that work in the next 10-15K miles.

I know my friend, the Service manager at a Ferrari authorized shop said "he would not take a 355 spider if you gave it to him".

I know many people that ACTUALLY have owned these cars that will tell you a low mileage 95 B that has had issues taken care of is the best of the lot.

Also the price delta with a 30K and 15K F car is HUGE, unless you are talking about vintage.

This car that you point out is what we call a "rat". Please buy it, repair it "correctly" over the next few years and report back to us

Best,

Andrew

 

Dave - Agreed on all points. My view is that the world would be a very boring place if we all preferred the same thing (imagine if you drove down the highway surrounded by a sea of black 355 GTS's!).

 

You guys ready to argue over another one.

Crave Luxury Auto - 1998 Ferrari 355 GTB - The Woodlands , Texas

I don't think anyone has posted about this one yet.

 

There u go, now your catching on.

 

All I can say is good luck. There are settings and small tricks that make these cars different. You can do it yourself or have a "regular" mechanic do it and your car will run but it wont run to its optimum and wont last as long and that my friend is a fact. My buddy works on my car and was in on the design of many parts of 5 different Ferraris. We must also remember that there are owners of these cars the just buy and drive and I think you are one of them. Then there are those who truly appreciate what these cars can and will do when maintained properly. These people and they are the minority get in their cars and feel the pulse of it with every rev and turn, know the pedigree and what these cars really are. This is proven true every single day when you look at the 355s for sale....so many POS out there simply because they demand the best and dont get it from joe blow the mechanic and believe me there are many joe blows out there and some even work at the dealerships.

 

Well, first of all, no one wants black. (kidding Dave)

Looks nice. The add says the major was done 2k miles ago, but my question is, how many years has it been.

 

That was my first thought too. I hate it when they don't put time since the last service on the ad. Are they stupid, lazy or hiding something?

 

Matt, I remember when Algar listed that car. I called on it just like you did. A day late and a dollar short. The car was sold. I think a member on FChat purchased it for his wife. I ended up purchasing Andrew's old car. The car had 8321 miles when I bought it back in August 2011. Andrew, I sure hope you are wrong about the potential costs of that car in a few years. So far everything has been great. If it comes to that though, I will address its needs. I do agree there is a big difference in price with cars that have over a certain number of miles versus the real low mileage cars. There is a great example of a 512TR with extremely low miles and the price is significantly higher than most of the others. The car is at Domani motors with 1890 miles and asking price is ~ $149K.