I think I'm done with Ferrari

Or you could buy an 7-8yr old Ferrari 612 Scaglietti and only lose 5% in value per annum and have an interior to die for and not see another car like yours, ever, rather than one every block which is where the C7 is going to be in three years, not to mention down 50% in depreciation. Okay, let's say 40%. Loaded C7 will cost you $80k. I'll spend less driving my 612 over the same period, depreciation, maintenance and taxes. And at the end of 3yrs, there will still be 30 for sale in the U.S, rather than 3,000.

 

Ok in principle I agree with Mayor about current ferrari ownership. But I am going to call BS on some of his reasons, because based on his posts elsewhere he is being contradictory.

Firstly Mayor likes red tan ferraris which are tsteless cliche attention getters, he switches cars like some switch *****es, a sign of an attention seeker. But then he claims not to like the adverse attention. From his other posts it seems he uses his cars to drive around town, and this is the taget market for a modern ferraris. More specificaly Mayor loves the paddle crap bu then complains of lack of excitement and involvement. Paddle crap on a street driven car is purely to make it easier to drive and the cost is less involvement. On a track paddle crap is less involving but yes its faster, if ultimate numbers is your game.

The point is we are not racing against other marques for a championship, but driving for fun and pleasure. Paddlecrap and numb steering remove fun and pleasure from the driving while adding speed(only on track) and conveniance. Now Mayor complains the speed is unuseabe and the conveniance unexciting.

In the old days, ferraris were not necessarily always the fastest, but they looked great and to drive one was a embodying experience. A 308 looked fantstic and while slower than most cars was more fun and was exotic.

Since the advent of the tetarossa most ferrais were not good looking, the design became more hey look at me and one of shock.
I would say the two good looking ferraris of the last 20 years were the 456 and now 458 The 550 and 355,were Ok and the rest are shock designs and pretty yuck.

Modern ferrais basicaly have fake exaust sounds drive like a daily hyundai around town are loud in sound without being sonourous and eye catching without being beautiful, they attract people who want to display wealth, some walter mitty's and people mostly cant drive for crap.

I am going to say that in the old days if you could not drive your days with a ferrari were short. The machines were visualy stunning and an aquired taste to drive, they required comitment and skill, while rewarding accordingly. The rewards for those who did were unmatchabe. Now we have owners like Mayor complaining about paint, and in a way for 300k+ he is right. Point is in the past the flaws were easily overlooked because the driving experience was so superlative, now not so much.

Let me ask in the USA what do you do with a 458 or F12. It cant really be enjoyed on the road, because below 10/10ths its a overboosted numb and benign experience. And frankly you hardley ever see one driven at the track(f club events excluded) because they are prohibitive to run in anger and most Fcar driver have no clue and even less how to drive. Look at challenge races, piss poor driving mostly.

So a modern F-car is a pose machine for fashionistas, a bigger better rolex watch if you will, a crass display of quick wall street money, a signal you have arrived.

Go to pretty much any track event, you see lots of vettes, lots of Gt3 porches a few caymans, lots of e36 BMws lots of loti. Those that drive for a hobby gravitate to cars that have track durability and lots of performance while being maintainable. In the past we might have attributed these traits to ferrari(250 swb anyone), now its deviated stiching and order slots.

Yes ferrari still makes phenominal engines, some of their cars look great too, but owning one is a sure way to stigmatise oneself. Frankly if you claim not to want the attention dont get a red ferrari, try grey.

Yesterday I drove 100 miles in my grey boxer, you know who looked, pretty much every motorcyclist and a few fools going slow in a panamera. Two seprate cops at the lights didnt even notice, nor did anyone at the hardware store where I stopped, or otehr traffic. Paint the same car red and pretty much everyone assumes you want them to notice, and you get negative feedback.

As to dealers, yes they are pretty lame. The whole game thing sent me away from ferari. For others it opened the market to other cars like Mclaren and the R8. Some people wont go to a club they have to stand in line to get in, or a reteraunt that treats you like crap, others seem to attach importance to being made to wait, I guess they need the humility.. You know what if you have the $$$ there are lots of great choices where to eat. It just mazes me that so called sucessful people have such low self esteem they will be treated like crap to spend 300k and actualy feel honored to be "invited" to part with their cash.

To sum it up. Modern Ferrais have great motors and some look great, the driving experience is pretty bland untill 10/10th and 99% of ferrari owners today have no clue what 10/10ths is. The main reasons people have for buying a ferrari are rleated to status and hey look at me, most are red which engenders negative stigma and envy. The dealer experience is mostly sub par(although since 08 they are looking for sales)

As someone here said Ferrari is no longer selling cars, they are selling lifestlyle, you know the kind aspired to by 17 year old sons and daughters of chinese billionarires, and American nite club owners. Real car people apply elsewhere. If Ferrari sells lifestyle its selling bogus lifestyle from an enthusiast perspective. But hey Harley did well with lifestyle.

If you want a fun drive for a car on the street or road rally the choices are getting limited.
Maybe porche cayman. (the 991 is lost) Loti of all stripes. The upcoming M3 looks promising and Miata. Then there are older ferrais and lambos if you can put up with thier difficulties and foibles, which for many is an understandable bridge too far. Any 997Gt3 and earlier air cooled porche, is good.

Then I have to say the new vette and viper look very interesting. I see mayor is going int hat direction, he will probably love the way the vette drives but in the nd change out because it will become not exclusive in a year or two.

Me after looking at what was out there, trying a 458 and Mp12, I am building a sperformance Gt40 with full race motor, Hopefully it will be a fuly engaging machine on track, something one will need years to learn to drive properly and be able to smoke compuetrised cars when in exoperienced hands. Something that will be great on road rallies and a occasional sunday blast. It will be noisy viceral and engaging, otherwise impractical.

For the street I can just drive any old car as long as it has power and is comfy, dodge challenger looks good for this. Lets face it, in most of the USA if you are doing 90 on the street in most eyes you are already "crazy".

Sadfly ferrari and porche have lost the plot. Real drivers like viceral alive machines, not computerised synthesised blobs. Technology can and should make the cars easier to live with reliable good ac more composed ride and more predicatble handling. What technology has done is add speed in blanding out manner, the thirill today comes from the sheer vlocity, everyhing else filtered out. In the old days the thhirril of seed and experince of the drive were there in equal measure.

So these days my conclusion is you build your own. A Componant car has zero snob appeal, and the type of driving experience and looks of older cars with modernish reliability.

 

This is a fascinating thread, I think. I've always believed that it's more fun to drive slow cars fast than it is to drive fast cars slow(ly). Not saying any F car is slow ... I have a 3.2 Mondial, for heavens sake! But if you drive a Miata at 9 tenths you probably will have more fun than you will driving a 458 at 4.5 tenths. (I'm speculating here about the 458.)
I, too, place great importance on involvement. That's why I've never sold my Europa Twin Cam.
I haven't driven ANY of the new exotic-cars, so I can't say they are not involving. But I can say this: Over 1 year ago, I started a post about the end of Ferrari manual trans cars, and I was for the most part blasted and called a dinosaur. Someone even threw in a wise crack about me probably wanting to start my car with a hand crank. I thought that retort was funny as hell and I still do. The point is, if you want older and more involving autos, there are plenty available. Everyone can chose his own mount and saddle up. That must explain the stratospheric prices of 246 Dinos, correct? 0 to 60 in 8 seconds (R & T), but that thing sounds great and is frigging beautiful.
Lotus Elise, anyone?

 

I have an elise to go with my boxer. The lotus is great in all types of ways, but lacks that charismatic motor f cars have. You remember the old saying about Ferraris, a great motor with the rest thrown in for free.

What the lotus does is make amodern handling reliable car, easy to keep, but with all the charisma of an older car.

To those who equate sticks with hand cranks I say you miss the point almost totaly.
A hand crank, carburator, points etc have little to nothing to do with the driving n experience(some may argue on cards)these things are negative conveniance. By contrast, efi computer controls VVt disc barkes, rifle bolt feeling shifters, lightter clutch pedals, great headlights, reliability, vice free handling are all modern things that conveniance and performance without taking away from experience. Now when you start coupling these technologies with eps, and paddleshift you start to remaove the human machine interface. You filter the experience for a paper gain in performance but a very real drop in enjoyment and enetrtainment.

Its sort of like governement, you need some of it, and some is useful, too much swamps the whole thing and you just become a cog in a larger organism.

 

I agree 100 percent. If other disagree, there's room for them also.

 

That does not seem very fair to me. I feel pretty confident they could not get any orders, from any one, when they tried to get your order. Let me guess, late 2009, Scuds are in the tank and the 458 has been officially revealed. And they wanted you to order a 430? Maybe I am wrong, but local treatment has been similar, with a place in line only available when no one else will pay sticker any more.

 

I agree with this, If mayor was offended let him voice his discontent, NOT an unaffected observing 3rd party Mod...Alex

 

My 2009 F430 dropped by half in value just 2 years from new. The dealer I bought it from gave me a dozen good reasons why this was so. I had tired of the car and its foibles (engine rattles, squeaking interior and poor finish) so the honeymoon was over. I sucked in hard and sold it for peanuts. It hurt.

Conversely my 550 is worth about the same today as 2010 and my Dino has gone thru the roof valuewise. The day I bought my F430 I wanted it to be a lifelong romance- within a month I was regretting my decision to trade a perfectly sensible Massa Quattroporte on this pile of junk.

Admittedly the 430 was pretty awesome on the track (which most of us only do maybe twice a year) but it was a complete pain on public roads. Speed humps, pot holes, parking of any kind, road rage and zealous cops ensured daily drives were never relaxing and often delivered me in a state of anger at my destination. And most surprising was how much people hated you for driving one!

In contrast ,my 550 and Dino provide enjoyment every time I leave my garage. You forgive them for their idiosyncrasies and everyone seems to greet them with a smile. So.... the answer to enjoying Ferrari ownership seems to be in choosing classic or soon to be classic models that offer stable or appreciating values, are relatively easy to service & repair and are a joy whether sitting still or on an outing to get the morning paper. The current Ferrari range just doesnt deliver on their promise- its all a bit sad really. What would Enzo think ?

 

Mayor or anybody, when you buy your ferrari, do you guys ever try to squeeze the salesmen to give more optional extras for free? It seems to be the norm here.

**************************Read this message******************************

 

All dealers should be like that. On a 599, one dealer had a 3 year wait unless you were willing to pay $60k extra and get the car in 6 weeks. To me that is just gauging at it's worst. I get it, supply and demand. But if you can get the car early, how about being honest about it instead of making me pay for the "privilege" of getting the car early. Not to mention that resale has dropped and that 60k would likely never be recouped due to depreciation.

 

People in North America think Ferrari's are "hand built" by old-world craftsmen. Free options from a Ferrari dealer? You must be living in the real world(outside of US/Canada).

 

TheMayor should just admit to treating nickels like manhole covers and squeezing his quarters until the eagle's scream. Judging by his resale red/tan and no option cars hes a good old fashioned cheapskate who simply cannot handle putting real mileage on his Ferrari's because of the depreciation.

TheMayor also lives in the most depressed/suicidal town in the union. Las Vegas, where superficiality and cliche's are the norm. I think people in this thread are being too hard on him because of the cult-like behavior Ferrari owners tend to express when someone says anything negative about the brand.

 

Interesting point of view . And you make excellent points . When buying at this price there are certain things one should expect . I wonder how others exotic brand owner feel .

I will enjoy the responses

 

From acar [ers[ective Ferrari has to figure out how to make thier cars driveable, fast but also fun to drive. I am going to say that if its paddle only, it near impossible.

My ideal modern would probably be something that looks like a 458, is a bit smaller/narrower, has a small V12, manualy (this combo of torque power and interaction works on the street) and a Lotus like steering.

Now that is a car I would actualy put up with dealer crap to buy.

 

I think most of the complains here are not just a Ferrari thing, it´s common to all "expensive" car manufacturers.

They all are overpriced, but that´s another "first world problem". About the lack of fun, maybe it´s just that the cars are too fast for the roads, maybe it´s just that cars are becoming smarter than their drivers and they are no more at the center of the action.

But sometimes I think that our fathers just hought the same before us and it´s just that we grow older and cars change with the world.

 

He wouldn't give a hoot, so long as the profits poured in to fund the scuderia. He would do little more than give the briefest of glances to any new road car.

 

sounds like an Aston Vantage v12....too bad that car never took off with the Aston crowd.

 

[QUOTEHe wouldn't give a hoot, so long as the profits poured in to fund the scuderia. He would do little more than give the briefest of glances to any new road car.[/QUOTE]

I find this amazing.

How could the leader of a car manufacturing company not really care about the products he manufactured?

Ferrari built what are now recognized as some of if not THE best cars ever made.

Was it just blind luck?

Was it "Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then?"

Maybe the best business model for success is: "Focus on your dream and leave the reality of your business to talented employees?"

Whatever, it sure worked while he was at the helm.

 

NC, Western SC is your answer. Unlimited number of roads in the Blue ridge mountains and Taxes are so much cheaper than the NE. Not to mention no auto inspections let alone emissions tests I'm coming from PA and love the change.

 

for the love of the written word, boxerman, SPELL CHECK. I'm a bad typist and all but I am wondering if you have a Cyrillic keyboard or something.