Let's see your favourite 456/550/575 Photo...

Not the best photo, but happened to be in it today when I saw this thread, so snapped this one on the side of my building.
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thank you - its Tour de France blue.

 

Nicholas, your valances are body colour like a SA. I like that. If they are 3M protected they should be easy to maintain.

 

Omigod, Willy! your poor Maranello looks naked, utterly undressed!

quick! put some clothing on her! ;-)

almost resembles an Aston Martin; but no, an Aston never looked that good

P.S. had I bought my 575 from new she would have had clean flanks

 

Tell us about the trip! More pictures?

Gr. Martin

 

Photos of the Giallo Modena HGTC that Daniel posted earlier. Just about all options including the CF racing seats and CF trim. The Italian flag racing stripe is a nice touch. No SN or AN information, although I did e-mail them with little hope of an answer. I really like Giallo on the Maranellos. With Ian's in Thailand, that now makes two Giallo Modena HGTCs.
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Taz,
That is a very nice looking car! I'd like to see that one in person. At this age, not the car I'd be seen in, but if I was 40 years younger .....!
Phil

 

Very nice! I would love to see and hear this car running flat out on a track.

 

Once more the swiss alps, now end of September 2013.

The 550 is just amazing !!!
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Daniel- Looks like a beautiful day for a beautiful Ferrari.

 

Without words.
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Here's a beauty:

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http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/142719112-post890.html

Gr. Martin

 

Regards, Daniel
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Daniel – Beautiful pictures, car and scenery!

Markus

 

Daniel, great looking colour combo. Now who can tell me that that car would look better with shields?

 

Love it!

 

Ok, Gr. Martin. I can tell you about the trip in a short version...

First I was in search for a 550 with Crema interior and blue paint for a long time. Finally, I found a car that was in the neighborhood of what I wanted. It was bought from a big BMW dealer in Modena and had only been driving around in that part of the country since new (by looking at the service book it has always been in that area). I paid a deposit and went down to see the car while we were at Lamborghinis SPECTACULAR 50th anniverary in Sant Agata (I went together with a buddy who owns the first Countach (chassis no 02, as the number are every 2nd number) and Frank Sinatra’s Miura S. The 550 looked okay, but needed a thorough compounding and polish. The seller said he would fix that, and I went back and transferred the rest of the money. Next week I flew to Bologna and took a new Lancia Thema (US build/same as Chrysler 300) taxi to Modena. The craziest thing was that when entering the airplane the night before, I got three SMSs from the seller (in Italian language). I had to get the captain on the plane to translate them for me.... "The plates will not be ready before 5 days......". I did not accept that as I had arranged everything and he had promised me to have the plates ready when I came. And now after a night in a hotel and Friday morning was here, the seller did not have the export registration yet.. The guy told me to get back at 3 PM and said he would "try" to get them... Why 3 PM I thought? Then they told me they had LUNCH from 12 AM to 2:30 PM. I knew the "Motorisazione" (Dept. of Motor Vehicles / registration office) were closing at 4PM. I went to Maserati in the mean time and had a great Italian lunch. There were a beautiful custombuild station wagon Quattroporte V by Carrozzeria Touring there that day! I have had 7 Maseratis so it was great to have a look. I got back and the seller was gone... At 4PM they came back and finally had made the registration! I was delighted and happy for the first time. I got to see the car and again I got dissappointed. Nothing had been done to it. Still it needed the polish job and I now just wanted to drive away. But where were the plates?? No, the seller printed out a A4 size paper for me with the number on it.... I thought "that thing will fall off the first houre on a car like this". What are these guys doing was my thoughts!!! Now, he put the paper inside a transparent plastic folder and TAPED it to the inside of the windscreen and rear window. I simply could not believe that this was actually legal. But they were closing, and I went out on the Autostrada. Finally!

I went down to Maranello and visited a few Ferrari shops as they still hadn't closed for the weekend yet. Then I went up towards Venice. WHAT A PLACE! For a boat enthusiast like myself, this was heaven. VERY special atmosphare. Next day, I picked up one of my buddies on the Treviso Airport. Got pulled over by the police and he asked what I was doing. I told him I was on my way to the airport as I was going to have him on the trip to Sweden. He looked at the papers and said that was not possible because the papers stated that there were only one person who could be in the car. But then he sais “as I have not seen your buddy, I can’t stop you”, so I slowly drove away. Now we spent a day in Venice with a ferry boat. Very cool! Then out on the highway towards Cote d'Azur. The Autostrada in the area around Turin was first class. It would be no problem to run a Bugatti Veyron at top speed 400 kph for half an houre there! No speed cameras. The road surface was like a bowling track. We took it more easy as the car had been standing still for a long time and arrived Monaco in the evening in severe rain. The ASR system of the 550 started to work with the front wheels with that much water on the road and tires with 6-7 years on them. Then a pit stop on the docks of Monaco with a great dinner. The French cuisine as FAR better that the Italian in my opinion. They are simply the best at making good food! Then we drove even further that night and found a small hotel between Antibes and Cannes pretty exhausted after a long day with much stressful driving. We were then two days in Cannes as the Film Festival was on and lots of cool things to look at.... It was pretty crowded there and a nightmare to park. I had an "octo***** risotto" dinner at a great little restaurant (the taste of my life) and we filled up the 550 another time to take on the journey up to Scandinavia at around 3 PM. First back into Italy and up via Milan. Huge traffic, and of course we did ONE little mistake on the Garmin GPS at a big "traffic machine". That meant we had to drive around Milan on the east side. Speaking of big cities...... Milan is HUGE! Finally the traffic started to move, and after three houres of Milan-traffic-jam, we started to see mountains and approached Switzerland. Since Switzerland is not a EU-country we expected problems in the customs, but no problem. Went straight through! The roads here are simply amazing. I am used to the hopeless mountain roads in Norway, so it was a complete pleasure and a new experience to drive at 160+ kph. in the middle of the steep mountains. It became quite cold that night and I was really happy that the Maranello did not get us into trouble. It was just above the freezing point at some locations. The Garmin sent us even through Austria for a short while, and finally we came to the sign "Bundesgrenze Deutchland" Willkommen... The paper in the window registration was giving me "dreams" while I drove. The German police would absolutely not like that detail I thought. Therefore, we got up to good speeds and drove the 1000 kms in about 6 houres and reach Danmark before daylight. Just after Kassel, I had the car at top speed for a short strech. 322 kph. on the speedometer. That was very very fast. I am used to 250-290 but past 300 is really giving a rush (and it is outright dangerous too). I posted the video here a few days ago. So a cruising speed of about 180-220 was fine. The 550 Maranello is "just perfect" at these speeds. The car had a completely stock exhaust system and I had set the valves to open position at once when I drove off from Italy. When we got into Denmark, I simply could not drive any longer. Tired of two days in Cannes and about 1700 kms.... An houre of sleep and then through Denmark and up to Gothenburg where my buddy took the train up to Oslo. I then turned right and continued to Stockholm. What a journey! About 7-8 tanks of premium gasoline and almost 3000 kms later I reached Stockholm. I was impressed with the quality and the performance of the 550. I parked the car in a Norwegian friend's garage, and he asked me the same day to take his mint condtion original one owner 1979 Porsche 930 Turbo back to Oslo for the annual MOT/inspection. A bit tired I said yes and started to drive the 520 kms.. After 150 kms one of the rear wheel bearings just suddenly broke completely and I could not move the car at all. I got stranded in the middle of nowhere with a German quality car! After two houres the owner came together with the tow truck and we went back home. In his garage, the 550 stood and I started in the middle of the night to find out why the driver seat would not move backwards.. Three houres later the chair was in the correct position! Now I was so tired of cars that I slept two houres inside the garage with a boat pillow on the floor. At 7 AM next morning we went to the airport instead of driving as the Porsche which gave up the evening before. Because of an unexpected accident on the road, we did not reach the right plane. Two houres later, I was on the BUS to Oslo, as I wanted to deliver the registration papers in original to the right office in person which was located on the road as there were no more planes available to Oslo that day. The bus journey took forever to finish as the highway was closed. There I sat together with all kinds of people who snored, smelled and talked on all kind of foreign languages at 85 kph... I thought "will this bad luck never end..." Destination Oslo was finally was a fact ten hours later, and I did everything that had nothing to do with cars for a next days. But the pleasure of going back then and start working on the blue horse was pretty much the best car enjoyment of my life. This time I had bought a Ferrari from its home town, driven it home on the road, had it at top speed and bought the car without any finance for hard worked money. What a great way to buy a car. The most time consuming but also the most rewarding! And one learns a lot about cars, roads, Italians, food, locations etc. after a trip like this! Now when I look back at it, I get the real feeling that this is MY car, and no one can give me advice to sell it or other stupid comments about it. It has also one of the best color combinations, apparently one of only 21 Euro-spec cars with Crema and dark blue paint that was build. Yes it is a special feeling!! And I love it. Speaking of labour, I also bought every compound and polish I found in Antibes and parked the car in a back street with a hint of shadow, and manually buffed, polished and waxed the car as I wanted to take some photos of it in southern Europe. This was on Sunday and all detailing shops was of course closed.


This is the short version. I want to do it again. It is so cool to drive through seven countries and explore the European continent!

 

...a few more. It is hard to resist a new 550-across-Europe-trip....
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Did I read that nighttime drive speedo correctly? 197 mph at night?!?!?!?

 

Yap, I believe it`s correct. Last year in A5 near Frankfurt, I did max out in 6th gear at around 7000RPM right up there above 300KM/H for about one minute time in the dark midnight... That`s what the speedo reads, but I doubt what the actual speed will be though?

Alex

 

There are several things to be aware of when driving that fast. It sounds maybe a bit hasardious to do it when it is dark, but in a straight line (and then I am talking about a really long one), it feels pretty safe. Because A) You see other cars on a very long distance both in front of you in the same direction and in the opposite direction. Then you know how far the straight line is and you know you can brake before a turn as you know wehre the turn starts. These highways are not a "connection highway" between other highways, but THE main highway and they are some places very very good. B) There are of course almost no cars on the road at night. C) IF an accident occures at this speed, you are likely not going to hurt anyone else than yourself and the car. (i.e. it is "over"). While on the day, you will make a big accident involving many cars. D) The tarmack is much colder, so the tires will not heat up that much (big difference). E) As you drive with the main beam lights on, you se exactly what you need to see. The road and surface and nothing more. You do not get disracted by other things around you. Full focus on one thing. On the other hand, you do not see obstacles along the road to the same extent. But the fact is that you see it faste with the warning lights on than in daylight without at this speed. It is not something I do for longer periods, but only when you feel that now "everything" is just right. No cars in middle or left lane, DRY surface on the road, car has been working fine in 250+ for a while, your eyes has been used to the dark after running in the dark for houres, you have a loooong straight right in front of you and you already run 260 so the time you run over 300 is just a matter of seconds (to reduce the risk of a punkture etc.) I Use to run 260+ for a while and then slow down to 100 for a short while (to cool the exhaust manifolds and heads) and then stop the car to check the tire temperature. If it is just fine, then one can go faster. The tire pressure must of course be correct aswell. Whis was in May and it doesn't get that dark on this time of the year at 3 AM. In this long journey, there was only these 15 minutes where everything was "just right". What is how I see it. Maybe I can learn more for more safet? I am very happy to get input on this from others doing the same rom time to time.

 

I once drove home from Stuttgart on the German autobahn in the late evening / beginning of night with my 575M. The road was quite empty and we drove maybe half an hour between 200 and 290 kph.

At 200 kph you think you could read the newspaper in the car. At 250 you have to shift into 6 th gear and even at 290 the car feels very safe. The wife was on the passenger seat and she felt very comfortable too.

The Maranellos are the perfect cars for the German autobahn: They are very strong, comfortable and feel very safe even at high speeds.

When we returned two weeks ago from the Porsche Soundnight also from Stuttgart in the Boxster S I never went over 200 kph. The car feels less safe than the Maranello on the autobahn.

Markus

 

Fantastic shot! I want one of those shots of my own car aswell! Thanks.