When did Ferrari's begin for you?

I've known Ferrari since childhood but what did it for me was when I read the 1984 issue of Motor Trend and Car & Driver magazine featuring the 288 GTO. (I was 20 at the time). I was blown away! It was the most beautiful care I've ever seen.

 

When I was 5 or 6 my dad's co-worker gave me a ride in his 308. Ever since then it has been a dream to some day own a Ferrari.

The other car event that sticks out in my mind is in the early 90s I was at my grand parents house in Naples. We were walking down the street when a black Diablo came from behind. I was speechless and had never seen anything like it. To this day the Diablo is one of my favorite cars of all time.

 

I got a toy F40 for my 5th birthday. It still sits on my desk now.

 

I'm 30 so the first thing i remember about Ferrari, was a 355 challenge race which i saw in Eurosport back then. I've started to watch F1 in late 90's. It was a great feeling, especially with the 355 Challenge. The sound, the cars in different colours. Just great!

 

Great thread!

I'm 56 - born December of '57 - and my awareness of Ferraris started in 1967 when I was 9. The first car was a Dino 206 S prototype that I saw in some magazine or other. I thought it was the most outrageously beautiful car of all time. Then I learned a bit about the history, and fell in love with the 275 GTB4, which is still my favorite vintage Ferrari V12.

Now I own a 456M and a 308 GTSi, so I kind of have those bases covered. ;^)

Cheers,

George

 

In 1965 or 1966 a schoolmate got a fly yellow 275 GTB. It was the first Ferrari I saw in the flesh. I heard it cost $14k. Thinking that eventually they'd be much cheaper, I dreamed of getting one some day, but ended up with a well used XKE. Nearly 40 years later, after I totaled up the monthly bills for a 3 year restoration of the Jag, my first thought was "crap, I could have bought a Ferrari". About that time I discovered Fchat.
Driving the E-Type, I pretty quickly realized it was no longer suitable as a regular sports car so I bought a 550. I later traded in the 550 for a new 599. I can hardly believe that I have a Ferrari to drive. Oh, and thank you Fchat!!
EdO

 

What a great thread, many different stories yet in some ways very much the same. I was born in 1971, and drooled over the Lambo's in Cannonball Run, when I seen one for the first time, that was a big moment in by life.

I dug the Magnum 308 and the TR in Miami Vice, but was sill not really into Ferrari. Also I was really into motorcycles, even when I got my first car, motorcycles ruled my life. Then a family friend gave me some Road and Track mags, and they were Ferrari specials. They had the intro of the 348, and multiple articles on the F40. That was what did it for me, the F40. I couldn't read enough on Ferrari after that........I still have those original mags.

Got my 308, then my current 456, I don't plan on beeing ithout an F car ever.................

 

I'm watching it at this very moment (Channel E4 in UK)

 

It was always Porsche for me. 2 years ago, I stopped by a dealer in my 997.2 GT3 to look at a GT2, having never driven / ridden in a Ferrari, and ended up taking a 2007 F430 spider for a test drive.

That week the F430 and the GT3 swapped places.

 

I really got into ferrari in like 2007 as I was finishing up high school I honestly don't recall what came over me prior to that my love of cars started with an uncle giving me a porsche speedster model when I was 6

 

They ended in the late 60's and began again with the 458.

 

I was living with my uncle's family back in the early 80's when he was a resident at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Miami. He showed us this beautiful red Ferrari ( 308 GTS ) in the parking lot that belonged to, IIRC, an Anesthesiologist there at the hospital. I became a F1 fan and more importantly, a Tifosi by the 1985 season.

 

What he said.

 

About a decade before Magnum PI.

 

In 1984, when I was 10 years old, I saw my first exotics in a showroom in Saudi Arabia. There was a Rossa Testarossa and a white Countach out there. The Countach looked great but the TR and its alien looking strakes mesmerized me.

The showroom was closed as it was late in the evening. I remember my face being glued to the window for at least an hour or so absorbing all the details.

Fast forward 22 years, I bought my first Ferrari - not a TR but its little sister, the 348 with the same design ethos.

Things that you see at an impressionable age stick on forever.

 

One of the guys in my local FCA chapter owns that car from Ferris Buellers Day Off. He bought it last year at auction, pretty cool car to have.

 

first racing ferrari i saw was at the monaco gp in 1973. but i was a stewart fan, so wasnt rooting for the red cars back then.
lots of cool ferrari road cars around the casino - as usual. but they did not really turn me on either.

in 1982 (i think) i was working a summer job, and i would grab a sandwich from the same shop overlooking a parking lot. and nearly every day, there was a 512bb parked there. i saw that car for weeks, and i was hooked. now i own one.

 

My parents said when I could utter my first words, cah, it was they think a ferrari passing by.

My first memory is of a gold 275 someone once visited our house in circa 1972, I rememebr it well at age 6.

 

I wish you would elaborate on this, as I thought, design wise, the 90's and early '00's were a renaissance at Ferrari: The homely 412 was replaced by the beautiful 456, the aged 3x8 was replaced by the 355, and then the even more beautiful 360, and after over TWENTY YEARS the 550/575M finally came along for us front V12 two-seater fans.

The FF, which I love, is a dog next to a 456M, the 599 and F12 are not beautiful like the 550/575M at all, and the 458 is not sexy like the 355/360/430 were either.

Yeah, the performance envelope has continued to be pushed - and that's why I love the FF: The tech - but to say current Ferraris are more beautiful or more Ferrari-like now is 180 degrees from reality to me. The 458 could have been designed by Nissan.

Cheers,

George

 

Miami Vice.
not sure which episode but there was an image of the white TR cornering at night I will always remember

 

It was Raul Julia (Gumball Rally).."The first rule of Italian driving"...in his Daytona Spider....Followed by Magnum PI in his 308 GTS.

 

I was 6 when my father traded in his BMW 635i a Mondial QV. The popup headlights, the red, the sound were what made me fall in love with Ferrari.

 

F1 did it for me..

was part of my world since i was a child and watching every GP with my italian father


F1 and Ferrari : one can't live without the other

and Senna, my hero when i was young... was dreaming that he might one day have a F car... but then he died and still feel it in my heart to this day.. F1 died a little bit with him (for me).

cheers

alex

 

Started when I was 2-3 years old. Some guy parked a red Ferrari outside my kindergarten and gave the keys to my mom, said she should take me along for a test drive...