Return on my 3 years with a F355

I just sold my F355 this week.

I know some people don't want to talk about money on here, but for those who are interested the facts are these:

I bought it from a dealer for £35.5k in 2012. In the masses of paperwork that accompanied it there was an invoice showing that the dealer had bought it from his client for £29k. So the first interesting thing was the dealer’s margin was about 22% when I bought it (less some prep costs).

I sold it 3 years later for £65k via another different dealer to whom I paid 2.5k + VAT in commission. I also serviced it and spent a significant amount on pre-sale preparation, stuff that there is always going to be a conflict between you as vendor and the dealer about. The total cost of that was about £4,000 of which £1,500 was the cost of the service it was due. When you deduct all the costs and the associated VAT, you can see who got what.

The dealer made £6,075.00 including all the servicing and his commission, about 9.0% of the value the buyer paid. The taxman made 2.0% in VAT, and I got the rest.

I made 1.53x my money and my annual return (IRR) was therefore about 14.8%, not bad at all.

And Yes, I did enjoy owning it, but I ran out of garage space and it lost a fight with a rarer Aston Martin for the last place.

Full details on my blog if you are interested in auction vs dealer vs private sale costs and some waffle from a middle-aged half-baked economics graduate.

Cars: We All Fall in Love With Our Models: The Economics of Selling A Ferrari

 

Really interesting, thank you John. One of the most interesting analyses of the asset investment market (not just cars) I have read in a long time. Was yours the blue/crema 355 Spider manual at TFC? I sat in it and was very tempted when picking up my 512M from service a couple of months back, beautifully maintained car. In the end I bought a 550 elsewhere. Congratulations on your sale and thank you again, the blog is very insightful.

 

...and while of course's it's true that nobody had to pay thousands for an engine rebuild on a share, nobody enjoyed driving one with the roof down along the A41 early on a sunny summer's Sunday morning either..repeatedly..as I am imagining you did with the Spider. (Did the same with my F512M with windows, not roof, down last week..shame about weather today.)

 

+$98k US, wow!! Good sale! Congratulations!!! Was it a low mile garage queen or just in great shape?

 

I bet the OP poster is an English poster. If so the price ($98k) he sold the car for is about average for GB. Gararge queens command much higher prices.
These cars are worth far much more in GB than the USA.

 

Yep, that was mine. Not a garage queen by any measure, just a good, well looked after 4 owner car with 40k miles and a perfectly documented history. It is one that I'll miss on sunny days, but needs must.

 

excellent sell! what year was your Spider? Gated or F1?

 

Cars For Sale - 1996 Ferrari F355 SPIDER Le Mans BLUE

"1996 Ferrari F355 Spider, Manual gearbox, Le Mans Blue with Crema leather and Navy carpets. A very rare and desirable colour combination complete with black calipers, original tool kit, fantastic service history including original book pack and previous service invoices. An iconic appreciating classic."

as they say in the adverts

 

Well done! Drive an awesome beautiful car for 3 years and get paid to do it. 355s are on the way up, UK is just ahead of us, enjoy the ride and Forza355!