Ferrari to build and auction off LaFerrari #500 to aid quake victims

Fantastic act of charity!

 

My interpretation is that this is the wrong time/place to comment on how many cars exactly were built and that at least Ferrari does something charitable as opposed to other car manufacturers who do not seem to do similar things.

 

+1. And let's stop at this.

 

What's the big deal? It appears that one guy is saying it's absurd to bash a company for producing an additional car for charity because of increased production numbers. I guess that he brought being French into it? I wish more companies would be charitable & ignore production numbers to help people that are suffering. Best, David

 

In doing some research of Italian car factories for my books Authored Books | Joe Sackey Classics, I came to understand that there are two basic production categories:

1. Production cars.

2. Post-production cars.

Basically, when the manufacturer says they will build 499 cars, they are speaking of category one.

Category two covers all the 'extras', cars built for assorted VIPs, and cars built to replace damaged cars, always a fraction of the original production run.

As such, the manufacturer likely feels they are being faithful to the original production run, and many people want cars from the original run.

That said, TC Browne did have a famous quote about car manufacturers statistics which I quoted in one of my books and which applies here.

 

Joe, how does someone like yourself identify and value those post-production cars in the market?

Taking the F50 for example, can we safely assume that more than 349 were produced in total? There are people seem to know the "### of 349" of certain examples that exist so are there other particular examples of F50s that don't have that distinction or designation?

>8^)
ER

 

Erik,

I was bracing myself for these questions, which I knew were coming

I'm not going to comment on how many F50s were made, because I really don't know, and as one car factory famously announced: "if you find out we made one extra, nobody should be upset" !

As regards post-production car values, it all depends.

Was it built as a replacement car for a crashed or burned example? Or was it specially commissioned at great expense with one-off features for a VIP client? That's the difference, and the value difference can be significant, in favor of the latter.

 

I don't see a difference between a LF that was part of an initial run and a LF that was part of an extra run. They are both 100% identical cars, and unless you track down every single one and account for them all at the same time, you'd never know which is which.

 

Are you sure about that?

 

Everything in the modern age is reduced to an auction of commodities. Let the forum now ignore the plight of the victims and concentrate on the particularities of this new and rare Laferrari.

 

Well, if anything, a new one would be better due to normal part revisions and improvements that happen with all cars over time. I'm sure there is something that is prone to breaking on the LF and that it has been since addressed and revised in some way, and that when it breaks, cars get the new nut/bolt/hose/whatever.

 

The $6M selling price of Enzo #400 at auction last year in Monterey offers at least one example that clearly begs to differ with that theory.

Also, I recalled that F50s actually have a plate under the front bonnet that identifies their series number, probably the last limited production Ferrari to feature such a thing, so you would not need to track down every single one. You would just have to look for those that are lacking this plate shown below in a photo courtesy of 134282/NNO/Carbon.

Joe - my guess is that the F50s here in the US market which were predominantly early cars necessitated by the looming change in our emissions regulations for 1996 likely all have that series number plaque. Any evidence in your past dealings of an F50 which did not feature it there under the bonnet?

>8^)
ER
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Not with the cars I've seen.

 

Agreed, post production cars can actually have small improvements exactly as you describe.

But let me assure you of one thing I have observed, using Enzos as an example, when comparing production cars with post-production cars, they are not "100% identical".

 

What's worse about them?

 

As I said, "post production cars can actually have small improvements exactly as you describe", so they might actually be better.

 

Can you explain the differences between production and post-prod Enzo?

 

http://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/144911167-post32.html

 

Oh, I thought you were implying the post-production Enzos were worse.

 

Not at all, that said, I can see how some might prefer a production car to a post-production car. My initial post on this subject was simply meant to highlight how the factory regards this issue, according to what Ive learned.

 

It was a combination of looming regulations that took effect on 1 January 1996 which shaped/cemented Ferrari's decision for all the USA-version F50s be built during Calendar Year 1995: Impending OBD-2 mandate from the EPA, and Dual-side Airbag requirement issued by the DOT.

 

Ahh yes, I forgot that passive restraint laws were stepped up in tandem. Thanks Terra.

>8^)
ER

 

Regarding most recent models: I pay certain attention to production numbers and serial numbering and I believe there is no such thing as production and post-production LaFerraris. They just kept building cars without any specific differentiation at or around #499-500. In fact, it should be very hard to identify or even establish criteria for last or any order at all. There was a thread around here a few weeks ago with a few posts about hypothetic "last LaF" which versed about the difficulty of establishing these kind of orderings.