Market Prices 575 Manual vs 575 F1 (conversion costs) vs 550?

Good friend of mine has a '77 512BB he bought from 1600Veloce off BaT a few years ago. Stunning car in Celeste Metalizzato. I've driven it a few times and it's so raw and mechanical and makes the most divine noises. and now has a full Fabio exhaust (he was Fabio's first BB exhaust customer). He's also spent a considerable amount of time having those 4x Weber triple throat carbs properly tuned to get that flat 12 to run right. Che macchina!

 

Ah, the classic conundrum: modern marvels like my BMW M8 Competition and former M760 can outpace a Countach or BB without breaking a sweat, but do they make your heart race like a caffeinated pit bull (named Weber)? Doubtful. There’s an irreplaceable charm in those vintage rides—the unfiltered roar, the manual gear shifts, and the occasional need to wrestle them into cooperation.

The Testarossa is a masterpiece, but let’s be honest: getting into one at my age feels like auditioning for a gymnastics team. Yearning to dance with a stick shift again, @mrp_e experience and logic are hard to dispute. With 599s and 550s (even 575s) at similar prices, and considering 6-speed manual conversions, it’s tough not to lean towards the 599. After all, who wouldn’t want to tame a 612 HP V12 beast with a gated shifter?

 

The small sample size of 612 sales overall, and the even smaller number of sales of gated six conversions, make it difficult to predict their market value. Add in the economic effects of that lunatic in the Oval Office, not to mention President Trump, and it becomes impossible. That said, my hot take is it's currently too close to call whether the resale value of a converted car will exceed the cost of an F1 car plus the cost of conversion. At the same time, I also believe that converted 612s will go up in value over the next 10 years, while F1 cars will stay about where they are now, following the pattern of all Ferrari 2+2s as they hit 20 and 30 years of age. Don't ask me why, I just do.

 

Market trends are tricky, but they tend to resist hysteria—political or otherwise—and the numbers suggest a different story.

 

I bought an F1 575 Maranello with the goal to convert to a manual 6 speed. It took 6 months, and in that time the values have diminished
as far as I can tell. Personally, the last thing I think about when shifting through that gate is what my car is worth. I have a 458 and it is a keeper whether
it is worth 200K or $2000. I bought to enjoy, not as an investment. Enjoy these beasts for what they are. An escape to a joyful place!

 

100%! In addition to the gated six conversion, my personal '05 612 project includes a set of Aragosta brand coilovers with pneumatic lifts at both ends, Fiammenghi 6-into-1 headers, high flow cats, and valved mufflers, swapping in MAFs and related intake ducting from the 599, and some silly carbon fiber splitters front and rear. I don't care if The Market likes it or not.

It happens that today marked a milestone: the extraction of the plastic pedal box from under the dash. This piece includes provision for the third pedal from the factory, as this photo shows. What you're looking at is the pedal box, the original equipment brake pedal, a clutch pedal from @brogenville, dba Out of the Gate LLC, and pedal pads from Hill Engineering:

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Almost sounds like this one had a belt failure in the past.

 

Great write up.
I never saw the car, but trusted the seller. He was totally transparent and upfront about the entire car with all its shortcomings. Frankly I’m sad because this is a car I’d like to have gotten. I enjoy saving cars, and maybe this one would not have appreciated, but I don’t think it would’ve depreciated any more. It just had a ton of work done to it, and combined with things that I can do on my own I think this would have been a great vehicle.
My wife is really cool, but in the last 2 years I’ve had the privilege of acquiring a 456 and a 400. I was looking at this 550 when the seller told me it needed work - So I waited for said work to be done, but then there was another engine issue that required more work. I was appreciative that the seller was straight up about taking care of stuff before a sale. In that time waiting for the work to be completed I decided to send the 400 to NY and have an engine-out ‘revitalization and tune’ by Tom Yang. Then a Cali30 fell into my lap! Needless to say my wife ‘suggested I sell one or two’ of my cars before acquiring another….
Timing is everything.
I will stand on my soap box and suggest to anyone who will listen - that collectibility is not just about low mileage or number of owners or a certain rare option etc. Too many perfect gems are overlooked because of false sense of value based on the above variables. If you want to buy an asset and literally never use it and let it sit and look pretty and literally waste away, then there are better assets than cars on which to spend your money. I personally would rather buy a car that has 50k miles and a stack of records (number of owners means nothing) than a garage queen with 7000 miles. Because oil, fuel, filters, gaskets, and wiring absolutely will not stand for being idle, when your talking about years (like a car that’s been buried in a garage for a decade) as opposed to months (like a car used seasonally).
At the end of the day I believe in the laws of supply and demand, so my rant is fairly moot since the value of a car determined as soon as a buyer gives a seller the money…
Cheers.

 

Great write up Eric and perfect summary Jared. The seller was a college buddy of mine, we had lost touch for a long number of years but showed back up here as ‘TheZinger’ with his posts. We used to run in the same BMW e24 crowd for a bit. He is a great car guy. Knowledgeable and meticulous. Not sure if he originally planned to take on as much of a project as this 550 turned out to be, but despite its faults, this is a textbook case of buy the seller. If anything he was too honest and forthright on his descriptions, and it may have kept some of the money away. Hopefully the buyer will get to enjoy the car more.

 

So is this 575 conversion on BAT about to set a new low? EAG, and apparently a cable conversion to boot…

https://bringatrailer.com/listing/2002-ferrari-575m-maranello-45/

 

Agree 100%… just sad to see the way EAG has colored the market. Unfortunately many buyers are unaware of the distinction between a proper conversion and an EAG with a cable.

 

Very tempted to bite the bullet on the BaT 575 silver 6m EAG conversion presently flying through.
Thoughts on value?

 

Ferraris with any kind of damage warts in their history (except vintage/classics) automatically lose a large portion of potential future buyers.
So if you jump on it, do it assuming you will enjoy it for many, many years and many, many miles. I'm rooting for you to steal it!

 

Clutch master cylinder replaced? There is no clutch master cylinder in an F1 Ferrari, so obviously you needed one for a conversion.

Most of the EAG cable conversions were on 599s, since the 575M absolutely did not need one. Not sure how many 575s they did with cables, if any, going down the rabbit hole of wasted time. Not really needed with 599s, either.

 

$110k RNM...I don't really trust high bids for RNM given chandelier bidding, but imo it should have sold at or below that.

 

I’m not sure how early mine was lol. I am also not sure how many were done with cables. Eric, I very much appreciate your contributions to this community! You gave that seller the path to best present the car to enthusiasts.

I believe that potential buyers of this car should budget for a new kit and labor to install.

 

I saw one just like this on Team CJ's insta, posted last July, and asked earlier today if it's the same car - the person/bot replied yes.