How to set yourself up to own a Ferrari

Find yourself a really nice very rich widowed old blue haired lady in the neighborhood that has a heart problem. All you have to do is get yourself listed as the 16 year old benificiary of her will, have her fall in love with you, then **** her to death. worked for me

 

First off I'll give you my 2 pieces of advice, seeing as how I'm in your shoes right now.....

1. LISTEN TO THESE GUYS!!!!! - They speak the truth, and in my experience they're all more then willing to share advice and help people THAT HELP THEMSELVES

2. Subscribe - I have learned a TON about our economy in the Buisness and investments section. A subscription is $15 a year, and well worth it, make it your drive and goal and it WILL happen.

Just my two cents

 

+1 to all above about being financially set BEFORE you take "the plunge" (own a house, retirement savings, marriage, kids, etc.).

Being a Ferrari owner was my single-minded material goal for 26 years. Everyone knew it and most laughed. I heard, but NEVER listened to, the laughter; I NEVER waivered ............................ I now own one. The one I always wanted, a 308. Might "Buy Up" but will NEVER "Trade Up."

Just sent my parents home to the USA after visiting me (and the Balkans) for a week. Took them for their very first Ferrari ride at over 120mph on the Autobahn. They were both thrilled beyond words. NOT because it was a Ferrari, NOT because they went 120mph+ legally, but because it was a ride in "MY Dream; MY Ferrari."

In their eyes, their son "made good" on a 26 year old dream. Persiverance in my family is everything. That was their REAL thrill.

 

Persistence beats Resistance!
Never EVER give up!
Make yourself "numb" to people telling you "you cant do that" and Tell yourself "I Can"

Work hard and you will have one before you know it!

and most importantly Get right with God....he can help alot also!

 

The best advice yet

 

+1,000,000 points on that one.

I totally agree.

Dont assume that everyone on the Ferrari chat site is a millionaire, sometimes it just takes alot of passion to get a Ferrari. If you get a 4 year degree, and manage your money wisly, you can be in a 428 or even 355 in your early 20's. How passionate you are has a large effect on how long it will take. I honestly believe if you want one, you'll get one, this is America dammit!

 

Great advice.

 

How you asked the question speaks volumes to me. I'd bet it's just a matter of time before you own a Ferrari and, when the right one comes along -you'll know.
When I was your age, I too loved cars (especially Ferrari's) but I can tell from your post that you have a more mature mindset than most young men. This will serve you well in life.

For my .02c - try to use your head and values in this type of decision... a very hard thing to do with something so emotional. In my personal experience - I wrestled with justifying the expense of this type of toy for years. YEARS ! And it wasn't that I couldn't afford it in a conventional sense, it was more my beliefs about the degree of affordability relative to lifes obligations - which should always come first IMHO - even my guilt about such a selfish pleasure came into play. I would only buy one if the purchase price was a reasonable, safe fraction of what I had in cash and I could still do what I needed and "should" do. Well, even the cheaper ones represented a significant sum and as lifes challenges abound, that "safe fraction" kept getting larger even as my funds grew. It kept me from pulling the trigger on many occasions but thats not always a bad thing as long as your building your life in a positive way.

Keep in mind that I was looking at relatively cheap Ferrari's (under 50K) and struggling to pull the trigger. Then one day- after many many years of deciding it wasn't the right opportunity- it happened. A car I wasn't looking for, at time when I least expected it, for WAY more money than I ever contemplated spending, and the decision was clear. It took more than 2 decades but I just knew - and I have no regrets.

I find that if you think things out, ask the right questions and make conscientious decisions, they may not always be the right ones, but I've never regreted a wrong one made for the right reasons. You asked the right question- how do you set yourself up to own a Ferrari? You put "setting yourself up" AHEAD of the Ferrari.

 

I'll echo the statements that it's a toy car, that you'll need a practical daily driver as a backup and your own place to store it.

I've seen people who can barely swing exotics and it isn't pretty. Besides the fact that the maintenance isn't kept up, they street park it, and wonder why it gets vandalized or beat on.

In my case I drove piles of junk / beater cars for years before I started buying toys. My current toy is a Turbo Diesel H1 which I use for camping/off roading and helping out with a friends desert race team.

Down the road I'll get an Ferrari, but I need a place with a bigger garage first with room to work on both the Ferrari and the Hummer. I'm doing research now, as I'm probably not buying the F-car for 3-5 years yet.

 

First of all welcome to FerrariChat. Second, please fill out your profile. We like to know who we are chatting with.

Now for your question.

It is not hard to obtain a Ferrari. The hard part is maintaining a Ferrari.

Here is why.

You're 16 years old and want a Ferrari to impress your buddies and get girls. (sadly only your buddies will be impressed). Anyway you get a part time job and can manage to save $400 a month. You save for 5 years, and at 21 you have $24,000 saved up. I just ran a quick search on Yahoo Autos and found 4 Ferrari's for sale in that price range. One 308, and three Mondial's, one of which is a Mondial T (that's the one with the 300/hp 348 engine in it). So you spring for the Mondial T. Now you're happy as a clam in mud. You drive around for a couple of months blasting around with your buddies, and taking girls on dates. Then one day on one of your drives the triple seals start leaking. Because the triple seals start leaking the grease in the dual mass flywheel gets contaminated and the flywheel starts leaking too. Oh great! Now the clutch gets fried because it is slipping from the flywheel grease, and the gearbox oil getting passed the tripple seals. Now you have never work on a Ferrari, yet alone any other car, so you panic and take it to the dealer. The dealer checks things out and gives you an "estimate" of $4,500 to fix the problem, and that is if you don't need to buy a new flywheel ($3000 easy, just for the flywheel alone, not including labor)

Do you see where I am going with this?

Even though you managed to save up enough money to buy a Ferrari, and found and obtained one at a price you could afford, the maintenance on the car can rack up FAST.

So before you go out a buy a Ferrari think long and hard. Make sure you can afford to keep it on the road, and make sure that it won't affect your quality of life if you did have to sell out a few thousand dollars to fix something.

In the mean time, welcome to the site and enjoy yourself.

 

Good points ernie, as always.

And if he gets a modena... then times the running costs by 10

 

Remember.........

Work hard, say your prayers, eat your vitamins and BELIEVE in yourself!
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From what I can tell you life is hard, if you want something you have to work very, very hard! Staying in school is very important, if you want a Ferrari you will need to go to a post-secondary institute and learn to network with people well. Pursue a career you have a passion for and you know you can do well in, don't just go for the million dollar jobs. Make connections with people in high postions in corporate companies, that way you can achieve more and may be get your Ferrari faster. Simply put follow this:
1. Get an Education
2. Find an Interest
3. Network with People
4. Work your A** off!
5. Now you will have enough money to get a Ferrari.
Note that you will need to wait a while to make the money for a Ferrari. And remember it isn't just about affording the car, don't forget insurance, repairs, service, etc.
Good Luck!

 

Get a poster or a picture of the car you want and hang it over your bed. Look at it everytime you go to bed and imagine yourself driving it ... until the day comes that you have it in your garage.

Don't waste your money in bars. Start a savings account with a small interest rate. Enjoy your life, but keep putting away.

Get a regular used car - know the reason why you are doing it and not leasing a BMW is because you are saving for the car that's over your bed.

When you can - Buy Best the best example you can afford. Fixer uppers are expensive later, even if the iitial purchase price seems cheaper.


Last but not least - best of luck to you - you are doing the right and smart thing by asking here and researching.

 

Okay, I'm gonna give some practical advise.

1. Get a job which pays 75K+/year before the age of 25. This is easy to do in a number of fields.
2. If you are buying your education, go to public schools, not private.
3a. Live like a monk, spend nothing.
3b. Don't get married or have kids.
4. Buy a used Ferrari before age 35.

This is relatively low risk if you are smart enough to get a salaried job that pays that well.

The ability to own any high priced good is based on cash flow. Certain professions pay well enough that a moderately new Ferrari is virtually assured if spending is kept under control. Medicine, BIGLAW, Finance. These types of professions can conceivably get a fairly modern, used Ferrari by early 30's with few issues. With the current financial implosion I doubt Finance will play a big a part as it has previously, though. The wealthiest types that buy high end exotics tend to be entrepreneurs/businessmen - this, of course, is inherently more risky (but with the potential to make much more money).

 

How to get there?

Saw many posts saying 'Hard Work'. But that only get you blisters. I prefer:

Work you enjoy combined with good decisions along the way which include reasonable risks.

 

+1

 

Well OP, I don't own a Ferrari, but here's my plan...

I'll be an elementary teacher in a couple of years (if all goes as planned), and, even though that's not really a high paying job, I'm gonna search endlessly (after working for a few years) for an exotic (probably a Ferrari) that's in my price range. Now remember, I'm a car fanatic so I'm willing to spend more on a car than most people would, and sacrifice other things. I'm shooting for a 348 or a 355 SOMETIME in my life. Those cars are timeless, and will look good no matter how far in the future it is. So if I can finally buy one in the year 2025, that's what I will do!

Basically, I'm just going to work work work, and never give up.

 

Something to bear in mind not yet posted here is that if you go out 10-15 yrs, which is realistic to when you might actually be looking for a Ferrari, then there will be many, many hot cars for average prices that will make up a lot of the diff between Ferraris and contemporary cars. The technology history over the past 10-25 yrs has been tremendous on upping the ante on what common cars look like and perform like.

In the early 80's, there were literally a handful of U.S. legal production cars that had over 200 horsepower.
By the mid-90's there were dozens. Today, just about any non-tree hugger car has gobs of power. So,
where do you think we'll be in 15 yrs? Faster than anyone on this board can drive, I suspect.

It wasn't that long ago(late 80s, 1990-ish) that Ferrari was quoted in the press as saying there was no need for a passenger sports car with more than 400 horsepower. Then came the 190+mph cars, along with 4.0 secs to 60mph. How much more do you need?

In 10-15 yrs, you'll be able to buy some Japanese car with more grunt than you can handle, so be realistic.

Whatever you do, learn from others(me, for example in what not to do), and get your priorities right, as mentioned above. HOUSE first, NO debt, SAVINGS, 401k, stock market $$$, THEN F-toys. Wish I'd done this order, but I didn't...

 

A BIG +1!

 

Somehow I got into this world of Ferrari's. I bought my first car (still have it) Feb 24, 1986 at 11am. I was still in college, but I knew it was the "right" thing to do. My favorite professor said, "If you love what you do, you never work a day in your life". These words are true - so true. So is work your ass off, buy a house, don't lease a BMW, or waste handfuls of cash in other marketing hypes. I remember being in a F-car dealer just drouling over an '84 308GTS, and there was a mature gentleman who seemed to easily have the means looking seriously at a fabulous 275gt telling the salesman how his aches and pains would interfere with his enjoyment of such a car. This hit home, and I realized I would make a move as soon as I saw a way. And yes, I borrowed to buy the F-car, and have no regrets. I fortunately have found Ferraris straight forward to work on, and this has made a huge difference in my ability to enjoy the car. I did complete my education, and held the car in a bit of a suspended state til I graduated, but I kept focused on school, and worked on it a little at a time.

There are many variables to consider, and many personal choices. All of the cars are great. I'm sure you will line up with something. Don't give up the dream.

 

Nice story!!

 

Make it easier on yourself and work the specifics more fitting to you.

Hear me out, you can't say "if all goes as planned," "sacrifice other things," and "sometime in my lifetime..." and expect to get somewhere! It sounds wishful, because it is wishful! Ask yourself How, before you say 'in the future'....

I simply know I will buy a Ferrari F430 in 6 months or less by helping others as an direct extension of my business involvements.

 

Interesting...I never thought of putting it that way. Thank you for the advice.