first negative comment from ferrari hater?

Mike, can you let me know when and where you go out for a meal next time. I'll make sure I have a few insults ready and a hearty appetite.

 

Oh how i would have loved to be there. What a pompous prick who probably bought the car to show off.

 

I just use my Capital One VISA card that has a pic of one of my Ferrari's on it You can upload and create your own card. That will shut them up.

 

Got the finger 3 times yesterday which was kinda strange (only drove about 40 miles round trip).



I was in a good mood and laughed

 

ROTFLMAO -- that's THE BEST post. Classy too.

 

Haha, yes no problems! The Ivy is it?

I tell you what though, although the satisfaction was imense, so was their bill... Worth it though I think!!!

I dont usually rise to it, the most abuse I get is when im in the cars at the lower end of the price range of my collection, the more expensive ones usually get photos, people wanting to sit in them, constantly the 'rev it up' from builders, and the usual sitting on the cars, but never abuse! Well, that I hear anyway...

Kindest
Michael James

 

Greetings Tifosi. I have my own rather amusing story to share about negative comments towards Ferraris.

I was pulled over by a Harley-riding cop last summer on the hottest days of the year. I was turning left through a busy intersection noticed a cop sitting waiting for the light to turn and waved at him (since we went to high school together in another lifetime.) As I cleared the intersection to turn into the first driveway he hit the siren and ran the Harley up through the gears.

When he pulled up behind my car in the parking lot and noticed it was me he was a little surprised. He hadn't seen me in the 308 ever before, but since his heart was turning at the same rpm as his Harley just had, he had to satisfy his ..ahem... erection.

Pulling off his half-shell, brain bucket he sarcastically asked if I knew why he was stopping me. I said "yup, probably because I didn't have the front plate attached. Officer "less than friendly" then proceeded to lecture me (his version of foreplay) as to why front plates were needed even on cars like mine which had a low front end and limited frontal area for the rad. He said the tuner car crowd with their aero kits were trying to skirt the law and there was a no-plate crackdown by the local police. Okay I thought, this isn't going to result in anything more than a public service, information session-no problem. Well, I was wrong.

He then asked me if the 308 was a kit Fierraro? Hmmm ... I didn't like the direction this was going and assured him it wasn't a kit but a real 308. He then told me that even though the car was made in Italy and him being of Italian descent, he hated these kind of cars. Then he said with ****eatin' grin "that guys that drive these cars have small penises."

WTF? I couldn't believe what I just heard, especially while this guy was wearing a badge and stopping me for a minor infraction on official police business. Even though he knew who I was and that we had an issue-free history of knowing each other from years gone by, he had clearly crossed the line with this comment. I said that since I have been with the same girl since high school (a tall and lean, green-eyed beauty that he most-likely used to dream about) this mustn't have been an issue for me, or my bride.

My blood pressure started to go off the meter, but I kept my cool until he started walking around the car and with a critical eye and telling me that he had a bike, a truck, a Jeep and a 4 wheel quad. He didn't need a Ferrari! Again, another little cheap shot. WTF was going on here?

Ah, Napoleon with a badge I quickly realized. I had heard from others that this Ponch wannabee liked to throw his 160 lbs. around while wearing the uniform while hiding behind his Ray-Ban aviators. This was starting to get interesting. Who was trying to show their manhood now I thought to myself.

His next DENSA (the dummy equivalent of MENSA for high I.Q. people) question was his simplified version of entrapment. "So, Colin, how fast have you had it going?" Hmmmm, first name basis here. I just smiled and said, "that I hadn't driven it anywhere near its top speed as I was once told by an old Italian gentleman (who had part of his family farm back in Italy expropriated for the Imola track) that a car like this you drive slowly, so more people can appreciate the Ferrari mystique. Just like a beautiful woman who walks into a room, slowly so that everyone sees her."

My next line was the hammer though. I told the cop that "the fastest the car had run since I had owned it was 120 m.p.h. which was just a couple of days earlier." His eyes just about popped out of his head at the thought of my admitted guilt, but settled back quick enough when I told him that a prominent judge in our area was behind the wheel at the time." The guy was now flaccid and shrinking into his 5'8" frame. He seemed to have emptied his revolver and was now left with only blanks on his self-created, condescending shooting range.

Snap, crackle and pop! I had to respond again since the momentum had turned strongly in my favor.

Walking up nice and close so that he could smell the spearmint gum I was squeezing between my molars, I said, "well, you know I also have a Jeep TJ at home for my kids, an old Kawasaki motorcyle that I spent nearly 500 hours restoring, a new Toyota FJ Cruiser and instead of the 4 wheel quad, I had to settle for only for this nice little Ferrari.

His 5'8" stature suddenly started to shrink but he still tried one last time to exert his authority.

"Well, the next time I see you on the road, you better have the front plate on this damn car!"

Keeping the momentum in my favor my smiling response was, "the ticket is only $59 buck, but if it's really smokin' hot out and I get stuck in traffic, I'll pull over and yank the plate as it will take a lot of no-plate tickets to cover the replacement cost of warp cylinder heads due to overheating!" As he pulled away, I could tell he knew that this was an incident best forgotten by both of us but as I replayed the events in my mind later in the day, I only got more upset. The perils of being a red-headed type A that doesn't suffer fools very well.

A couple of days later my friend called me. I was still steaming about the cop's comment. My friend just happens to be the Chief of Police in our city and he and I have shared many laughs over (far too) many adult beverages. I had to say something to The Chief and told him the story while he listened in silence on the other end of the line. The Chief was sincerely shocked that this guy actually said this and at first thought I was only joking about one of his guys saying something of this caliber to a citizen. When he realized that I was pretty pissed, he said he would quietly have a chat with the cop but also gave me the option of filing a formal complaint that would be reviewed through a long drawn out internal process. I indicated that by just getting it off my chest with him, I already felt a little better, but if happened to see the cop when nobody else was around to ask him if guys that drive Harley's have small dicks.

The next time I was out with the Chief at a press conference of some sort, neither of us brought up the issue. But the very same day I was out for a cruise in the 308 with my 15 year-old son (with no plate on the 308 as I had forgotten it on my work bench while fabbing up a quick-connect mounting bracket) the same above-mentioned cop simply waved at me with a smile and quickly drove away in the opposite direction. I suspect that the Chief pulled him over for a little chat about good public relations

The really funny thing about this whole story is that the cop's name is ... are you ready for this? ..... Enzo!

Goes to show you that this type of comment can come from any direction, but the best response is to simply understand that it emanates from a certain degree of jealousy or insecurity.

Drive your car and keep your head high as there are only a few people in the world that will ever experience the pleasure of owning a legend.

Cheers-Colin Firth-Ontario Canada