Is the Challenge Stradale a good long term investment?

348 SS is a "limited production" car, cult following, rare, blah, blah.
Hardly a good investment. Why oh why do people think like this....

 

Cars, in general, are not investments and will depreciate. Which one depreciates faster is anyone's theory or guess. No matter what you buy you will lose money.

Get what you like, then drive it whenever and wherever you like as often as you like with no regard for the odometer.

 

I would agree that some cars are an investment, but the CS is too young. Get an 348/355, they won't loose much more.

 

Perhaps investment is not the right word but I know someone who was offered solid used 430 money for his 355 Fiorano. The car is 12 years old. He didn't sell it.

 

I have a 993RS RHD and there are about 25 of them. And I drive it like crazy. Even though it is in my opinion one of the truly great 911's, it is worth very little money

 

these will kill him with maintenance costs at 2 to 3 times the CS.

They also aren't in the ballpark for driving experience.



buy the CS....OP but don't ever think any of these things are investments. Lose that mentality before you buy one or you WILL NEVER enjoy your car.

 

Today a 360 CS that has miles on it can easily be a $125k purchase

 

Who buys these sort of cars for investment.... that is a huge gamble!!! Cars lose value as soon as you drive them out of the dealership!!! If you want an investment you can try to invest in property even that is a gamble!!!

 

investment? heck no.

 

investments (alot of them) lose money also. I think the CS will do fine over the next 20 years, and im willing to bet they will cost more than 140K....i look at my cars as a piece of my overall portfolio...they store value and are great inflation hedge....by the right cars and the right price and u will do fine, if u have a long holding period.

 

You can only judge an investment by todays market price and the discounted price you can pick up the asset at the current moment. So if you pick up a CS today there is no way you can be assured it will go up in value in 20 years from now... one thing to remember is that it is not a 250GTO or 288GTO or F50 or Enzo by that I mean it is not a limited production car. It does have a cult following but it is not an icon where even people who don't like Ferrari still love the F40. Just buy the car to enjoy it its a great car!

 

Apples and oranges. The 348 SS was basically a cosmetic makeover to flog the last few 348s... which was already a car that they had a tough time selling because of the economy and NSX.

The CS was a trickle down from their racing exploits with the car, which offers a completely different dynamics and driving experience from the standard car.

 

The CS is a great investment...in FUN. Drive it, enjoy it, expect to lose money on it, as you should just about every modern car. If it stays even or goes up a bit, you're lucky, if not, your human.

If you have $150k to 'invest' in a CS you aren't going to drive, find 3 others the same and buy and F40.

 

investment? I am just hoping the depreciation is not more than 10% a year in real purchasing power. Anything more than that is gravy.

 

my CS has done way better than my house over the past few years...its all relative...people consider their primary house an investment...its not, its a consumption item...anyway i keep the CS in the "will appreciate" bucket of my fleet.

 

I bought my CS in October 2010 for $120K with 10K miles. I haven't lost money on it.

 

I'm just want my CS to retain enough value to unload quickly to pay off the loan if I have to have a "fire sale". I think I have at least $30k in equity so far. I could wholesale it and still come out even. It'll be paid off in two years anyway. I'd be hard pressed to ever sell it anyway. It's exactly what I want in a "play car". ie....a bright red ferrari, black interior, track focused, great performer, looks beautiful, and is so wonderful a car that I'm not tempted to go out and buy the next newest "version" every time it comes out like I feel with Corvettes, Vipers, M3's, etc.

 

... depending on the price you will sell it !

 

I have been toying with buying one too, in uk they are between about £80k and £110k, Top dollar for low mileage cars, They are rare and as such command more of a price. Bu the 403 scuderia and eventually the 458 will come down to £100k mark and that will reduce again the number of people that want to buy one, Most people who have them hold onto them so very few for sale hence prices are high. Its a bit of a supply and demand.

10 years from now a 458s will be 100k, which will people buy an old CS or a 458, most will plump for the 458, hence values may drop.

In the long long terms, twenty years perhaps when the CS is becoming an old car, perhaps the people who are buying new Ferraris for £400k upwards might want a CS as a cult collectable in the garage and thats really the only chance of values going up. But its a long way off.

Buy it, drive it, enjoy it, and I would expect that depreciation will be slow, but they arent particularly easy to sell, Dealers will offer you circa 20% less than retail on them. for just that reason.


I still want one,

scott.

 

Scott, I think you'll find there are actually a VERY long list of people waiting for strads to come up for sale. Its just often the case they want a factory striped car with full spec (i.e. harnesses, roll bar, factory extinguisher) along with perfect service history etc and they want to buy from a reputable dealer - i.e. a main dealer or trusted independent like Nick Cartwright, Simon Furlonger or DK Engineering. There are many cars over the last 3 years that have sold almost immediately (within hours). I missed out on 2 cars from Greypaul Birmingham that sold very quickly. Also unqiue spec cars have gone very quickly. I also missed out on 2 private black cars that sold very quickly as well (i.e. deposits left within hours). Don't forget, it isn't just x car coming up at y price, its provenance and service history with good clutch and brake wear readings. The brakes cost around £12k to change for the discs so low wear on these is important. Buy the best example you can with the best provenance is good advice.

 

Is it limited numbers that matter or limited edition? There are probably more F40s in the UK now than there are CSs after most of the latter have gone to Australia and the far east leaving probably 70 in the whole country of the 119 delivered. Very low numbers compared to anything else... and is there another model that you can compare it to..? The ltd edition cars (F40, F50, 288GTO and Enzo) are not comparable but what about the 550 Barchetta and Superamerica? These were limited editions of each model and now command a massive premium. Problem is though there isn't an earlier car to compare the 360CS against in that there wasn't an earlier car created from another model which has such a massive cult following, so in this respect the CS can pretty much write its own ticket. Sure, Scuderia will come down and 458 too but you can already get a very good F430 for less or even a California now, but that isn't affecting CS prices. Scuderia might of course but interestingly there are plenty who say they prefer the CS over the F430 and the CS was the last car of its type to get past regulations etc. Sure its old technology - but dare I say so is the F40 and people never make that comment about that (frankly I've never really been sold on the F40 - if you take away the awe and the fact of what it is on paper, its got weedy brakes, awful turbo lag and doesnt sound as good as the CS in my opinion but I doubt many others will side with me there). So, can we see CS retain its value while the Scuderia comes down below it? Common sense would suggest no but stranger things have happened.. after all F40s used to trade for a third of what they do now just a decade ago and there are plenty around. Time will tell but as someone else wrote on here, buy it, drive it and enjoy it, because there are very few cars that feel or sound as special as the CS.

 

Drive your cars and enjoy them these are not investments!!! Sorry to burst your bubble... This is getting comical now! Who buys a car for investment anyways I love cars because of the feelings they give me... Once is invest in something for a monetary purpose it takes the fun out of it!!! I will say it one more time I hope everyone who owns a Ferrari owns it for enjoyment purposes if not then your priorities are screwed up!!!

 

Lot's of people.

 

You're confusing performance with supply and demand. I do not care how fast a CS is compared to a 458. There are too many red lights here to care.

Why would someone buy an F40 when they could have a 458 for a lot less?

 

Was the CS really built on a separate line from the regular 360s?
We're they built together with the challenge cars?