Where are the gtb's why so many convertibles??

FWIW a little searching and the only track I could find where the 355 was quicker was Fuji, by 0.3. Every where else the 360 was quicker. At Fiorano by 3 sec. Anyway, sorry to go off topic. Back to my original statement, couples are more prevalent in Europe. The international cars for sale data seems to back that up.

 

Oops, here I go again. Saw this on Ebay. I'd love to have it.
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Eh?

At Fiorano the 360 was 1.5sec quicker than a 355F1.

And, again, I think it's got more to do with the mid-range strength of the 360 than anything else.

Agree that there seem to be more Berlinettas/GTSs available in Europe than US.

Incidentally the 355 Challenge did 1'25.4
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1.5s is a different set of tires (or, 3 year newer tire technology on the 360 if you like). As I've said many times, the driver would make a bigger difference than the car with the 355 vs. the 360, especially if they were on the same tires.

The mid-range doesn't matter much on track, when I took mine to the track I wasn't under 5k rpms when I was pushing it, so mid-range would have gotten me little to nothing in lap time. Another 20hp on the top end, otoh, may have.

How did this turn into 360 vs. 355?

 

But how can you claim one better by dismissing two very important elements of a sports car?

I disagree that the 360 is a better car. They both have their strong points and 'better' is subjective.

 

Because ferrari moved from a steel chassis to a semi aluminum chassis, which was 30% lighter and 40% stiffer, the 360 is actually a pretty good handling car aside from its inherent weight/size.

 

First lap times. See figure below. Different drivers? Different conditions? 3 sec, 1.5 sec, average 2.25 sec?

Second styling and sound. I bought a 355 purely because I like the styling. I bet most people do/did as well. I could care less about the sound. And frankly neither have much to do with what makes a great sports car great as far as I am concerned. I consider my Boxster a better sports car than my 308 or my 355. I also think that too much emphasis tends to be put on track performance which is another thing I could not care less about. That's not where I drive my cars so I have a different perspective from those that do. That's not a bad thing, just different.

Anyway, time to get back to spiders and coupes.
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The f1 car was 1.5 seconds quicker than the non-f1 time you're quoting. It was not all due to the f1, but mostly due to a track change in '96 that made one of the turns faster, so you're quoting a time from a different track configuration. The 360 was 1.5 seconds faster than a 355f1, but also had tire technology 3 years newer in a time period where tire technology was evolving at an extremely fast pace.

I maintain, if you put a 355 and 360 on track with the same tires, the better driver will win. Maybe the same driver would be a couple of tenths quicker in the 360, but that is a minuscule performance difference when comparing street cars and not worth buying one over the other as you can get a couple of tenths by becoming a better driver very easily. Or buying better tires. Or changing the alignment. etc.

 

I love how much this thread has derailed from the topic


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They always do

 

I can tell you that 360 that I owned was a little quicker that the 355 around the track. In the street you couldn't tell the difference other the amazing sound of the 355.
However, the styling, the lines, and the feel of the 355 can NOT be compared to the 360...

355>360!
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Why waste a perfectly good thread just because the original question has been answered? But this is nothing. Over on another discussion board I used to frequency there is a thread that is over 5 years old, 1220 pages long, 12192 posts and counting, most of which have nothing to do with the original topic.

 

Hopefully I've bought my red/black 355 gtb by then)

 

A very nice sounding F1 GTS was just listed in the ads section here for 80k.

No mention of when it was last serviced.

 

Right there with you. Great companion for the 348/355

 

johnk....the timings on post #57, where is it from sir? Fiorano?

 

Never shouldve sold it

 

Yes, Fiorano.