355 and 360

I don't know that what I have to say will be of much help to you but having owned both a 1996 355 spider and 1999 360 Modena I can pass my experience on.

The 355 was a great car with a more visceral feel than the 360 but as a spider it lacked the rigidity that I crave in a road car. The maintenance is more costly and since you mentioned you would be working on the car yourself you can severely trim the costs of the services, which if you look around should run you about $3K or less for the 15K and $7500 for the 30K. And since you have read some of the threads on each car you realize that valve guides can be an issue and would add about $2500 to the price of the aforementioned service totals.

The 360 feels like a much more modern car and for some reason does not illicit the same feeling of fear and a constant eye on the CEL part of the dash! Now part of that is just my observation but it is a sentiment that has been echoed by a few on this board so take it with a grain of salt. The car handles extremely well and runs out nicely. It sounds every bit as good as my 355 (both cars have Tubi exhaust) but the 360 has the louder version and has straight pipes in the place of the cats so it's very F1-like! The maintenance is minimal in comparison and the belt changes and other services have not ever totaled more than $2-3K for belts, fluids etc. and are generally much cheaper. There have been a few issues with these cars, the most prevalent is the variator issue which has been widely discussed on the boards. The only other large expense I can think of is the brakes need to be regularly attended to. I have solved the overpriced factory issue by replacing my rotors with the Girodisc version and use low dust Pagid pads. The only other item I believe is worth mentioning is the rubberized interior coating found on both cars. It is far worse in the 355 as the majority of the dash and center console is covered with the stuff. The 360 has a more limited use of it but it can be found on the door lock mechanism which due to frequent use can become chipped and then begin to peel. I recently replaced mine and the cost was about $750 for both sides.

I do purchase most if not all of the parts I need from board sponsor Ricambi who provide first rate service and great prices (for these cars anyway).

So whatever your choice good luck in the search.

 

I love my 355. Great car and probably gets more reaction than the 360 for some reason I'm not really aware of. But just for the record, if a car needs valve guides, it is more like $10K then $2500.

 

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as per my post "And since you have read some of the threads on each car you realize that valve guides can be an issue and would ADD about $2500 to the price of the aforementioned service totals."

so then 7500+2500 is still 10,000 right

 

One good source of service costs is Eugenio's in LA.
http://emelbon.tripod.com/eugeniosferrariservice.html

F355 major - $6k ($7 with water pump)
F355 major with water pump plus a head rebuild, which replaces the guides - $13k

The head job costs about $6k )