Another reason how analog Enzo-era Ferraris are different.

On an empty country road, with mild weather, Id take an older analog car like the '91 M3 (which I have extensive seat time with) every day.

However, for those of us that live in the city, modern tech is a blessing.

 

agreed.
on the other hand.....
my kids want to learn to drive stick, and i have been giving lessons (not always easy to access a stick car that you dont mind abusing the clutch on.... )

and my wife and mother can both drive stick. that being said, both of them also prefer driving the 430 paddle shifter. so much so, that my mother is now thinking about getting a 430 cabrio with paddles - she says stick shifting is ok, but she doesnt want to have to remember to bring a change of shoes all the time.

 

confirmed. scariest car i own. but, its a thrill non pareil

 

I've never driven one but of there are three cars that terrified me to drive

1) Lambo Countach
2) Replica 427 cobra
3) Pantera

Push the gas pedal hard and your heart goes into overdrive. Do that in a 458 and it's speed is amazing but you never feel you're about to DIE.

 

Great point and I had almost identical experiences.

I (temporarily) owned a Superformance Cobra with a Roush 427. I'd imagine that car pegged every index of the various "pure, raw, visceral, engaged" dynamics arguments. Plus, this "replica" had a lot of enhancements over the original... and candidly it was hell to drive. It was fun driving to get ice cream, or cruise around slowly, but aside from that, it was a handful under power and, even when expertly driven, was not that fast nor ever far from a bad ending. It was great in small doses.

Panteras were similar....maybe I didn't get to drive a "sorted" version, but then again, they proved hard to sort and/or keep sorted.

An unfortunate reality is if you're looking for a "old school" car, you need to actually find and buy an old car. For a number of reasons- commercial, regulatory, safety, or otherwise- you're likely going to find it impossible to re-create what a small group of folks seem to clamor for. Lotus probably builds the closest thing in road car form, yet they are on perpetual life support because nobody buys them.

The Viper lived, died, was reborn, and died again. People didn't buy it....until near the end, when it became a speculator game. I"m curious to see how many PDK vs. manual GT3's are actually sold, aside from the minority over on Rennlist, Porsche's internal forecast for manual gearboxes is small and shrinking.

 

Yes and no, depending on whether or not a car has been restored and how far they went with it. It is costly but it can be done....

Rust: Car can be broken down and everything from chassis to arms to panels can be coated and primed. Not a lifetime fix but way more rust proof than they were new. Even 246's with their infamously crappy steel. Look at what omgjon does with these cars.

Hot as hell: Companies like Classic Air and others have developed new A/C units to fit into most old cars (including Ferrari's) that pull less juice and pump ice cold air into the cabin. I have heard Leno does this with his cars.

Quality Control sucked: True and if you haven't done or don't do a lot of these fixes, you'll have issues. However, any old car is going to have issues if you don't update them.

Paint: Sucked from the factory. $20k paint job will make it perfect. Easiest thing to fix.

2nd gear issues: True but also fixable these days. The only reason not to fix it is if you don't want to spend the money or you find it to be a charming quirk (I do).

They break down all the time: Only if you don't maintain the car and update the systems. For what it's worth. I ran an '84 Mondial cab from '88 to '96 without one issue, but we maintained the car as per factory instructions.

Ridiculously expensive to fix or maintain: 100% true. But are the newer cars cheaper to run? Honest question, what's it cost to maintain a 360 or a 458? But either way I mean, they're Ferrari's, not Toyota's. Do we expect $99 service bills when buying them?

Headlights/wipers: Headlamps/tail lights can often be updated to brighter lamps that pull less juice. Not sure about wipers.

Clutch eaters: I guess. But 30k miles on a clutch seems pretty good to me, and not the most expensive fix compared to other things. I also put this down to driving style more than the cars themselves.

Zero safety equipment: You wanna live forever?

Slow by todays standards: So what? Who cares if someone blows your doors off at a stop light? That's kid stuff. The sounds, the smells, the feel of the road, the beauty of the car, the whole driving experience adds up to way more than just speed. Plus, once you actually hit a corner or a winding road, your 365 or 308 has a good chance of overtaking junior in his ugly new Mustang.

Bonus gripe- The electronics suck: Also true. Also fixable.

I think a big problem people run into with Ferrari's and other classics as usable cars is the fetishisation of originality. I think you can do all sorts of internal updates to make an old 70's Ferrari into a reliable, drivable car, but people don't want to do it because it's "not original". Look at what some of the boutique shops like Benton and Willhoit have done for vintage Porsche. Why can't we do that for Ferrari? Take a 365GTB/4. Upgrade the brakes. Throw in a "give back" power steering unit. Put in a modern high tech A/C unit. Those 3 things alone put it in daily driver territory, while still feeling like a vintage Ferrari.

My 2 cents!

 

Actually, yes.

 

Enzo DNA ended long before then. Try a Daytona. A F550 and a F355 are modern cars, for which you can thank Luca.

 

Hahaha. Oh, come on.

 

This leads to another "truth" about Enzo era cars. Most of them are never driven anymore. As a point of comparison, I used to be into '60s era Triumph motorcycles. Loved them, particularly the 1970 Triumph Bonneville. But after riding a modern Triumph in the mid-90s, I sold my old bikes. I'm a driver, not a lover. If I can't drive 'em, don't want 'em.

I also at one time owned a F550 and a 330 GTC. The old banger was a hoot to drive for a while, very old school. A fast corner meant heavy understeer followed by heavy oversteer, kinda like dancing the doesy doe. It was fun, for a while, but the novelty wears off. Plus, one of the reasons I sold was because the car was making a lot of funny noises. Noises that sounded like a lot of money. Plus, I couldn't even stand to look at the rocker panels for fear they would evaporate. But, I gotta admit I doubled my money, so no complaints. Would I buy one again? Probably not. I'm old. I don't have time to waste driving old cars when there are so many cool modern cars.

 

Except for the second gear crunch, all of this is true of every sports car of that era, and quite possibly true of every vehicle in that era. All cars from that time had their quirks, so car enthusiasts chose which set of quirks best resonated with them. That is part of the connection between man and machine that is missing today.

Some people want their cars to "just work"... like their refrigerators. That group is expanding since the younger you are the more instant-gratification you're likely to expect. But not everyone wants their exotic cars to be four wheeled video games with the reliability (and evocativeness) of a Toyota. I've met guys just starting out in the car hobby who want absolutely nothing to do with flappy paddles and driving nannies, so the enthusiast market segment may be shrinking but it's certainly not dead.

Sure, I like having reliable, low maintenance transport, but that's why I like driving Chevy or Toyota SUVs. I don't want to drive an exotic daily because in order for a vehicle to be truly practical it necessarily has to lose most of the characteristics that make it special and evocative. Besides, I prefer keeping a much lower profile in daily life. So I want my occasional-use exotic cars to feel truly special and to be closer to race cars than luxo-barges.

I agree with pretty much everything the OP has written, except itsablurr's 348/512/F40 cutoff point more closely coincides with my own. I might consider owning a 355 or 550 under certain circumstances, but I have zero interest in owning anything built after that. If I were shopping for a later model car it'd be an Aston, since I value styling restraint over Kardasshian-appeal.

I'm glad this thread exists because it illustrates that I'm not the only long-time Ferrari enthusiast who is no longer entertained by the offerings from Maranello. If I were to win an Aperta tomorrow I'd sell it and use the money to buy a Boxer, a dry sump 308, and one of the "newfangled" 512TRs for more frequent use. So, while the demographic that wants 1000hp supercars that are as easy to live with as grandma's Lexus is growing, some of us "bitter clingers" enjoy and appreciate the more demanding attributes of the sports cars from the days when that term actually meant something more than just marketing hyperbole.

 

No one is aksig for an old car with its probelems. Thats the beurty of modern tech, great build and reliability. What we are asking for is a car that has the connectedness and machine feeling of an older car, car for which each drive is an event.

Juts did a 65 mile drive in the BB and then a return trip in the elise. Neither was whole lof of fun on the highway, but on the 20 miles of backroads the experince was sublime, the machine was slive and flowed down the road, it didnt require max attack to entertain, 8/10ths was just fine, its what these cars are about. Like riding a sportsbike the machine can cope with the highway but the highway is meerly a path to get you to the cool roads.

It occured to me that a modern ferrari would be great on the highway, comfortable easy, great ac, corrospondingly the BB or Elise are way way more fun as soon as it two lanes, where the modern would feel bland.

What moderns lack is connection, the feeling of the machine being an extension of you, this nedent be the case but it is, because the car is made for paris hilton, dentists and old duffers who never had a sports car to be able to drive. Its designed to operate as unobtrusive transport, to flash with exhaust baffles and manufactured sounds, to be confortable coupe, and to be fast on paper though the use nannies and excess hp.

One day there will be robot humans for the opposite sex to play with, some people though will wnat the real thing, despite the complexity of operation.

If lotus and porche can make a live modern car, so can ferrari. If Ferraris product and sales strategy were so brilliant then mclaren who is an upstart wouldnt have found 4k buyers last year, lamborghini performante would be The hot car this year and porche wouldnt be selling Gt3s and Gt4s by the thousands.

No one is saying every ferrari should, be a raw drivers car, what we are saying is every few years they might do well to make a raw viceral light and simple car(wihtin elgislative bounds) for the enthisiast client. Porche clearly finds 3-4k buyers per year with the Gt4 and gt3. Plus from a buisness perspective such machines uderpin brand cred.

 

Have you ever driven a Maranello?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

A bunch of old geezers talking about the "soul" that was the rotary phone. I know.. the fond memories of being late for a date because the car wouldn't start and you had to wire the carb with a paperclip and some chewing gum... or the time that you arrived at work in a suit that smelled like oil and gasoline..

Those days are gone thank god! Ferrari knows that. "Back in the day" the other cars on the road were equally unreliable shoddy pieces of ****. But the cars that are on the road today ARE so much better. In every way. You can't have a crappy product. A car doesn't have to spend half of the year in the shop. I might have HAD to put up with that in the past, but I don't today. Newsflash.. when your car is in the shop you can't drive it. Why reliability is a bad thing is lost on me. It's not something that anyone should have to compromise to enjoy a car.

And regarding the lack of feel that a modern car gives. That's absolutely false. My 911 gives me comfort for my commute.. but it also gives me a great sense of exactly what she's doing in a turn. My 360 is even better but a bit more nervous at the limit comparatively. I think she's got a great sense of telling me what she's doing on the road. Anything more harsh wouldn't necessarily give more feel. How much feel do you need on the road beyond which the car is just crude engineering? You can have luxury and be satisfied at the same time.

I remember my 924. First car I ever had. Loved it. Great handling. So many issues during ownership. But I look back at it and it's not "analog", it's older engineering. It's not the car you're reminiscing.. it's youth.

 

For a majority on your list, maybe time for a restore if those issues occur.

 

Speaking for myself, I'm not fetishising cars that only work half the time, or give you migraines because they smell like gas. What I am saying is that these days most of the issues with older cars (certainly 365 and after) can be remedied by updated technology - new wiring, new hoses, new brakes, new a/c, new steering, etc, etc, can bring these cars up to date and make them very usable as drivers. For someone like me, who prefers the aesthetics of these older cars to their newer cousins, that's a plus.

For what it's worth, I'm in my early 40's and I've driven old and new cars. I'd much rather have an updated Daytona or 246 than a 488.

 

I've driven several on the track. Great cars but the very beginning of the boring Ferraris. Capable, but too heavy and too sedate. AFAIC, the TR series is as benign as I want a Ferrari to be. It's also the last production car that can boast truly dramatic styling. Ferraris should be supermodels, not housewives.

 

Talk about jaded!

Too bad about those differentials.

 

The diff can easily be updated!

 

I think the 550 has had its more than fair share of issues, if anything an Tr is easier to keep.

The 550 is a very capable GT car, but its a luxury Gt. When they frst came out, I think it was R&T or maybe British CAR took one into the hills with a 512 Tr, the conclusion was that while the 550 was "faster" and easier it lacked in engagement and thrills.

Makes sense the 550 was the first pure Luca car. He wnated to build cars easy enough that people could and would drive them every day.

Around the same time as the 550 appeared you walk aroudn Mayfair london and see them parked on the street overnight, I pretty much never saw a ct or Tr like that. the 550 was just so much more docile, approachable and easy to use, that it became a substitute for a bently or Aston. Problem is that eas of use came at a big drivign enjoyment price. Different animal.

If I were going to be driving from say Johannesburg to Cape town at night blazing trails a 550 would be the weapon of choice or an amg merc. The 550 for a long continent crushing 10 hr high speed trip is still somewhat engaging, fast yet comfortable and easy.

If I were going up into some canyons the 550 would not be my choice. If it were a sunday backroad blast I would take a Tr over a 550 for sure. Depends on what you use the car for, and the available roads. Fact is for a backroad drive on a sunday I would prefer a 288 above all the others, and thats the least comfortable. For the road the F40 is probably a step too far.

Took a drive in the elise this am, didnt even get into the second cam, the way it carvs brakes its directness its feedback from the road, all entertained even with a bit of traffic. Saw a 458 it looked to be massive in comparison.

All depends on what you want your ferrari for how and where you use it. Maybe a 430 or 360 stick is the sweetspot between modern and old. But for sure there has been a progression towards blander and blander cars with each generation. Not to say a 458 cant thrill, but it requires speeds beyond any possible road sanity to do so, and thats the flaw.

To me the cayman Gt4 formula is an ideal one. NA mtor stick, a hard enough car to engage and live on track, just soft enough to still work on many streets. This car is throughly modern, it has a stick purely for enagement, and while it has eps the steerign is still ok. Cayman sales also doubled with the advent of the Gt4 which says a lot about potential client bases. Now imagine what ferrai could do with that same fomula in the $175 to $225k price range.

I get that many love all the moderns have to offer. There are simply two sides to this debate, two points of view, neither will or should convince the other. Like the perenial stick debate there are clearly, if you look at numbers 10-15k buyers of hard core roadable trackable viceral stick cars per year. Ferrari might well find they can sell 2k per year for a few years every now an again.

Is the market limited, yes, but not as limited as some would suppose, its also a consistent group of buyers. If ferrari could only sell 2k of these cars per year for 3 years, then those of us who wnated to buy them actualy would be able to. If they became the next gotta have it, then ferrari would simply produce them for a longer run.

I remembr on this forum people saying no one buys a stick anymore, along came the GT4, also the Gt3 track peopel who defected to vipers. Whats the difference, there is ahard coere group of porche owners, and a lot of porches still get DRIVEN as well as on track.

Then people said no one bought a ferrari stick. Untill numerous people here chimed in that they tried to buy a stick 430 and dealers refused to order the car. Yeah no one bought a stick cali, but then a cali is as far from the type of ferrari we are talking about as you can get. Lastly stick 430s sold at a 15% premium to paddles used and now i believe the premium is way higher. Its not about having a stick though, a stick is symbolic of engagement, but a stick can suck too like on the forst 991's and 599.

How are we enagged with our car, through feedback. Engine, engine pwer charateristis,m sound, feeling the road through the chassis wheel and seat. Steerign accuracy and feedback, and yes maybe a stick as well.

The last modern two ferraris I drove a 458 and 599, yes on the 458 you could feel the road through the seat/chassis, there was zero steering feedback, the motor sounded good in an overdone way, but was clearly tuned for closely stacked gears on a paddle(it woudl not have worked with a stick imo) So we had essential 1.5 points of contact with the machine, the chassis and sort of the motor. The 599 pretty much had none, although it steered nicely if you dint mind zero feedback, it also didnt want to turn in.

The 458 is imo the most beautiful ferrari in decades and probably in the top 5 of all time.

In ferrai land compared to 20 years ago, its hard to find enough cars for consistent track days at club events even though the ferrari population is 4x or more of what it was. What does that say.

I do hear that the F12TDF is edgy again, but its unobtanium and so expensive that the "collectors" who have them by in large would never track them. One, who has them all, 599GTO, Laferrari and TDF told me he had a viper ACr for going fast on track.

There is a gap in ferraris product line. Actualy more like a gaping hole for a company that claims to be THE sportscar company.

My glock is apprently more accomplished than my 1911, well it holds more bullets and is an easier daily proposition. I prefer to shoot the 1911 for numerus reasons, not least the way the parts slide togtehr and work, the joy starts with the way the magazine slides in, the way the slide feels when you pull it back and goes on from there...

 

It says Ferrari cares more about selling cars that enthusiasts.

 

Mic Drop

 

Funny, they had no problem selling these, a throughly modern, nice looking drivers car, a car ferarri is aparently unable to make.

deadspin-quote-carrot-aligned-w-bgr-2


As to Ferrari interested in selling cars not enthusisats, thats an error. Not every car has or shoudl be an enthusiasts car, but if you wnat to sell more cars and keep your brtand cred then dont ignore the enthusiast, its they who gives your brand cred, sure it may take a decade to feel the pain with what ferrari si doign now, but once cred lost its decades to retrive.

Ferrari makes lots of dosh, but it has been unable to sell all the cars it can make. Its factory is designed to make 10K cars, they have been stuck at 7-8k units for decade, they even lowered sales a few years back to ahem maintain exclusivity, ie maintain new prices because demand is not quite all there. How many v12s do they sell again? how many enthusiast cars could they sell. Is the cali even a ferrari, I guess thats why sergios droppign it.

Point is there is room and profit in serving enthusiasts alongside otehr "buyers", just as other companies do, and ethusiasts are the underpining of brand cred. After all not everyone is a f12 fanboi or just buys a road car which is hardley driven just because the company makes f1 cars.

 

You mean like in the 60's and 70's? When in appeasing the "purists" and "enthusiasts" Ferrari had to sell itself to Fiat to stay viable? Please.

Ferrari today is doing everything right. Besides telling entitled very wealthy men "NO" and making them want it even more (which I find hilarious BTW)... You can have a car that communicates to you, and is a wonderful car to drive that doesn't "shout" everything at you. The mechanical steering in my first 924 was crap. I actually ENJOY the steering feel in my 360 better and I feel more "at one with the car" than I ever did in that analog 70's POS.

Sanctimonious self proclaimed "enthusiasts" didn't make Lotus any more profitable or successful. There are only a very very small number of guys that are true "enthusiasts" willing to tolerate a ride that harsh and noisy and quite frankly unreliable.

I also didn't realize you could actually buy a new Ford GT...

 

They should make an SUV line