First Drive 1000 miles long

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[ Letter to the FCA (Ferrari Club of America, Atlantic Region Director]

My wife and I have long been silent FCA members --- Ferrari owner want-to-bes.

Well it happened, we recently purchased a 2003 360 spider. The story of the purchase follows FYI.

We now hope to become somewhat active -- but having a 12 year old and a two seater does pose some issues.

All that said, I was wondering what track events are available this year for Ferrari owners. I see there is something at the national convention in New Jersey later this year. Are there other opportunities in this general area?

So here is the story-- hope you enjoy:


The car was advertised for significantly below market in the bi-weekly Ferrari Market Letter. The following is a letter I wrote to the publisher---(by the way the current issue of Forza has an article by Michael Sheehan about this purchase of this very car)





Mr. Roush:



Thank you so much for kindly sharing this information [about the car that he had on file] with me.



I have recently purchased this car and find it to be in the condition as advertised. The former owner was very gracious in allowing me to keep the car in his possession in Jacksonville FL until the snow up here in MD/VA cleared away. A friend of mine and I flew to FL once the weather cleared and were treated to a showing of the owner’s exotic car collection, including some seven Ferraris.



I have been following Ferraris for some 20 years now, primarily through your wonderful and very informative Ferrari Market Letter. I long ago purchased a used 308 GTSi QV from Ferrari of Washington -- that is I signed an agreement and put a down payment, but did not take possession. On the day to pick it up, the dealer called and said he had good news and bad news -- good news: we can fix it, Bad news: “while idling in the shop the engine on YOUR car froze.” My response -- “you are only half right -- the engine on YOUR car froze..”



Turns out when Algar (not FoW) did the 30K service, apparently a small piece of paper towel was left in the manifold, slowly starving oil to one bank -- at least that is what I was told. FoW was very professional, and although they tried to convince me the car would be even better after the repair (at their expense) I declined to take delivery and they returned the down payment -- again very professionally. Right now I do not have the serial number of that car (but if important to your records I will look for it in my office Monday to see if I can find it).



About 12 years ago, I again tried to buy another car from FoW -- this time a Mondial coupe (as you can see I am not in the high end market). My wife was pregnant at the time and I needed to be sure the baby carrier would fit in the back seat. So we delayed purchase for a half hour to go to Toys-R-Us and measure the carrier. We returned to let them know it fit and we would purchase the car only to be greeted with good news and bad news. Good news: there are other cars, Bad News: we just sold the Mondial.



About six months ago we stopped by FoW and looked at used cars-- they were all out of our range, but the most beautiful in our eyes was a 6 speed 360 Spider -- Azzurro California. Fantastic car -- right model, great color -- much too expensive. I decided right then and there that when I retired (hopefully in about 3 years) the price would be right, if I could only find another one like it. {I have since learned there are not very many]


You can guess the rest of the story -- when I saw Michael’s ad in your Market I called immediately and made an offer on the spot. {And then I checked with you -- before the deal was signed}.



So we arrived in FL on Thursday night and the owner suggested we see the car but not take possession until the next day as it was safer in the shop it was being stored at rather than in the outdoor motel parking lot. I was like a little kid at Christmas when first seeing the car. It was perfect -- not a mark on it -- someone had detailed it like new (I had had it checked for crash damage and general condition, but did not make a personal inspection). So I get my first drive that evening and was so nervous I could not find the clutch grab point for second gear… my shifts were HORRIBLE…jerking the car. I have not driven any stick for quite some time and my only Ferrari drive was some 15-18 years ago with the 308 test drive.



That night we read the manuals and celebrated our expectant drive from FL to MD in the 360 --(some thought we were nuts trying to drive a Ferrari that far anytime -- much less in a small window of winter weather opportunity -- I thought Ferraris were meant to be DRIVEN!)



Next day we took possession of the car and decide to practice shifting in the service road in front of the shop. Well -- I was not doing much better with second gear -- and my friend who drove a stick all the time was not doing any better. The more we practiced the more trouble we both had with finding the catch point until we realized it was gone completely. Understand, the car was advertised as having had a new clutch 1000 miles ago and I personally saw the receipt. Well, we drifted to the driveway of the shop where the clutch had been installed and the mechanic/owner confirmed the clutch, the new clutch was gone----Of course there was no warranty. He offered to replace at cost -- so what choice did we have but to accept and catch a $65 taxi back to the airport.



Two pretty dejected Ferrari want-to-bes bought flights back to Baltimore and checked the little luggage we had. While having coffee at StarBucks and before security, I got an e-mail from the mechanic -- call me. I did -- he says “I can adjust it to get you back to Washington.” I said how about Baltimore -- he laughed a bit and expressed some concern. [gallows humor]. He said the clutch was worn but with his adjustment had enough for several thousand miles. I am thinking should we drive back north only to have it replaced at twice the cost up there, or have our “buddy” down here do it? I went for driving it north.



So we pile back into the same cab and pay another $65 to return --but not before hassling with the Delta counter to get refunds and luggage return after check-in. Twenty bucks to a nice young lady handling baggage helped a lot. LOL



OK, upon our return to the shop, we load the car for the third time (we had actually loaded Thursday night before deciding to take possession Friday morning). This time I had the mechanic show me it worked -- he hit 100 in the quarter mile service road up and back -- much to the pleasure of guys in front of neighboring shops and much to my surprise (that thing HONKS).



Well, I tried it out and second was a bit easier -- but still not perfect. At least we now HAD gears. (eventually on the way North I was skipping second entirely to avoid the issue.)



Finally there we were -- two old geezers (we are both 62 but look 40 --yeah right)...with the top down hitting the road in a baby blue Ferrari -- life is good…..until about 50 miles north of the FL/GA border. I am driving at maybe 75 -- speed limit 70, and a big red light comes on telling me to “SLOW DOWN.” Now I am thinking this is one hell of a smart car ---how does it know the speed limit. Phil, my buddy, was not quite so impressed -- “you idiot -- that is a warning light….” I vaguely recalled that as well from the manual --. Phil reached behind my seat for the manual and started looking -- I started slowing down.



About twenty minutes into looking through the four language manual, Phil (in a somewhat nervous voice) suggests I pull over IMMEDIATELY…some thing about a catalytic converter exploding and the engine melting into a pile of useless dust. I could see red lettering he was pointing to out of the corner of my eye, but driving even at 70 takes some road attention (this thing switched lanes really really quickly). Well I finally find and pull into a rest area --oh about 100 mile from where we started, 200 miles from Ferrari of Orlando (we were losing confidence in our Jacksonville mechanic), 250 miles from Ferrari of Atlanta, and oh I don’t know maybe 350 mile from the closest dealer heading due north on 95 as we were. And, after the clutch false start, we had burned most of the day -- it was nearing 5pm and we were sitting parked in no-mans lands with a serious red warning light and some serious red lettering in the manual.



So naturally I called the Jacksonville mechanic -- his response: what great jokers these Italians are (he was Greek) -- they always put funny little notes in the manuals and lights on the dash board - ignore them, have fun, drive home (and leave me alone…) No he did not tell us to leave him alone -- but I sensed he was a bit disturbed that I would question his advice in view of the manual’s instructions to abandon the car and get help -- immediately.



Here we are sitting on the curb, engine and hood open, studying the manual trying to find some way to read it in a manner consistent with the advice we just gotten. It was then that a well wisher stops by to ogle over the “great car” we had -- I started to negotiate an on the spot trade for his 1974 Ford pickup.



I called FoW. Finally getting through to the service guy---his first reaction -- “run for your lives --“ at least that was how I was interpreting his attempt at a rather technical dissertation of the likely causes of the warning light and consequences. I recall some discussion of a converter costing $4000, of possibly needed two and that the price did not include installation. Now I got a good deal on this car, or so I thought, until adding up the price of hauling the car to a Ferrari dealership, the additional trips up and back to the car, the days of work lost, the price of a new clutch and two new catalytic converters -- installed.



Phil -- ever so helpful -- asked me what the hell I was gong to do. I thought for a minute and said “break the tie” between the advice from Jacksonville and Washington…I would call Ferrari of Orlando and see what they said. I called, he said “-- run for your lives -- get women and children under cover, abandon ship…” Well at least that is what I first heard -- luckily some innate power of logical reasoning took over and I started to try to actually understand what was happening. First, the light when blinking simply meant something was going wrong with a converter --it wasn’t red hot (we could see that), the engine was running fine (I could feel that), and we survived about 20 minutes of driving while it was blinking (THROUGH SHEAR STUPIDITY). OK so a converter is just a tube that exhaust goes thru -- big deal if it fails. Yes he says, but when the light stops blinking half the engine shuts down and all hell could break loose. And the chance of that given where we were -- 20 percent. Worst case if it happened--new engine .



Phil was for heading back to Jacksonville. Now if you think of it in the darkening dusk of southern rural Georgia on a Friday evening, you realize that this guy in Jacksonville possibly did not have a clue what he was talking about. In that case you should not be driving the car at all, least of all to have him of all people fix it. Of course if he was competent to fix it, his advice was probably correct--drive it, there was nothing urgent to fix.



We headed north.



It is interesting to see how the dynamics of a long trip in a Ferrari change with a blinking warning light that signals utter disaster should it at any moment cease to blink.



It is also interesting to see how the urge to go fast is tempered by a constantly blinking “SLOW DOWN” warning light.



The short of it is we made it home--with no speeding tickets.





We have a number of other tales of mini-adventures along the way. Suffice it to said, we utterly and completely enjoyed the Ferrari -- a once in a life time experience. She is now in a shop getting a base line for me and getting herself ready for Maryland inspection. The light was indeed a simple but not wholly inexpensive sensor malfunction. The clutch is fine, but the peddle needed a bit more attention. The car is fine -- I did get a deal and all is well.



So thank you again for your role in all this -- without access to your records on the car I might not have been ready to take the leap of ownership and would have missed out on one hell of an adventure.



PS -- I have since managed to roll it (slowly) into the side of my garage (parking break was on --I AM SURE OF IT), pull off a knob from the radio thinking I could do that and send it in for refinishing (it has the stickly sickness) -- you can't remove them I now know, and I experienced a horrible weekend when every warning light (except the SLOW DOWN one) stayed on and the car would not start -- not even a click [until I discovered 9 volts in the battery is not enough].

Don't get me wrong, I love the car -- it is just a bit like a beautiful woman -- takes a bit of loving care to keep her happy.

My son and I finally got it started late today and took a short ride - it was drizzling, so what --these things were MEANT TO BE DRIVEN.

See you next weekend at Summit Point....

John

 

Sounds like quite the trip.

 

Welcome to F-chat, glad to see it got all worked out, sounded like a journey to hell

 

Actually - it as a blast

 

Congratulations and welcome to fchat! That's a great story - unforgettable! Thanks for sharing it.