Purists: A Call-out.

Ferraris are amazing. I love ever Ferrari that is made. I even love the "pentagram" wheels on the 599. I love them.

However, there are parts of some F-Cars that make me go "Whaaaaaat??" as purists do.

My question is: What is wrong with making it how you like it? There is a corporate president at Ferrari the same way there there that there is a head at Wal-Mart. This man has a job: Make Ferrari, S.p.A. profitable. The same as Wal-mart and Sony. Ferrari markets a vehicle that is profitable, in order to support their F1 team.

My question is, what is wrong with making a massmarketed (10,000+ units/year) more appropriate to your taste. Most Ferrari owners are financially capable to eat the costs of most mods they want, and they pay such a dollar for the car initially.. what's wrong with making it your own?

Anyone buying a Ferrari secondhand can afford to make it original or make it their own? Deal with it. Ferrari is all about getting what you want...

 

shame on you, you should never change anything on a Ferrari EVER

not the wiper blades, oil, filters, tires, gasoline, not even the radio station

You should just have the dealer truck it to your house and park it in your living room & never drive it LOL

 

I would consider myself a purist but I respect people who do mods to their cars. Some I like, some I don't. Taste is what I look for, but everyone has their own opinion. Its their hobby, let them do what they want.

 

you could go the "official" route and try the scaglietti personalization program. i don't know much about it but it could be a way to "mod" your car in purist acceptable sort of way.

john

 

I think the issue that most Ferrari enthusiasts have is that a Ferrari is just more than any other car, more a rolling masterpeice of fine art. The total production over 60 years is a drop in the bucket compared to one years production at most automakers, as many Ferrari are actually hand made, or at least hand fitted together, with the love and care that entails, making them even more special. You, or others may not agree but the reality seems to be that the majority do feel this way.

With this greater than thou art attitude, cutting its flesh, peircing its body, or hanging immoral clothing upon it would be sacrilage. Removing its heart and replacing it with one of a rat or other lowly beast would surely open the gates of hell. So before you do anything you need to ask, WWED? Instead of God watching over you for approval, pretent its the Mafia. You really don wanna pi$$a doughs guys off. Besides, doing those things could be akin to walking under a ladder, or having a black cat cross your path. Some things are just better left alone.

 

There are some cars that are so rare and special that the person who buys it is truely responsible for keeping it original. I believe this. One shouldn't hack a 250 GTO just because you have money. The owner has a duty to preserve that car.
I don't worry so much about my 308... -m

 

Of course the owner of a Ferrari can do anything he/she wants with it. However, when it comes to aesthetics, I have yet to see any changes that improve the Pininfarina design. I realize that this is my personal opinion, but Pininfarina are artists and I think it is difficult to improve on what they have designed.

 

Yet there are some great historic cars that were totally rebodied or changed after they left the factory like the Breadvan or the Sunoco 512M, what about the 3 Series II 250 GTO's were those factory or later designs ?

 

I think there are four things to address here:

1) Art and good taste: Most people don't have the same artistic sense as the stylists who design Ferraris. A lot of people don't have good taste, either, and just latch on to fads. As a result, a lot of personalization done to Ferraris (or other high-caliber cars) either disrupts the artistic vision of the car (that many people "get" subconsciously) and upsets the balance of design elements, or just plain old looks tacky.


2) High Performance: Compared to most cars on the road, when new, a Ferrari has more or less the best of everything in terms of level of specification. Wheel and tire spec is at the leading edge in the direction things are going in the auto industry as a whole. Unlike a Chevy, the exhaust is already tuned to give the most horsepower (and still meet noise regulations). Many hours have been spent testing on a race track, and unlike a mundane car, the focus of the tests has been to make the car faster, not easier for an untrained driver to swerve away from a deer at 60mph. The engine is already tuned to deliver as much performance as possible without overstepping legal boundaries or sacrifice too much reliability.

As a result, something that you do to a Saturn to make it go faster or handle better probably won't work on a Ferrari, because the Ferrari is designed way past that. Many of the "mods" people do to Ferraris (and other thoroughbred cars) are stuff that opens up easy horsepower on a car that was designed to be smooth and quiet and maintenance-free for many tens of thousands of miles, but is already engineered into the Ferrari, Porsche, etc. Any change you make affects something else. Unlike GM, Ferrari is probably not into the practice of introducing an engine in a detuned state so they can easily add more horsepower each year to help sell more cars. Same with suspension settings, etc.; they were determined by high-speed testing. Sure, your Mitsubishi will feel sportier as you cruise around suburban Orlando when you lower it and put stiffer springs on; but when you mess with the chassis (or AERODYNAMICS!) of a true high-performance car, you are upsetting some precision settings that were there for a reason and factored into the high price of the car.

Sure, there are plenty of improvements one can do to a Ferrari or other high performance car. But the average joe blow cruising the boulevard has no clue. Most of the "mods" people do to such cars are junk, and just cheapen them. The real aftermarket improvements are developed by the people who race the cars and the people who service the racers. Those mods are real, are quality (your life depends on them), and serve a specific purpose. And that's big bucks.


3) Period Modifications -- addressing the breadvan and other such cars. Modifications done to real race cars in their heyday that improved the car in one way or another and made it more competitive are as "legit" as modifications done to modern race cars today (see number two above).

4) Collectability -- When a special car (i.e. any Ferrari) is 30 years old or more and was produced in low volume to start, there are only so many left. Of those that remain, even fewer are anywhere close to "as they left the factory". The factory issue of a vehicle is what the majority of people fell in love with, saw in photos, dreamed of in the showroom, etc. Out of respect for art and history, just as one would with art or other things of historical significance, you are serving the people by preserving an original and taking something irreplacable from the people by corrupting an original. If you want to "mod" an older car, start with one that is already modified or restored.


my .02 and then some

 

Pininfarina does not have a monopoly on good taste as the Enzo & 612 prove

Drogo & Fioravanti actually designed most of the best looking Ferraris like the 330P4, 308, 365BB, Testarossa

I dont think the Breadvan ever won anything, it was just testing aerodynamic theories of the time

 

If you had original tires with original air, and you let some out and breathed it, would it be like helium and you would talk some kind of funny Italian? Would it also make your hands and arms gesture as you spoke?

 

Well, I agree that some of the older classic models should be mostly original like a 250 GTO, but I have no problem at all with upgrading more common modern Ferrari's. I'm in the process of upgrading my Mondial right now.

 

Maybe it's because most Ferrari models are NOT mass market cars, and even the ones that were 'common' (e.g., 308) are in dwindling supply and were still comparatively scarce to begin with. The problem is, every time some idiot throws a Chevy V8 into a Ferrari, that's one less chance someone has to have the real experience. Whenever someone drills huge holes in the door panels to mount those giant speakers, they create an eyesore that's expensive to correct. Ferraris are about looks as much as performance.

Aesthetically, each Ferrari is something of a snapshot in time as well, so yes, you could stick 18" rims and rubber-band tires on a Dino, but that shows a lack of appreciation for the integrity of a 1972 sports car. It is what it is. Ditto the 328 -- yes, I could cut the shift lever down a bit and have a shorter throw to 4th, but somehow I would always walk out to the car and think it looks off a bit.

Finally, as someone posted above, the cosmetic modifications aren't usually an improvement and often look more out of place as time goes by. The gold-centered BBS wheels, for example, were the hot thing during the '80s when I was in high school. They now look dated, whereas the original five-point 'star' wheels that came on the 308/328/T-rossa look perfect for those cars.

The exception, IMO, are modifications designed to correct serious flaws in the original design -- original 355 manifolds, for example, or the two-piece Testarossa gearbox housing.

So, you obviously can do whatever you'd like to your car, but when I'm the market to buy, I'll pass.

 

Hey guys ..... want some chips with that Kool-aid

 

honestly...who cares what people do with their possessions. They paid for it...let them use it, loose it or sleep with it...makes no difference to me.

well, unless you like living in a society where people tell you what you can and can't do everyday.

 

When it comes to things that are precious, rare, and (most importantly) of historical significance, people don't just sell to anyone who has money. You more or less have to be known in the community or have some kind of credentials or reputation as someone who can and will properly preserve the item. Try buying an Auburn V12 Boattail Speedster; it's akin to buying a Renoir or Picasso.

For historically significant things, an owner becomes more like a custodian, and his good care and preservation of the significant car/art/etc. is, for the most part a social responsibility. This goes along with why significant architecture gets protected by historical registers. And just as with Fallingwater, thousands of people appreciate when a special car is both preserved and not hidden forever from the public.

This sentiment--this appreciation for and understanding of the importance of history--trickles down to the level of collectible cars, such as Ferraris. The sentiment is not as strong and universal and the car is not as important (there are comparatively *plenty* of Dinos), but you still get the same social responsibility and in turn the same admiration and respect from the public, all in smaller doses.