Requesting Input on 360 Purchase Plan

I would be patient and wait for the spec you want. The last thing you want to do is drop that kind of coin on a car that doesn't tick all your boxes.

 

I agree here, I would even venture to say make your search national so you get the exact model you want. Worst thing to do is get a Ferrari that only met some of your wants. The trips to see it in person is worth it to me.

 

One of the best things about the 360 is most depereciation is already factored in, if you get a well sorted one, it conceivably can be quite a wise purchase, especially a 6 speed.

 

Buddy, we have a daughter that’s two and a half, and I sometimes wish I was more like you, financially careful.. however, I had three heart attacks at 38, and now at 49, I have stomach cancer and other crap happening (no pun intended !). If you have the urge, go buy what you like, drive it, enjoy it, and see how it goes. I for one would rather go to my deathbed regretting the great things I’d done, than regretting the stuff I was too conservative to try.....

That said, don’t be like me and own fifty cars in ten years, if I’d have kept one or two of the really nice cars I bought, drove and sold I’d be a multi-millionaire from selling them today! Instead, someone worked out I lost over a million of the money I spent on cars in that ten year period..... way to complete a bucket list eh? Tell you what though, smashing through the gears on Ferrari’s, Lambos and Bugatti’s is a helluva way to waste some money!

 

^Agree with Sid. You're a CPA, married to a CPA. You better than most know if you have the dough to pull this off without it impacting you financially in a worst case scenario. Say the car is a total loss.

Tomorrow is not promised to anyone. If it's your dream & you got the dough - pull the trigger when you find the car that speaks to you. Life's too short.

One thing I might add, is that living in Johnson City, beautiful part of the country by the way, have you considered the logistics of service?

T

 

I can't guarantee how long it would conceivably take to sell an F1 vs. 6-Speed. There is a lot of wisdom in the two posts above, one can get so conservative the dream never materializes.

 

With those numbers you'll be fine. Buy the damn car when you find it.

I will say, cast a national search and find exactly the car you want. It might not be perfect down to the screw.. but when you see it, you'll know it. Do a national search and troll cars.com, auto trader and car gurus. Do them all. You have the $$. You make the rules. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.
Don't be too confident about the F1 pricing. I think that there is still room to go down. And I agree with prior poster that $70-80 should get you a creampuff F1 car. Just understand that you might loose money. Nobody can predict the market. Not to be P+R, but this shutdown has shown how little well paid gubment workers put aside for a rainy day. Just imagine on a national scale...
And don't get too nervous about the 401k balance when the bubble pops. You have time on your side. Sounds like you're not too financially perilous to stress, but in the end if you buy the car or not you'll end up in the same place. OTOH you don't know what tomorrow will bring. I've treated too many men that didn't take enough time for family and presumed that tomorrow will be like today, and they didn't have the time that they thought.
Enjoy life when you can.

 

On the contrary, the F1's seem to sit unsold while the prices drop, while the manuals seem to be in much higher demand, not to mention are easier and cheaper to maintain. The market is already flooded with unsold F1's. If you've already decided the car isn't a keeper, I wouldn't drop more than $60-65k on one. Or even buy a Euro model, they go for significantly less, but they are the same car.Just my opinion. Beyond that, what is the reason for wanting a 2002? Is there a significant change you are looking for?

 

If I was you, I’d get a nice, sorted 430, even if you finance a little over the top of what you are prepared to find from cash. The 430 was a much tighter, better sorted car from the get go, and no BELTS! Chain driven, excellent F1 or manual (I’d prefer the F1 as the car is designed around being F1 and the gearbox talking to the software for everything else, rather than the slightly less linked in manual... I had the 430 and the spyder, and both were awesome cars. Make sure the exhaust fix has been done (hard to imagine anyone has not had that sorted by now though) and enjoy. 360 is an awesome car, no offence to those with one, but the evolutionary changes into the 430 produced a really solid, well sorted car that for a first ferrari, I think will bring you a lot of trouble free daily driving as well as weekend fun, and you may even convince er indoors to let you keep her or even upgrade to my favorite V8, the Italia, as a long term keeper. Forza Ferrari buddy

 

I know exactly what you mean about the ‘first ferrari love’, so no worries. Be sure to double and triple check the service history is correct and up to date, with all recalls done and booked, and enjoy in good health!

 

I would look carefully at the maintenance issues. It is hard to work on a 360 (or newer) Ferrari yourself, without an investment in specialized OBDII readers and software. Even some independent shops that do great work on older Ferraris can't work on the 360s and newer cars. The first time you need to flatbed your 360 to Greensboro for repair is going to change the way you look at that car forever.

I understand that you are good with a wrench, but it takes more than a wrench to keep these cars running. Moreover, what is your goal? If your goal is to have a hobby of working on old Ferraris, then that is one thing. If your goal is to enjoy a sports car, I would recommend a Corvette or Porsche while you are living in Johnson City.

I think you have done a great analysis, and can certainly afford whatever you like. But I can't emphasize enough the importance of having a good plan for maintaining the car. If you spend some time in the 360 forum, as I am sure you have, you will see that regular maintenance is a key to keeping these cars running, and even then you need to budget for unexpected repairs. Living in Johnson City, that means not just budgeting the money for that work, but the time and effort it will take to get the car to someone who can do the work.

Living in Hawaii, I am familiar with the problems of keeping an exotic maintained! But the Ferrari dealership here is within walking distance of my house, and I have been glad of that. These cars are quite reliable, but not so reliable that I would want to live three hours from a dealership.

I got my 360 from Roanoke, and it was serviced in Greensboro at Foreign Cars Italia. I have family in Kingsport. You live in a place where it will be wonderful to drive your car, whatever sports car you get. But please think hard about the logistics of maintenance.

Your are going about this in a most impressive way! I suspect you already have a subscription to Ferrari Market Letter, but if not, you should get one before you invest this kind of money in a Ferrari. Good luck with your decision! I'm sure you will make a wise one.

 

I would have to disagree. These cars are quite easy to work on from my experience. I would rather work on my 360 than my gen 4 camaro Z28 anyday. Only thing that scares me is the cost of finding someone with an SD2 come clutch change time, especially since the closest one to me is 200 miles. The parts aren't cheap, but they aren't much worse than my viper was. The biggest costs to watch out for is needing a clutch and carrying out the major. Also watch out for a heat exchanger failure. Those are really not fun to clean up after.

 

You're overthinking it, can you afford to lose $10-20k in 1 year? If the answer is yes then do it, if no, then don't. It's a used ferrari its value is going nowhere fast, you're going to lose taxes + maintenance + insurance. On my 575 last year, the maintenance was $9,300 + the insurance was $900 for the year + the sales tax when I bought it was $7k or so. Im selling the car now 14 months later, I can probably get $5-10k more than I paid, total loss will be $10k or so....not bad for a year of fun.

Life is short you sound pretty well off $10k is not alot of money.

I promise a used ferrari costs less than a wife on an annual basis, yet you probably never did a cost analysis of that did you?

 

Thanks Dustin for a good perspective. I agree the issue is the SD2, although in my experience with my dealer it has been necessary for effective diagnosis of issues other than just the clutch. The ancillary issue is whether one's pleasure is in working on the car or driving the car. I'm glad your experience has been a good one!

 

Other than the SD2 the 360/430 is still rather analog making it DIY possible for the most part. I have been fortunate enough to be able to essentially restore this car on a blue collar budget bit by bit. Mine was quite neglected. Fortunately the F1 system seems to be in good shape. I had a bit of a scare during the first post-major drive when the transmission light came on. Turned out to be just the spring in the reverse switch thankfully. I pray to the great horse in the sky that is the worst I deal with as far as F1 goes. All of that being said, I wouldn't touch anything newer than a F430 with a 10 foot pole. Way too many screens and computers.

 

Intent to sell within 12-18 months of purchase?

I’d list it for sale the day you bring it home. I’ve seen lots of cars sit on the market that long, at market value.

Short term ownership is inadvisable, IMO.

 

Consider looking nation wide and Canada for cars originally purchased in the US. Shipping a car cross country does not cost a lot of money. I got 2 inspections done. The second one after buying the car and near my house, but with the agreement from the original dealership that if it did not pass provincial inspection, hey would pay for those repairs. The original dealership did end up paying for a few things and lived up to their word.

If you get 2 inspections done, You might be comfortable buying the vehicle sight unseen. I mean really, what will you pick up that 2 inspections would miss?


Money talk:
I understand the concept of “trying it out” and that way you will have a good idea of how much the experience will cost you. But let’s play devil’s Advocate ...... although this type of vehicle is not a money maker by any means, it is still an asset.... and will continue to be one. So aside from the maintenance standpoint, there is no big depreciation..... and less and less the longer you keep it. The question you and your wife will have to ask are the following:

Is the maintenance cost of the vehicle worth the experience? Because remember the asset will remain.

Is your wife REALLY ok with you owning this vehicle, or is she just ok with you rocking your socks for one year?

Having to pay taxes (if you have to), doing inspections .. getting the car sorted... those are the biggest expenses aside from regular maintenance. Why would you want to do that over again?

IMO buy it, if you like the experience after 1 year, keep it, if not sell it. Do not confine yourself to doing something you don’t have a feeling for, before you do it. The asset will always be there..... is the maintenance cost worth keeping the car? Yes or No? What does the wife say?

 

Just make sure the clutch and major were done recently. Those will be the most expensive. However, lots of things fail rather prematurely on these cars. Transmission mounts, engine mounts and ball joints just to name a few. There are plenty of posts regarding the common issues to look out for. You sound more than capable of this financially, so I would say go for it. I'll be honest with you though. I had no intention of keeping mine. I bought it to flip it. A year later I decided I'm never selling it, so good luck with that idea haha.

 

your color preference of Red is probably the most popular color preference for first time buyers .. you will likely see that red cars may be the easier to sell....when that time comes ...

 

As a fellow CPA, here’s what I did before I brought my first Ferrari, a Maranello, in 2003: I created a spreadsheet of every 550 I could find on the Internet and the Ferrari Market Letter. (Back then, FNA used to let dealers advertise their cars on their website. I don’t know if they still do.) One thing that became apparent was the number of fraudulent listings of the same car. (Funny, most of the fraudulent sellers were in south Florida.) The next thing I noted was how cars move from dealer to dealer. The final point was options were worthless. They help sell a car, but they don’t bring any more money, particularly the older the car.

I ended up buying a 1998 from Ferrari of Houston after the car sat there on consignment for maybe a year. I paid $125k all in with sales tax for a car the previous owner had paid $190k and had driven 800 miles.

Fast forward to today. If I was going to buy a Ferrari, which I’m not, I too would go for a 360 because I love the way they sound. A 430 is a much better car, but for street driving you’ll never notice the difference, and it won’t sound like a 360. Plus, ignore the myth that a 360 is more expensive to service than 430. All Ferraris are expensive to service, period.

My preference would be to buy a car from a dealer who I have established a working relationship. You’ll pay more, but the dealers know which cars are good cars. The problem today is they don’t get many 360s on consignment. You’ll see 458s out the wazoo, but not many 360s.

This means I’d start looking at the established independents, like Sports Car Market, the shop in St. Louis, and there’s one in North Carolina, but the name escapes me.

I’d ignore asking prices. My point of beginning would be to knock at least 20% off the ask.

Don’t be scared of mileage. Once a Ferrari goes pass 5,000 miles it is no longer a virgin. But you MUST get a PPI from an independent. Ferrarichat is a great resource for finding an independent.

Good luck. The hunt can be half the fun.


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