That is the question. I have them, I drive them. I do the work on them and rack up the miles. I don't daily drive them but if I want to drive to my place in Florida with my wife only?, I don't even hesitate. Montreal? No problem. Lake placid, New York City? , When are we going? What about you? Do you labour yourself over the miles that you put on the car?
I drive mine every time i can MINUS the pointless drives, like to work. My only complaint is im a cruise control baby and my foot hurts on long drives in the berlinetta lol
Other than my daily, I labor myself over not having the time to rack up the miles/hours. Not just with my Ferrari (current and past) but the same happened with the motorcycles and boats too.
I have no desire to drive my car on I-10 anymore on a long boring straight highway, but I would drive it hours and hours up back canyon roads. Why drive in a straight line at 75mph for 6 hours there and 6 hours back. But I would drive thousands of miles and thousands of hours easily on the "right roads." Robb
I try to buy cars that I expect to drive. If they become collectible then they get sold for their profit and I move on to the next driving experience!
I have 3 cars to drive in summer. 98F1 GTS, 95 Berlinetta and 2008 Maserati GT. My other 95 B is in pieces. I drive the Maserati as my good weather DD. That really helps keep the miles off the Ferrari's. So, I usually only take the Ferrari's out on weekends and I don't drive them much come fall as I live in deer country. I do love to drive them but I guess I'm selective about it and that keeps the miles down but at the same time I feel as I'm getting great enjoyment from them. My 458 buddy and I try to take the cars out every Sunday evening and go some place 30 miles or so away for a beer and a bite. So, that 60 miles each week though country roads gives me a lot of joy sadly, weather is not good today so no drive this weekend.
I don't care at all about how -many- miles I put on the car but it has to be the right conditions and I want them to count. Sitting in traffic during commute or intentionally driving it in bad weather? No, not worth it and too much clean up. Like others I have several "summer" cars so none of them end up getting a ton of miles even if I'm always driving one on the weekend.
My 348 doesn't have enough legroom for a really long drive. I took it out yesterday for a nice 180 mile lunch trip. That's about as far as I care to go without being able to straighten my legs. Maybe if I had a front-engined car like a 550 I could do it.
I never really thought about miles.. as I bought my car to drive it..! about 19K miles on it when I bought it.. and racked up 700kms just to get it home.. I drive it almost anywhere.. and always find an excuse to pull it out.. but I avoid rain.. not because I think its going to melt.. and I have gotten caught in the rain with it.. I just prefer not to drive in rain conditions. less then two full seasons.. im approaching 25k miles.. so ive driven it thus far during my ownership to say the least.. and that includes down time of at least 2 months in total.. while it was at the shop to get various things done.. at different times..
Sad to say I only put 500 miles in roughly 2 years of ownership. I bought it to drive it but traffic in Atlanta is so bad, it limits my seat time. Plus I got other cars to play with as well as 2 kids. There's nothing worse than sitting in traffic in a Ferrari going 5 miles per hour.
It's tough with the kids- I just get up early on the good weather weekend (no winter/salted road drives though)- typically no events planned that early in the morning, roads are empty and quite therapeutic to blast around some choice back roads with the top down! Pick up bagles/coffee for the family on the way back and all is good to start the weekend day Probably get 2-2.5K miles in / year doing this and love every mile. Also get the car out a several Saturday nights/year with the wife for dinner..
The first summer I had my 355 I put over 3000 miles on it. The next year I got the 348 and cut those miles in half so you are right, this works. Living in flat, treeless, curve less, baren Eastern Montana I unfortunately have to drive 3+ hours to get to some canyons and curves but it is worth it. The Black Hills of South Dakota have some wonderful, beautiful roads to drive.
