To what degree is customization frowned upon in the Ferrari community?

frankly?

frankly, nobody will care what you do with a portofino.

it will just be your problem at resale time.

do what you like.

 

IMO
We all have our own taste when art is in question.

Ferrari , Lambo, Pagani, Koenigsegg, etc. TOO many works of art to mention.

If you improve a Portofino with your vision, style and skill then I applaud you.

I agree it is less offensive to customize a high production model and best to preserve a low production model when selling the car but some mods are indicative of the era and add more exitement such as an 80s Koenig kit or period racing history & livery.

But ask yourself if preserving someone elses history is your bag or making history.

Some cut trails. Some follow trails. Some preserve trails. Rock on your way.

Please post pics as you create it.

 

Whatever you do to your Phrary, do it with style and class. Don't add flame-stickers. That is an option for the US cars.

The best advice is to keep all the original parts too. So it can be brought back to original if needed.

Like said; It's your car and your fantasy. You can ruin any ride and be laughed at if you really want...

 

As others have said, when it's your car you can do whatever you want with it to enjoy it. Go for it. You SHOULD enjoy your car.

As others have mentioned above it becomes a problem if you want someone else to buy the car from you. I've been partial to the saying "when you sell a car, you're trying to find someone like you out there". The more a car is customized to you, the harder it is to fit it to another persons tastes. There's also the cost conundrum. When parts for an exotic are obnoxiously expensive.. nobody wants to deal with another persons problems. If there is a screwup in the mod, the cost of fixing it is MUCH high than a civic. If a car is bone stock, you know what you're getting. With a Ferrari when you buy used.. that is 99% of the issue.

 

As you noted, the Ferrari community likes the originality of the cars. Mods that are readily accepted are factory options that you can get from the dealer (i.e. carbon bits such as dash inserts, paddles, exterior carbon fiber). Custom rims are normally accepted but keep the originals.

It is your car but if if you plan on selling it in the future, being able to revert it back to stock will most definitely help. good luck and enjoy the car when you get it.

 

Agree with late model production cars. However, when it comes to older vintage cars, I won’t buy any car that is not original. I’m not talking about common sense drivability mods, like electronic ignition. But any visual mods that weren’t original to the car back in the day are a major no-no.


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The crux of this issue is two points of view that rarely, if ever, intersect:

- The belief that the visual perfection is the car as it was originally design. It's not a canvas, it's already the masterpiece.
- The belief that customization unique to the owner is visual perfection. As you said, it's just a canvas.

I have never seen a Ferrari (nor Lamborghini, Porsche) that looked better with rims, scoops, fenders, graphics, wraps, lights, seats, or spoilers that weren't originally part of the final production design. I've never seen a classic Corvette that I felt was improved with low stance and 20" rims. I've never seen a woman who I thought looked better with silicon implants.

My thought on "keep it original" isn't because I'm boring or lack imagination; I was a designer for a couple decades. It's because I believe that Pininfarina designed perfect lines, and that's what I want the car to look like. Conversely, there are car enthusiasts who simply don't want to drive a car that anyone else has. That's perfectly fine. It's absolutely THEIR car, and one is free to do whatever they wish with their property.

You can buy a Mondrian and hang it, or you can throw some of your own paint on it. It's your painting. But you'll have a hard time convincing the former crowd that adding a few brush strokes of your own has made the painting even better.

 

I have been heavily modifying all of my cars for decades,and my Portofino will be no exception.

 

Let me start by saying I don't have my Ferrari yet. Now with that said, this reminds me of when I owned my series 1 XKE back in the 1980s. That car was called Pale Primrose, which was actually a pale yellow. Yellow, today, is an "in" color; yellow in the 1980s was not! I always wanted that car to be either gunmetal blue, or a Ferrari red, since the original E-Type red had a bit of orange in it and looked weird. But, the Jaguar club that I belong to at the time were purists. When my fuel pump failed, as all Jaguar pumps do, I replaced it with the original not an up-to-date one that was about a third of the price. Why? Because everybody thought you had to keep the car exactly original.

I actually get that concept but I had the car for 10 years as a daily driver, 10 years of a color that I was ashamed of, constantly apologized for , and really should have taken into an Earl Scheib dealer and at least had the outer shell redone the way I wanted it. Then, I can drive it around, have fun, and worry about the color during resale. But no, it was born yellow and had to die yellow.

The upshot here? As it was said earlier in the string make whatever changes you want, tasteful but make the car yours, possibly keep the original parts if you have the storage capacity ... That will come in handy during resale... And enjoy the freaking car the way you want it. Best of luck

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Did you make a profit when ya sold that original yellow Jag? Was the buyer a purist?

 

I wasn't a big fan of its predecessor but I think Portofinos look awesome. What on earth would you want to change? You will also be buying a car with factory warranty and I don't think that it would be a good idea to potentially get the warranty voided.

 

With most modded cars, I get the impression they are not necessarily the type of cars that are perfect to begin with. I love a corvette as much as the next guy, but certainly up to C5 (the last I ever owned) there was definately more power to be had and much more handling to exploit, and mods and rims allowed that to happen. They are also generally much higher production numbers involved.

A Ferrari, Lamborghini, Aston etc, they are in low numbers even for the most common (Portofino etc). Therefore, they already stand out from the crowd, so rims and other add ones need to be carefully picked and applied if they are to make the car stand out even more. In general, it’s very much more easy to make a special car look very overdone and cheap than it is to improve them looks wise. These cars tend to be an ultimate design already.... I’d question whether anyth8ng other than subtle changes will make the impression they could on a lesser car.

Performance wise, you can add all the horses you like, but again, the cars are already supercar fast, knocking another tenth or two is fine, but aside from the drag race at the lights, why? Warranty gets voided, and as someone else mentioned, a $2000 repair on a civic or vette becomes a $20000+ repair on a ferrari, maybe even writes the car off...... worth the risk?, I’m not sure.

Once you’ve done with the car, who will buy it? Customisation in general, even if not the real case, gives the appearance for most of us that a car has had a rather testing life, that there may be issues hidden under the excitement of 1000+ brake horses.... even if you keep the original parts, with Facebook and all the other social media sites out there, your car may be blighted forever however tastefully and carefully you had done your mods.

That said, each to their own, my opinion is only that, and I wish you to enjoy your cars in great health, and great fun! Forza Ferrari buddy

 

Shotgun, you scoundrel! I think you have a lot of sage advice. If you're going to drive it every day, my assumption is that you'll pile on the miles, and keep it for a while. If that's the scenario, then mold it to your tastes, and enjoy the heck out of it! Good luck whatever you decide...T

 

It’s an easy question to me. Are you buying it to sell it, or enjoy it. You can do both, but I say go for it, & enjoy it, your way.

 

I told my son: the good news is you are inheriting a Ferrari. The bad news is, it will be old, & high mileage.

 

Image Unavailable, Please Login Be sure to post some pics when all the mods are done.

 

For example, doing a slant nose conversion on a 911 will tank its value regardless of how well you do it. If you like the look, you’d be better off paying up for the factory version.

For Ferraris, the only exception I can think of are the Strahan convertible conversions. 15+ years ago when I was looking a Strahan Daytona conversion was worth more than factory coupe, but less than a factory Spyder. But conversions by other hacks weren’t valued at all. I haven’t a clue how well the value of Strahan conversions have held up.

On modern cars, it will be interesting to see how a manual conversion on a 360 or 430 will hold up. Alternatively, converting a 360 to a Stradale look might have some appeal.

Personally, a manual conversion of a California et al is the only way I’d consider one of these cars, but that’s just me.


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True. There was an F40 at Mecum last week which had $650k of LM mods. The high bid just about covered the cost of the base car. A shame because it looked nicely done.

 

My thoughts on this is as long as your mods don't endanger others or affect others negatively, you be you my friend! Happy modding!

 

Those headlights are atrocious; the hood/panels look like someone had a fetish for extra scoops.

"You get an intake! YOU get an intake! ALL OF YOU get intakes!!!"

 

well you won't be able to pay ferrari $10,000 to give you a little red book when its time to classiche it, other than that you're good to go. Hell my 575 is almost of age for classiche and I don't think it can be classiche'd bc it has a tubi exhaust