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Congrats , I’ve had several Ferrari and GT cars and have had them paired twice now . Love the differences and get very unique driving experiences . 458/3RS now GT3/F430 before Love them both , but always grab the red key first
Ferraris are great looking, great sounding and high performance cars. However, my experience has been that they are also high maintenance, expensive and temperamental cars. I'm sure others may have had different experiences, but I spent more on Ferrari maintenance per year than I do of my GT3 in 5 years.
I also didn't like the attention I got on the road in a Ferrari, especially on the side of the road waiting on a flat bed.
And with the rare exception, I found most Ferrari owners to be polishers not drivers showing up at events bragging about how few miles their cars had rather than how many track events they have been to..
Ferraris are great looking, great sounding and high performance cars. However, my experience has been that they are also high maintenance, expensive and temperamental cars. I'm sure others may have had different experiences, but I spent more on Ferrari maintenance per year than I do of my GT3 in 5 years.
I also didn't like the attention I got on the road in a Ferrari, especially on the side of the road waiting on a flat bed.
And with the rare exception, I found most Ferrari owners to be polishers not drivers showing up at events bragging about how few miles their cars had rather than how many track events they have been to..
Sadly, I'm getting to the point where I cringe a little when I go to some event where someone whips out a detailing kit and goes at it with a perfectly clean car .
That said, there's a guy on YouTube with a 360 Challenge that he converted to a 6 Spd manual and has driven the **** out of it. Canadian winters in snow/salt, dirt roads and runs the steed dirty AF !!! Miles it up like an Enterprise rental....there's nothing cooler than a dirty well used Ferrari, probably cause its such a rare sight.
Any older Ferrari is going to be prone to more maintenance and not as reliable as a Porsche. But the 458/488/F8 generation, and from what I've seen the F12/812 have been pretty solid.
I sold Ferrari parts at Ricambi America for 4 years before I left to start Rennpart.
I had the "poor mans" version of the best of both worlds at one point. I loved them both, they both did different things. Oh how those single with no kids days were!
I think about revving out of the F355 a good bit, but then I remember worrying about valve guides and other expensive things while whaling on it. One day I'd like to have another but until then the 996's will do! I did the engine out in the F355 in my garage without a lift- what a life experience.
I just bought a 458 Spider and it is just glorious. Buying CPO definitely provides some peace of mind that something absurdly expensive won't break on my dime. It wasn't cheap but it also wasn't all that much more than a 991.2 GT3.
Fun to see this thread again. I literally had a discussion with my local indy shop - that's more known for Ferrari service than Porsche, when I picked up may car this morning. They have a beautiful 458 in the shop and I was commenting how that would be the F-car for me if I ever pulled the switch. His comments were just about identical to comments above. Great car to drive, tons of fun, exhaust sounds are insane. Then he said they just don't age well in comparison to a Porsche. He said look at a 458 that's been driven 40,000 miles and it looks like it has 100,000 on the clock. In comparison look at a Porsche GT car after 40,000 miles and many look like new... He smiled and said that's why I drive a Porsche every day, and make a living fixing Ferrari's. Part of me still wants the 458 . I agree the best solution is one of each!
A Ferrari after, say, the 360 can be as reliable as anything else aside from some interior wear issues. And from the 458 on, the interior quality is world class as well. The trick is to stay on top of the expensive maintenance and drive it hard. Ferraris are still like older 911's, if you don't drive them hard the gremlins move in. I've owned several of each and the general reliability between F-car and P-car has been about the same.
As far as the whole "typical owner" crap, every enthusiast car from Subaru to Koenigsegg has both posers and enthusiasts. Hang out with enthusiasts and ignore the posers. My local F-car group has a small number of solid folks and we do carefully planned 800+ mile multi-day drives bouncing off the rev limiter, hit deep triple figures and marble our tires. Conversely, I rarely do drives with the much larger local P-car group as there are too many "I own a Porche" folks that aren't that great behind the wheel. And some fantastic drivers too, but I don't feel as safe in a group like that when pushing the limits.
This is my current lineup, the GT3 is a Touring because sometimes nothing can beat a true 3 pedal manual. The 458 is an objectively faster and better handling car especially on subpar back roads. Which is more fun? Depends on the day.
04-09-2024, 05:13 AM
. I agree the best solution is one of each!
