Ride for the Day!!

[blue2000s]

Originally Posted by Y2BOX

The F430 was amazing, first thing I noticed was the sound (need to buy a sports exhaust for the box now!)...blipping the throttle makes heads turn....(if you get the chance blip the throttle going under a bridge!)took a while to get used to the paddle shift gears. The speed felt exactly like when I went from a normal car to the boxster...except this was from the boxster to the F430, and getting to XXXmph (for bruce!!)did not feel so bad, because it got there so quickly and back down again safely, with the boxster it does take a while to get to top speed and the risk becomes greater...the Ferrari did it in a flash...more controlled.
Loved the carbon fibre interior, the yellow rev counter, the glass cover to the engine, loved the switch on the steering wheel which you can turn to race mode.......best of all.......the sound.

I did take it kind of easy...did not want to stop future rides!!

I got to drive the Maserati coupe with the same transmission in a situation similar to yours. There's a big difference between 400hp and 250hp! The Maser will certainly move quickly. The steering was overboosted, though, which really surprised me. Porsche's steering is much more natural and communicative.

I wasn't impressed with the F1 transmission personally. I prefer the involvement and control of the manual clutch. The feel of the shifts is nice, definitely superior to the automatic-based tiptronic, but I'm not a big fan of it in a sports car.

[Slashmatt]

I bought my first mid-engined car (an NSX) after driving my Dad's 360 Spider. I probably put about 250 miles on that car over the course of a few visits, and they were the best miles of my life. I've since driven a couple Porsche Turbos, a Ford GT, Ferrari 575M and a bunch of Vettes. Nothing has really held a candle to the Ferrari 360 for the ultimate driving experience. I've yet to drive an F430, and until I can afford one myself (that's a big if) I probably won't. That's precisely why I'm back in a roadster. You can get all the horsepower you want, but if it's not mounted in the middle of Ferrari, you're just missing the whole supercar thing.

The Boxster S is as close to a 360 in steering feel and ride as I've ever experienced. Plus, it's got the great lightness and flingability of my old Miata and Dinan (signature car of course, not I have strut brace so it's a Dinan) Z3 2.5i.

The Ferrari V8 spiders are my absolute favorite cars in the world. Now, I could be tempted by a Zonda F Spider though.