Cost of maintaining a modern Ferrari

[NickCats]

Ok, Perfectlap, you got me thinkin'

I found 4 1995 F355 Berlinetta's ( 380 hp ) and 3 1995 348 Spider's ( 300 hp ) on AutoTrader with 18k ( low ) to 44k ( high ) miles all for under $60k !

I love my Boxster, and it is my primary daily driver, but I have to wonder if those that have a new 987S as a weekend "toy" ever considered a used Ferrari as an option ?

I know if I had $60k to throw at a car ( hopefully in 4 more years ) I sure as hell would !

Nick

[FIG]

Roughly what we pay

F355 (non spyder) 38000KM - AUS$160,000 (US$120K)


911 (997 Carrera Coupe) 5000KM - AUS$214,000 (US$160K)


Hard to pick

[blinkwatt]

I know a guy who buys his cars(Porsches and Ferraris) after they have had major maintainence done and sell them before the next major service interval is due just because of the cost.

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Interesting thread.

You guys should read a book called, "Collecting Ferrari" by Kieth Martin. It is basically a compilation of articles regarding the joys and perils of owning a Ferrari, all years and models.

After careful consideration (IMHO), anything older than say a 355 is a huge risk. For example, a Testarossa from the late 80's, where they have to actually pull the engine out to do a major service, that will cost $7500. That's insane. Plus from a performance perspective, you can get a used 911 Trubo from early 2000's that will eat the Testarossa alive in the performance department.

If I were buying a Ferrari, and some day I might, I want the performance AND the wow factor. I think I'll wait till the 360 modenas come down in price. They're still in the 120K to 160K range depending on mileage, etc.

Anyway, I'm glad I found this site and can engage in these types of discussions with car dudes

[Perfectlap]

Originally Posted by YellowPorscheMan2002

Interesting thread.

You guys should read a book called, "Collecting Ferrari" by Kieth Martin. It is basically a compilation of articles regarding the joys and perils of owning a Ferrari, all years and models.

After careful consideration (IMHO), anything older than say a 355 is a huge risk. For example, a Testarossa from the late 80's, where they have to actually pull the engine out to do a major service, that will cost $7500. That's insane. Plus from a performance perspective, you can get a used 911 Trubo from early 2000's that will eat the Testarossa alive in the performance department.

If I were buying a Ferrari, and some day I might, I want the performance AND the wow factor. I think I'll wait till the 360 modenas come down in price. They're still in the 120K to 160K range depending on mileage, etc.

Anyway, I'm glad I found this site and can engage in these types of discussions with car dudes

from the reading their forum they seem to be of the opine that there is a BIG leap in reliability from the 348/355 to the 360/430. Night and day it seems.

I can't help but think about how this falls in line with the results from their racing programs.

in the mid 90's when the 348's and 355 were sold, Ferrari racing really was nowhere. Both F1 and sports cars. As we crossed over to the new milenium when the 360's and now 430's were up for sale the motorsports division began dumping unprecedented levels of spending en route to winning all these titles in F1 and this year the 430's were the class of the field in sports cars, well at least sprint races. FIA GT is going to an all sprint race schedule next year with the exception of LeMans so it will be interesting in Porsche vs. Ferrari.
Porsche still have a big advantage in endurance racing due to bullet proof racing engines in races lasting more than two hours.

anyhoo it sounds like going with the mid 90's 355 will cost you allot more money to maintain than a second hand 360. The 430 is still outrageously expensive to get into.

[YellowPorscheMan2002]

Originally Posted by Perfectlap

from the reading their forum they seem to be of the opine that there is a BIG leap in reliability from the 348/355 to the 360/430. Night and day it seems.

I can't help but think about how this falls in line with the results from their racing programs.

in the mid 90's when the 348's and 355 were sold, Ferrari racing really was nowhere. Both F1 and sports cars. As we crossed over to the new milenium when the 360's and now 430's were up for sale the motorsports division began dumping unprecedented levels of spending en route to winning all these titles in F1 and this year the 430's were the class of the field in sports cars, well at least sprint races. FIA GT is going to an all sprint race schedule next year with the exception of LeMans so it will be interesting in Porsche vs. Ferrari.
Porsche still have a big advantage in endurance racing due to bullet proof racing engines in races lasting more than two hours.

anyhoo it sounds like going with the mid 90's 355 will cost you allot more money to maintain than a second hand 360. The 430 is still outrageously expensive to get into.

You make an interesting point by aligning Ferrari's more recent success in racing programs with the more reasonable maintenance and reliability of newer models, 360 Modena and beyond. I have a friend at work who knows allot more about cars than I do, that said something very similar. He pointed out that, " It's only been very recently that Ferarri got their act together again." He was pointing to the Formula 1 success with Schumacher, of course, and the fact that only the newer Ferrari's give you supercar performance with the supercar price (My example again of the Testarossa comes to mind, as does the example of the Tom Selleck 308 that does 0-60 in like 7 seconds; that's a true piece of garbage in my opinion. That being said, this gentleman is such a car nut that his stock E55 AMG wasn't fast enough, so he did a chip, an exhaust, and some other mods that cost him 10's of thousans and pushed the car over 600 HP.

[Perfectlap]

The "road back" for Ferrari is more than a decade long, I recall an interview with Luca Montemozolo(Sp?) who is retiring as the Ferrari chief and possibly pursuing politics. Luca said that when he first started spear heading the revival of the company in the early 90's he noticed that the quality control department(the guys that fixed the assembly line errors) at the Ferrari factory was almost a big at the production area itself! I think he said they brought in the Japanese like the Porsche dudes did and quickly identified the weak spots. No doubt this thinking carried over to the motorsports teams resulting in some of the near bullet proof cars they have competed with since about 2000-2001. Now Renault seems to be doing similar. But Ferrari really stands alone in the amounts of money spend on racing. Nearly half of all their 05 REVENUES not earnings, went into those two little F1 cars, half a BILLION dollars. I can't think of another car builder that puts out this type of committment. Ford pulled the plug on many of Jaguar racing teams because they spent more trying to catch up with Luca then they did in all of their global motorsports combined. Better stick to NASCAR they figured. Cheap thrills for lots of sponsor dollars, but no big improvement in the road cars like Ferrari.

anyhoo... Who would have ever thought that the French and Italians would be showing the way to Japanese and Brits.
THe 2007 FIA GT races are going to be big for Porsche this season. I don't think they can afford to get drilled again in Europe and get spanked by the Z06's here in the U.S.
Racing cred is important if you expect to sell sports cars with a long term view.
Otherwise you're just selling heavy, very expensive pretty GT's.