One Year With A Ferrari

Post About My Book

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 00:28:00 +0000

Thank you to the two of you who purchased the book today. You made my week.

Just a note. The book and the blog are similar. If you have been reading the blog the book is a condensed version with fewer spelling and grammatical errors.

Cheers.

David

Book is finally done

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 16:18:00 +0000

One Year With A Ferrari. The book, beleive it or not, is ready on Amazon. It is available as an ebook at this time but I am planning on making some hard copies and will have those available in the future.
Thanks to all of you for your encouragement.

Cheers.

David

You can find the book here

Chapter 17- Why is there Blue Kool Aid under my Ferrari?

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 22:59:00 +0000

On Thursday, September 11 2008 someone searching for “mistress, walla walla, washington” found my site and stayed for some time. While I doubt I was much assistance with their research I hope they enjoyed the blog.

Why is there Blue Kool Aid under my Ferrari?

Several weeks after the track day, I noticed a few drops of what appeared to be blue Kool-aid on the floor of the garage. Unfortunately, no matter how hard I hoped the drips were Kool-aid they were more likely coolant dripping from the radiator just behind the driver’s door. There are times when I miss the dirty, dark concrete floor. A few drops of blue liquid would disappear. On the white tiles the drops were like a neon blue sign signaling that something was wrong.

Strangely, after a couple days the car stopped leaking coolant. Either it healed itself, was completely out of coolant, or was waiting to surprise me with a flood of coolant at the least appropriate time.

For many years Barb and I had wanted to visit Walla Walla and the surrounding wine country so when the Ferrari Club offered a trip to Walla Walla I decided it would be a great chance to see some great cars, drive some great roads, and visit some great wineries. If I spent the summer driving around Portland it will be the same thing over and over. How many times can I write about a trip to New Seasons to get ice cream or beer? A road trip of over 600 miles, with a chance to mingle with a bunch of other Ferrari owners in the middle should give me a Ferrari experience which will be substantially different from my hermit like existence. I thought the only hitch would be arranging for someone to watch the kids for the weekend so I called the host hotel.

“Hi I’d like to make a reservation for the 27th and 28th for the Ferrari Club event.”

“Let’s see. Their block of rooms are sold out and there are no other rooms available. Sorry, good bye.”

Ouch. Nothing like getting put in your place. The other hotel recommended by the club was the Holiday Inn Express. I have nothing against Holiday Inn Expresses but it seems an inappropriate place to stay for a Ferrari Club weekend let alone the first weekend Barb and I have had together sans children in eleven years.

Maybe there was a bed and breakfast available. A B&B would be nice, smaller, romantic, and give us a bit of breathing room from the other Ferrari Clubbers. Every B&B in Walla Walla I called was full. I was getting frustrated. I wanted to go on this trip. Barb wanted to go on this trip. Holiday Inn here we come. Sold out! The Holiday Inn in Walla Walla was sold out. What was going on in Walla Walla that made it so popular?

Eventually I found a place with rooms, a yoga spa about seven miles outside of town. I hesitated a moment and when the screen refreshed one of the few remaining rooms had been booked. I grabbed my credit card and booked a room. When I told Barb she thought it was perfect. So, our summer road trip was planned. We were going to drive the Ferrari about 300 miles into the middle of Washington, visit wineries, drive on beautiful country roads, and enjoy ourselves.

A few days before Barb and I were to leave for Walla Walla, I decided to have Tonkin give the car a check up, especially the cooling system, as we were going to be putting upwards of 600 miles on it in one weekend.

There was one complication.

It was self inflicted.

On Sunday June 22, 2008 a few days after the RTGT Ferrari track day and a few days before the Walla Walla trip I decided to tackle the lower plastic piece that covers the steering column. It had some scratches near the keyhole. I was expecting this piece to be pretty easy to refinish. It is large but without many dents or complex surface features. The car was going in for service the following day but I figured I could refinish this piece and have it back in the car in an hour or two.

Not all the interior pieces of the 355 wanted to be refinished. As I was removing the sticky stuff covering the plastic I thought “too bad was careless when starting the car, rest of it is in nice shape.” Then it started to melt. It must have been made from a formulation of plastic which was different from the air vent. It melted. Not all the way, just partially. It looked like a Martian landscape with tiny river valleys revealing the presence of water.

The Ferrari went in for service looking like I stole it. Tonkin did not have the steering column surround in stock so I ordered one from Ricambi. I ordered it on-line and added a note begging them to ship it soon as possible. About two minutes later I received a call from one of the guys at Ricambi letting me know he received the order and was processing it as we spoke.

The little drips of blue Kool Aid turned out to be from the radiator. Not from a leaking hose. It had a tiny crack in it. My first impulse was to ask Tonkin to smear some JB Weld on it or send it to a radiator shop to have it brazed. I resisted this impulse and Tonkin over nighted a new radiator from somewhere. I had just spent a bundle of money on Ferrari stuff. The service, including the radiator was $1,462 and the new steering wheel column was $300. I suppose it was lucky I had already missed my goal of not spending money on maintenance.

Chapter 16 - A Mistress You Keep in the Garage Part II

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 23:14:00 +0000

Monday August 4 2008 with a generous dose of excitement someone exclaimed “wow how to get to Ferraris”. With what I expect was less excitement someone queried “boxberger vacuum”. I did the same. There were more responses than you might expect. My favorite was a page which contained both “boxberger” and “Image Analysis on Temperature Distribution within Lettuce Undergoing Vacuum Cooling”

A Mistress You Keep in the Garage Part II

The black silly putty in the Ferrari got stickier in the summer. I associate summer in Oregon as a wonderful time for growing things. Everything green is sprouting and growing, making the most of a fertile combination of rain and sun. I never assumed the Ferrari would react so vigorously to the season. Interior bits which looked great when the temperature was 55 degrees began to sprout a thin growth of lint at 85 degrees. As I spent more time in the car the sticky, furry bits and poor fit of the leather around the center AC vent began to get on my nerves.

I decided to remove the center AC vent in an effort to get the leather dash to fit better. This project was a nice size for me. It was also one of those projects that can be worked on for an hour or two and then put down without inconveniencing anyone. A three step project was required for sprucing up the dash. First, remove the vent. Second, peak under the leather, determine what was causing the little dent in the leather above the vent and treat the leather. Third, replace the vent, changing its angle slightly so it sat evenly from top to bottom.

The first part of the plan went well. If you like to take things apart Ferraris are great cars. I bet you could disassemble the entire car with only a few tools, most of which can be found in a kitchen junk drawer. The vent came out with only a few minutes work. Once out I realized how bad the gooey finish on the vent was and that it would not look appropriate once the leather was tidied up.

That’s the problem with fixing things. Perfecting one piece of the whole only makes the other parts look worse. It’s all or nothing. The goo had to go.

I checked Ricambi to see how much a new vent would cost. $433. Ouch! For 433 I will try refinishing it, if I screw up and it turns out looking worse I can buy a new one or have someone with more talent give it a try. While browsing the Ricambi site for the vent I ended up buying two trim pieces, the piece which houses the controls for the mirrors and a larger more complex piece which fits over the metal gate for the shifter and holds a number of switches. Compared to the vent they were a deal. Total cost for both pieces was less than $100.

The only component left to replace is the big kahuna of 355 sticky parts, the AC/Heater control module. Ricambi has them available – for $1,400. Luckily they also have a sticker which, with a bit of work allows you to use the internals of the module but rid yourself of the sticky top.

To remove the goo from the AC vent I tried first Goof Off. It did not do a good job. It made finish gooeyer. Next I tried Acetone. That did the trick. About half an hour later my garage was full of rags covered with goo. With the black goo removed I saw why Ferrari had coated the plastic pieces. The raw plastic looks like something out of a 80s Ford. I can imagine the conversation at Ferrari. “OK for the 355 we’re going to do something special. A stealth bomber matte black finish on the interior pieces.” The supplier having never seen a stealth bomber translates this to “It’s Ferrari, use the shiniest stuff possible” Ferrari folks get it back and say “Uhh that’s awful, spray it with some of the coating we put on the underside of the car.”

When it’s not scratched up or sticky the finish is actually very pleasant. It has a rich, smooth satin look to it. The finish of the new ashtray is very nice. To refinish the vent I bought three cans of paint to see if I could get a close match. I used the old ash tray housing to test the different paints. My first try was a rubberized paint. It had the right texture but was too shiny. Second try, too gray. The third, a flat black model paint made by Testor was the best. I found that if I sanded it with fine steel wool it was an almost exact match for the factory finish, except it was not gooey.

The diversion with the vent kept me from tackling the leather on the dash. With the vent removed and refinished it was time to get my project back on track. I had two steps left. First, repair a slight depression, visible under the leather that runs in a gentle curve from the one side of the vent opening to the other. Many 355s have a similar depression. I figured the depression was the result of a dent in the dash. Turns out the backing for the leather had shrunk or never reached all the way to the vent. I fixed it with a piece of backing cut to fill the space.

As I was playing with the car I had time to reflect about the different aspects of the car and their appeal to me. There is much about the car which appeals to me. To me the 355 represents the result of a very direct, very pure focus on building the most wonderful road car possible. It can be argued that there is bit more luxury than is strictly necessary but when compared to most other sports cars all aspects of its design represent a dedication to driving that is difficult to match.

Why does this matter?

In my opinion it is not possible to achieve something special, something great, without an uncompromising focus on a clearly defined goal. The more pure the goal and maniacal the focus the better the result. Life is the same way. The goals of young life, to learn, grow, and have fun are later obscured by needs, real or self imposed -work, houses, cars, big sofas, storage closets, new drive-ways, landscaping – all of which smother the original goal. Our time here is so short, so precious why do we spend so much of it doing things which are of low value or not to our liking?

I think the idea of a good use of time has been corrupted. A good use of time does not always mean a productive use of time. With caveats a “good” use of time is time spent in pursuit of an activity you find pleasurable or rewarding.

Having fun is a good use of time.

Within the context of the Ferrari a good use of time was taking the driver’s seat out and conditioning the leather. Did it need it? Probably not but it was an excuse for Max and I to spend a few hours in the garage together.

Originally, I planned to take out both seats but the passenger seat was stuck in the furthest back position and I could not get to the bolts which hold it in the car.

I was disappointed to find nothing more than 53 cents and some plastic sheeting under the driver’s seat. I was hoping for some shell casings, a passport, something interesting. Before I sell the car I will hide something in it for a later owner to discover, hopefully they will find it interesting.

With the seat out I rubbed a bunch of Leatherique into it. It noticeably darkened the leather. The leather looked better, fresher. Before the treatment it looked more Burgundy than Bordeaux. With the best of intentions I wrapped the seat up in plastic wrap to let it sit overnight before I wiped off any residue and put it back in the car.

That evening, while putting the seat back in the car I got to thinking about Ferrari maintenance, the horror stories I have heard, and sticky interior plastic bits and without a shred of scientific evidence, conjured a theorem out of the ether as I was putting one seat back in a Ferrari. A Ferrari in which one seat refused to be removed.

My theorem is Ferrari owner’s complaints related to maintenance peak when the Ferrari is between 3 to 15 years old. Further the greatest numbers of complaints are from owners of starter Ferraris and these complaints are seldom generated by the original owner.

I think people buy these Ferraris with a few miles and years on them expecting the maintenance to be more or less like the Porsche or Corvette they were driving. Sometimes it is. The same stuff breaks or wears out. The big difference is the rate of failure and the cost of parts. Ferrari stuff wears out quickly and costs more to replace. So many owners gripe about the maintenance they are deferring and sell the car just before it implodes.

Let’s face it, for many owners, myself included, had to stretch to afford a Ferrari. When it comes time to maintain it spending $4,000 or more every year plus any other incidentals along the way can push them over the edge. I don’t recall hearing anyone complain about the maintenance on a 288 GTO. My guess is it costs a good bit more to maintain than my 355. I hear very few 430 owners complaining about their cars but I bet in a few years the next owners of those 430s will be whining about clutch prices, F1 gear boxes, and carbon brakes.

Ferrari does not care.

Ferrari did not build the 355 for me. They built it for the guy who bought it new. He drove it for a few years and sold it. He never dealt with a belt change, sticky interior bit or cat ECUs.

Back to the seat.

I know I was supposed to wait overnight or even a few days to allow the Leatherique to soak in but I couldn’t. I am sure it would have made the leather even softer but patience is not one of my virtues. I peeked under the plastic wrap and decided I had not used enough Leatherique. So I pulled the plastic off, cleaned the seat and put it back in the car. Unlike the passenger’s seat which did not want to leave the car once liberated the driver’s seat wanted to remain free. Two of the bolts which held it in place refused to thread properly so I left them for the morning. It was too late to deal with finicky Italian bolts. I treated the passenger seat in place and left it to sit overnight.

Why am I trying to make the Ferrari look new? It’s not new. I know it’s not new. Why is the patina of age not as beautiful as a pristine new car? In many things patina adds character, texture, even beauty. Maybe it is because the car is in that phase between being old and new. If it survives to 100 I hope the 355 has a nice patina.

Chapter 15 - Ferrari Track Day

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:11:00 +0000

It was on Wednesday, July 16 2008 that someone, probably someone sitting at home contemplating the past weekend, spent alone watching reality TV shows asked “do you get more dates if you drive a Ferrari?”

Ferrari Track Day

Turns out there were some fringe benefits to owning a Ferrari. One of which was getting invited to all sorts of interesting car centric stuff. During my year with the car RTGT was closing their dealership every other Tuesday night to show F1 races. If you are a car guy and are not able to attend an F1 race in person the chance to watch a race surrounded by Ferraris while eating pizza, and drinking a beer is not a bad substitute. It was at an F1 night that I was invited to a RTGT Ferrari track day, an even better fringe benefit.

The Ferrari track day was Monday June 16 2008. It was not overcast and there were Ferraris everywhere. I had no idea there were so many Ferraris in Portland. Where had they been hiding? I might see ten Ferraris a year on the road and here were twenty or thirty of them.

The RTGT track day was organized by ProDrive and followed the same format but with an additional session, a fancier lunch, and lots of Ferraris. There were about equal numbers of 360s and 430s, a couple 575s, a Challenge Stradale, one beautiful F50, and a nearly new 430 Scuderia. In addition to the various flavors of Ferraris there was a monster Ford GT with slicks, a race prepped Porsche RS America and a Lotus 211.

There were three 355’s in attendance. The 355’s were the oldest, slowest Ferraris to show up. Chronologically, the F50 was probably a year or two older than my car but as you know I view F50s as timeless. There was sufficient density of exotic cars to cause an unbalance in the universe which resulted in a small but noticeable increase in the price of a barrel of oil.

My goal for the day was to try to follow my advice from the previous track day. Listen to Tony. I was more comfortable this time. I listened to Tony. I went faster. I passed Porsches. I passed Corvettes. I passed Ferraris. I did not pass the Ford. The Ford, which Alex and Christina nicknamed “Noisy Car” passed me. The Ford did not just pass me. It blew me off the track. Once, when it went by I tried to keep up.

Bad idea.

We had both just passed a 360 and I was feeling punchy. I braked too late and entered the chicane with more speed than I wanted. I was still on the brakes after I turned in which resulted in the car being much looser than optimal. Don’t ask a car to do more than one thing at a time. Tony was yelling “Brake, HARD BRAKE!” as we skipped and hopped through the chicane.

Aside from my testosterone induced silliness with the Ford I drove well. For brief moments I explored the limits of grip with the car. It was like being on a flat roof and walking slowly to the edge, looking around and then walking slowly away. It is a testament to the engineering of the 355 that a driver with my limited skills can safely explore its limits. The feedback provided by the car is so clear and so direct that once understood the car can be taken right to the edge of its capabilities.

The car does not obviously telegraph the decreasing amount of traction through squealing tires or slight slipping so much as a general feeling of diminished control. It is as if the road surface becomes progressively slicker as you reach the cars limits. It is a difficult sensation to describe. Once that limit is passed it is another story. A car which was working with you suddenly becomes very difficult to control.

I had accomplished one of the big things I set out to do when I purchased the car. Drive a Ferrari on a race track. After the Pro Drive day I was hooked on driving on the track but I did not feel like I “drove” the car on the track. I went around the track, I went kinda fast but I did not really drive the car. This time I drove the car. If I could have sold the car that instant I would have. It would have guaranteed my time with the car ended on a high note.

When the day was over my brain was mush. Somewhere, at some point I processed too much information and was done, cooked, toast. I felt tipsy, giddy and euphoric, a result of too much sun, gas fumes, and Ferraris. That evening I could still smell overheated brakes in my hair.

What a day.

Sometime after the Ferrari Track Day I stopped dying. Alex became comfortable with my mortality. I am still unsure what causes a young adult to consider their parent’s mortality. Is it an event or combination of events? Is it the result or the child’s increased awareness?

I am confident I could ask Christina if I was going to die and she would answer affirmatively. Alex would have given me the same answer when she was six. Why did it start to bother her when it did? Should I expect the same from Christina when she is 10?

Will I be buying another Ferrari in 2011?

When I consider my own experience I cannot point to any specific event which triggered my sudden worry about my parents dying. It was not a worry I had during the day but as I was trying to sleep all I could think about was my parents dying. I was scared to be alone. My sister was seven, my brother five. How would I care for them?

I missed our talks. She was worried about me. This beautiful, smart, wonderful person who has everything in front of her was worried about me. It made me feel important, special. It made me sure I was necessary in her life. While I missed our talks I was glad she was no longer so worried about me.

Although I was no longer dying I realized I had a desire for greater risk in my own life. Generally, I am a risk adverse person. I do a good job of analyzing and limiting risk of physical injury but wanted greater risk, not too much but some. I suppose a good analogy would be climbing a small mountain with a guide. I thought driving on the Ferrari on the track would satisfy this desire but it did not.

It was an odd combination of desires. On one hand I wanted to do something so over the top and outlandish that someone else would write a book about my exploit. Something akin to sailing around the world solo with only graham crackers, an Ouija board, and a profane parrot. I wanted to entertain the constant risk of a nasty death, a death held at bay by my quick thinking, resourcefulness, and perseverance. On the other hand I wanted to spend all my time with my family. I wanted to ensure that their lives are full, rich, and comfortable.

At first glance these desires seem mutually exclusive, maybe they are. Unfortunately, both are desires I have. Driving the Ferrari on the track was not enough to satisfy my need to “do something risky”. It was a great start, but after the euphoria faded and the smell of gas and burnt rubber left my hair it was not enough.

One of the major realizations of my first track day was how safe it felt to be on the track when compared to driving on public roads. To compound the problem it was not my wits and my skill keeping me from harm. It was Tony’s knowledge of the track, understanding of my skill, and the car’s capability keeping me safe.

Chapter 14 - Getting Resident Status in Ferriastan

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 03 Jun 2011 21:10:00 +0000

On Saturday June 21 2008 someone wondered “what do women think of ferraris”. Again, Google thought I might have the answer. I don’t have the answer but I suspect many men wonder the same. On that same day someone, probably not the same person Googled “sam kennison” and was rewarded with a visit to my blog.

Gaining Resident Status in Ferristan

Until Wednesday, May 21, 2008, I was a tourist in Ferraristan. It is a coincidence that the search term “how nose rings are safe” and the date I stopped being a tourist are the same. I did not get a Ferrari nose ring. I did not even get a Ferrari tattoo. I do have a Ferrari club name tag but I have never worn it.

Until that Wednesday I was borrowing the car. It was on Wednesday, May 21st that I took the car in for service. At that moment I became a citizen of Ferraristan.

Buying the car, taking it to the track, washing it, putting a new floor in my garage, none of these things made me feel like a Ferrari owner. Taking the car in for service, describing its symptoms, surrounded by other broken Ferraris, made me feel like an owner. Silly, sure, but I was happy the car went in for service. Committing to have the car serviced made me feel like it was mine. If I buy another Ferrari, it is going in for service right away, whether it needs it or not.

While taking the car in for service meant the end of my goal to drive the car for a year without spending any money on maintenance, I did not care. I was in a Ferrari whirlwind. Maintaining a Ferrari is part of the ownership experience. So what if I ended up spending some money on maintenance?

Before getting into the service let’s talk about the floor. A Ferrari really is mistress you keep in the garage and I was unhappy with my mistress’s accommodations. I had been unhappy with our garage before the Ferrari brightened it up but once I had the car I began reducing the amount of detritus by moving unused stuff to the attic or Goodwill. This made garage neater but it was still dark and dingy. I spend a good amount of time in the garage, tinkering with stuff, working out, or messing with the cars.

About 480 commercial flooring tiles later and the garage became a significantly less dingy place. For the bulk of the floor I used white tiles and incorporated a checkered flag motif to each side by adding black tiles. Changing the floor transformed the garage. It now looks like a fitting home for the Ferrari and Porsche. It is remarkable what a change it made.

Back to Ferrari maintenance.

When I dropped the car off and described the “SLOW DOWN” light activity Kelly, the service manager, recommended replacing all the ECUs that monitor the temperature in the catalytic converters. He was unsure of the price, but thought they were around $600 each. I said to go ahead and fix it. They were going to look through the codes on the computer to see if they shed any light on the problem. With regards to the short they would call when they had three hours of labor into trying to fix it.

I received a call from the service center around lunch time. They were unable to get the fuse to blow! No matter what they did the fuse was fine. We discussed the diagnostic work I had done and they decided to spend a bit more time tinkering with the car. The cat ECUs turned out to be the source of the “SLOW DOWN” light and they were replaced. This was good news in the sense that bad ECUs were the least expensive of all the problems with cause “SLOW DOWN” lights. There was more good news, Tonkin charged me only $305 a piece, about $20 cheaper than I could find online.

Total bill, $1372.23. They charged me for ½ hours time to diagnose and fix the short which turned out to be some corrosion on a ground. I probably spent 4 or 5 hours taking the car apart looking for the problem. I was glad I took the car to Tonkin for service. They took care of one service campaign which was outstanding and checked the car for any other problems.

None were found.

Please let me brag for just a moment. When I picked the car up one of the service managers commented that several people had remarked on the color and condition of the car and I should have no problem when I was ready to sell it.

It was raining and the traffic was stop and go on the freeway back to the office. The steam coming off the engine caused the rear window to fog up on the outside.

What a great car.

While the 355 was great it was an older Ferrari. There are more capable machines. I knew this but it did not make the car less magical to drive. The word that best describes the 355 is proportional. All aspects of the car, its size, performance, interior, noise, everything seems to be in proportion. I have said this before. It does not need more or less of anything. Driving this car on a beautiful road is simply fantastic. If you like cars you owe it to yourself to find a way to drive a Ferrari on a sunny day on a beautiful road. Trust me, it is worth it.

During my honeymoon with the car there was only one gas station I was comfortable taking it to. In Oregon you are not allowed to pump your own gas. It was not that I didn’t trust other gas station attendants but the first time I had to put gas in the car I took it to this station. The attendant was very careful and asked a bunch of questions about the car. The mechanics came out and looked at the car and took pictures. It was sometime before I had the nerve to take the car anywhere else for gas.

One day, while I was getting gas at my favorite station a fellow walked up and commented that “Grigio” was a great color on the car.

“So you have a Ferrari, what are you getting next?”

“Good question. I have driven a Gallardo, but I’m not sure it would be a good next car.”

I drove the Lamborghini a few months after purchasing the Ferrari. What an impressive car. The performance was out of this world. The 355 was fast, but not in the same way the Gallardo was fast. This was the first car that I have been in where straight line acceleration was so violent that no other word than scary is applicable. The car was scary even without full throttle. When an open stretch of road presented itself I pulled the left paddle to put the car in second and pressed the throttle to the floor. Second gear went by in a flash. About ¾ of the way through third gear I lost my nerve and let off. I suppose that was what I should expect from an all wheel drive car with 500 horsepower but I was unprepared for the speed.

The car I drove was a dark blue 2004 Gallardo with the E gear (paddle shifter) transmission. The car had a mostly black interior with blue stitching. I have always liked the looks of Lamborghinis and think the Gallardo is one of the better looking cars they have produced. I don’t think I would call it a pretty car. The Gallardo is more masculine and intimidating than the 355.

If I were to fault it I would say the Gallardo was too competent and the interior too Audi. I know competency and Audiness are seldom considered faults but in the lexicon supercar they can be.

When does competency become a fault? When it takes a mediocre driver like me and makes me feel like Michael Schumacher, but in a Lamborghini not a Ferrari. The car spackled over the rough spots and imperfections in my driving, allowing me to go more quickly than I would in a lesser car.

Doesn’t sound like a fault does it?

If the goal were to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible it wouldn’t be. When driving on the street absolute speed is not as important as relative speed or imagined speed. In most situations a driver is unable to use even a fraction of the capability of an average car. The Lamborghini would be unfazed at two or three times the speed limit. This excess capacity removes the pleasure that comes from piloting a car on a twisty road at a speed which will not result in jail time. The Lamborghini is simply too good. The Ferrari, with less sure handling and 125 fewer horsepower is more fun to drive.

There was more to it than that. The Lambo with all wheel drive and traction control does more than its fair share of the driving. It provides an unfair advantage. An unfair advantage in what? I am not sure but it does. It should be the driver who makes the car not the car which makes the driver. While the all wheel drive certainly contributes to the cars phenomenal grip and does a heroic job of harnessing the cars power, I believe it makes the car drive heavily and dulls the feedback through the steering wheel causing the Gallardo to lack life. If an accountant or business consultant could be embodied in a car it would drive like this; very precise and very solid but without art or poetry.

The interior of the car looks German rather than Italian. It looks and feels high quality and well laid out but mass produced. I have no doubt that the knobs, dials, and electronics in the Gallardo will outlast those in the Ferrari but they are not as fun. They lack the whimsy and the not for everyone ethic of the Ferrari.

Add it all up and the Gallardo is faster, handles better, is more comfortable, and less expensive to maintain than the Ferrari. It appears the perfect car. But it lacks that extra something, the joie de vie which exists in the Ferrari. The heady affair which exists between Ferrari and driver is less intoxicating in the Lamborghini. I don’t think this was an oversight by Lamborghini. I think it is the German soul in the Italian body.

I know why someone searching for “sam kennison” would visit my site. Starting December 23, 2007 I dreamt of Sam Kennison the next three times I slept. I remembered the dreams but could not remember Sam’s name until the day of the last dream. During a nap on Christmas day, between opening gifts and cooking dinner I dreamt that Sam Kennison and the Ferrari were the same thing and that thing was the leather tongue on a pair of brown shoes that I wear to work.

In my dream I was not bothered by the non sequitur of Sam Kennison and a car being represented in their entirety by a piece of textured brown leather. When I awoke I remembered Sam’s name but could not get my waking mind comfortable with the concept of Sam, the car, and my shoes as one.

The first time I dreamt about Sam Kennison he was not Sam Kennison but the first employee John Halsey, my business partner, and I hired. I was constantly worried that he would yell at our clients. Unfortunately, in the dream I didn’t know his name and felt too uncomfortable to discuss my worry with him. The next night I dreamt that Sam was one of our clients and was yelling at me. I still did not know his name which again put me at a disadvantage.

My next dalliance with a different car, a 911 twin turbo, reinforced my thoughts about the difference between the Ferrari and Gallardo. The 911 I drove was a 996 body style car, I believe it was a 2001, maybe a 2002. It was a metallic tan with a tan interior.

Tan?

A tan supercar? Double tan even. Tan with red would have been something. How about tan and green? Porsche should not have offered this car in tan. I am sure the marketing folks came up with some fancy name for it, Sahara Beige or something equally foolish but regardless of the name this Porsche supercar was the same color as the 1980 Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme I drove to high school, tan. The Cutlass had an “I LOVE HAWAII” sticker in the rear window.

Even though it was tan, when I drove the 911 I felt like I was cheating on the Ferrari. I think I will be able to get away with it since I had driven our 911 to work and all 911s smell the same, a reassuring combination of gas, oil, and leather.

If you like cars you must own, or better yet have a friend who owns and lets you drive a Ferrari, a 911 TT, and a Lamborghini. I am sure there are others to add to this list but for now these are the big three, each car delivers a unique driving experience. Until driving the twin turbo I did not think it would make this list. I love our Porsche. Not for its performance but for its personality. I did not think the twin would deliver enough performance to make up for the lack of personality I was expecting. It did.

The 911 Turbo accelerated and decelerated with such ferocity that I worried I might become sick. It felt like my insides were all fighting, trying to see who could be first to get to the back seat. The car pulled harder and harder as the turbos spooled up. More impressive than the performance was the car’s Jekyll and Hyde personality. This is truly a car which could tear around the track then, with perfect civility be used to take the kids to school or pick up groceries. The twin was a race car masquerading as a Lexus while simultaneously being a Lexus masquerading as a race car. In this sense the 911 was superior to the Ferrari and the Lambo. It may be the perfect car if you could only have one vehicle.

When compared to the Ferrari the 911 turbo was not beautiful or engaging to drive. It was dead, where the Lambo was an accountant the 911 was a mortician. Sure, it was faster than the 355 and probably handled better but both cars are well past the point where faster and better handling cease to be important. At this level of car faster and better handling are paper specifications and not exploitable on the road or even the track by someone of my meager talent. What matters is the driving experience. What matters is the whole package and for me the Ferrari delivers that package in a way the 911 did not.

All that said I expect I will own a 911TT someday but after the Ferrari it will be a distant second place. These same feelings have kept me from being too excited about the Lambo. Great car, really fast, but not a Ferrari. It did not have the same ballet dancer, first growth, absolutely refined, designed by genius, no compromise, feeling the Ferrari does.

Chapter 13 - First Time on the Track

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 18 May 2011 23:06:00 +0000

First Time on the Track

The first driving class I could attend was a high performance driving class taught by ProDrive. The class was scheduled for late April and would be held at Portland International Raceway or PIR for short. PIR is just less than two miles long. When the chicane is included the track has 12 turns. The front straight is the longest and the only true straight on the track as the back “straight” is really a gentle turn. I figured the ProDrive class would offer me a chance to drive my car on the track in a safe and controlled environment while improving my driving skills.

Before going to the track I wanted to mount a camera in the car so I could film the track day. I tried a number of goofy contraptions before I found a way to securely mount a camera in the car. The dash of the 355 does not present a good platform to mount a camera; it is leather and not very deep. Mounting the camera to the inside of the windshield with suction cups did not work. Only slightly more successful was a spring loaded bar that fit between the rear windows, just behind the seats. It was not a bad idea but the bar did not fit tight enough to keep the camera level.

The camera mount I ultimately devised was much better than my earlier attempts but required more work. Not an unusual combination. The glove box on a 355 is between the seats at shoulder level. Yes, an odd place for a glove box but there is no other obvious place to put it. It is about ¾ the size of a large tissue box, covered in leather and held in place by three bolts. When I sit in the car the flexibility required to open the glove box is just beyond the limit of my ability so I put stuff in the tray in the center console instead.

I removed the glove box and used its base as a template to fashion a plywood mounting plate. I drilled three holes in the plywood plate which made use of the three threaded brackets in the car. To hold the camera in place I recycled an adjustable arm which had held the cellular phone in my old truck and secured it to the mounting plate. The arm allowed me to position the camera where I wanted it. To complete the project I covered the mounting plate in black fabric which matched the black carpet in the car.

With the camera installed I talked Barb into joining me for a test drive to take advantage of the beautiful spring afternoon and find the best camera angle for filming. Five minutes into the drive and it started to rain, the rain got harder then became slushy hail, then snow, then rain, then sun. I was really uncomfortable. I can’t tell you why. When I wash the car it gets wet. I had driven it in the rain before. Driving in the rain should not bother me.

Driving in the rain does seem to bother the car. Maybe Ferraris should not be driven in the rain. Just after the rain started the “SLOW DOWN” light flickered briefly. It could be that dampness is interfering with the sensors attached to the catalytic converters and causing the warning light. In addition to warning you the car, at its discretion, can reduce power or shut itself down if it fears it might be running too hot. I hope this does not happen during my track day. It would be embarrassing to have the Ferrari shut itself down in the middle of the track.

On Thursday April 24, 2008 I arrived at PIR. It was a cold, grey Portland morning. I was not nervous. I had been to PIR many times to race my bike so the track is a familiar place for me. My familiarity with the track both helped and hindered my first trips around PIR in the Ferrari. I benefited from intimate knowledge of the track gained from years of racing a bike on the circuit. Bike or car, the line is pretty much the same. Unfortunately, I was accustomed to following that line at about 25 miles per hour and from the seat of a bike. It looked a lot different at four times the speed and sitting in the Ferrari.

The ProDrive class started with 45 minutes of classroom discussion which revolved around vehicle dynamics, weight transfer and picking correct line. I knew everything presented. I have read enough and driven enough to know all that stuff but knowing is one thing, putting the knowledge to work is another.

Once the classroom discussion was over we went to our cars for three slow laps behind a pace car. I pulled on my helmet, ducked into the car, and got really nervous. So nervous that I fogged up the visor on the helmet and had to put it up so I could see where I was going. We lined up in a staging area in two groups of six and one group of four. I was sandwiched between an Aston Martin V8 Vantage and a Corvette. Leading our group was an instructor in a Miata. The instant we were underway my nerves were gone and I had a great time driving slowly around a race track in my Ferrari.

Maybe the nerves were gone while I was driving but the second the session was over they came back with a vengeance. I think being on the track, hearing all the cars, pulling on the helmet all served to reinforce what I was doing. While driving I was concentrating on getting the car around the track. Back on the paddock I had plenty of time to think about what I was up too. I was not scared of driving fast and only slightly worried about crashing the car or hurting myself. Mostly, I was worried about doing something stupid.

Before heading out for our first real session there was another short classroom discussion to familiarize everyone with the meaning of the different flags then we were into the cars with our instructors. I had requested Tony Cantacio as my instructor. Tony owned the black 430 I attempted to follow out of the Enzo dinner. I know what I did wrong that night. I used too much throttle for the amount of steering angle and the wet pavement. No traction control, lots of power, wet pavement, and a belligerent right foot conspired to slide the Ferrari all over the road. When the car did slide I compounded my error by counter steering and letting sharply off the gas. I felt it was wise not to mention that exploit to Tony as we got acquainted.

There was an 80 mph speed limit during the first session. I broke it. Not by much and it was not entirely my fault, Tony kept saying “more gas, more gas”. That first session was an eye opener. 80 Mph was plenty fast to give me a feeling for how hard the car could turn and how quickly I was able to be on the gas exiting a turn. I had no idea a car could handle so well. Even with the reduced top speed I went faster through corners than I ever had on the street.

The Pro Drive course consisted of four 15 minute sessions. Tony was in the car with me for each session, providing advice on line, breaking, balance, throttle input and the hundreds of other variables which go into driving. By the third session I felt more confident and ready to expand my driving limit. I must be honest. I never pushed the car’s limit. Not even close. Even during the last session, in the rain, Tony was still saying, “more gas, unwind the wheel, more gas”. I thought we were at the limit. I thought there was no way we could go faster. We were at a limit, mine not the cars, my internal traction control system had kicked in.

When I pulled off the track, at the end of the last session, I realized I didn’t have the guilty feeling I get after driving too fast on the road. Please understand I usually drive slowly on the street. I don’t take silly chances, speed, or show off – usually. I remember a time, about two years ago, I was driving our 911 down a nice road by our house, having fun. The top was down, it was sunny, a great day for a drive. I came around a bend and there was a photo radar station. No chance to slow down. My speed flashed up on the screen 39 MPH. Uh oh. Until I noticed the posted speed limit was 45. I was going six miles per hour under the speed limit.

You get the point.

I know this sounds obvious but at the track you can go as fast as you can go and it is OK. My top speed at PIR was about 140 MPH. Not super fast but fast enough. My speed through corners, while not up to the pace of the other students, was enough to have attracted the attention of any police officer, had I been on the street. At no time did I feel I was at risk or that I was putting others at risk. During the entire day I felt safe and in control even when cornering fast in the rain.

I did not expect to learn much from the ProDrive class. I thought I would learn about the Ferrari and where its limits were. I had always considered myself a pretty good driver. I can heel/toe, shift smoothly, and know how to correct a slide – usually. What I took away way was 180 degrees from what I expected. Never did I get close to the Ferrari’s limits but I was able to explore the edges of what I realized were my very meager skills as a driver.

I learned several things that day and will do my best to share them with you.

The number one thing.

Please do not underestimate this bit of knowledge it will save you thousands of dollars and allow you to confuse, humiliate, and infuriate owners of really fast cars.

Ready?

The driver matters more than the car. That’s it. For getting around a track quickly or down a twisty bit of road the driver is more important. Sure the car plays a role but a great driver will be quicker in an average car than an average driver in a great car.

I know what you are thinking, “Give me a break, your Ferrari is faster than my Honda, I would never be able to keep up with you.” In a straight line my Ferrari and I would probably to go faster than you and your Honda. But what about turning, braking, accelerating, picking the right line? If you are the better driver I bet I won’t be unable to keep up. Why, because your ability as a driver more than compensates for the greater ability of my car.

Here is my rational, based entirely on what I learned that Thursday. A driver is only able to extract as much performance from a car as the driver’s mixture of skill and experience will allow. Sounds obvious. There is more, the car’s capacity, in most cases, provides a performance threshold which is beyond the average driver’s ability to safely exploit.

The relationship between car and driver relative to skill and capacity is straightforward. As driver skill increases the difference between the ultimate capacity of the car and the realized capacity of the car decreases. Will a poor driver be able to go faster in a fantastic car than in a mediocre one? Sure, the product of the equation is affected by the cars capacity. Further, overall capability of the car plus driver is always less than the total capacity of the car. How much less depends on how good the driver is in relation to the car. In my case, overall capacity was far below the capacity of the 355.

Luckily, driver capacity can be improved through training and the gap between total capacity and realized capacity can be reduced. The relationship between car and driver was driven home my first day on the track. I did not pass anyone.

The Aston Martin passed me.

The Corvette passed me.

I was passed by everyone else. No matter what they were driving. The Subaru, the Honda passed me. They were all better drivers.

I have always been impressed by fast cars. I know, or think I know their statistics, 0 to 60, horsepower, lateral G, active suspension, fastest time around the Ring. It’s all nonsense, not good for anything other than bragging rights. Buying a fast car may win a crummy driver the admiration of high school kids and points with the enthusiast crowd at the local cars and coffee but I have a new goal, to win admiration of good drivers regardless of the car I am in.

Important item number two.

I learned that the guide I had been using to judge when a car is at its limit was totally inaccurate. When Tony and I were going through turns he kept saying more gas, more gas. At the time I could not imagine applying more gas. Were the tires squealing? Was the car feeling loose? No. The car was flat and solid, the tires silent. Tony said more than once, this car has a lot more to give. He was right.

My internal calculations of what a car can do are not calibrated for a Ferrari. What are they calculated for? Probably the 83 Mazda RX7 I had in college. I was close to picking the right line and was rolling on the throttle smoothly but I was doing it all at ½ speed.

I learned that what I once thought was the limit, what I once thought was fast wasn’t. I had new appreciation for fast.

Important item number three.

The experience left me with a greater appreciation for what a complex set of tasks driving entails and all the risks encountered when driving on the road. Once I left the track I realized traffic was coming at me, people were driving way too close to one another, they were talking on phones, sipping coffee, and scolding kids. Somewhere in the midst of all this they had take stock of the ever changing road surface, the cars around them and their relative speeds and directions.

Add all that up and you have a dangerous, uncontrolled environment. When I left the track I was terrified driving down the freeway, even though I felt I could get out and walk faster than the 60 MPH traffic.

Important item number four.

Next year, if I go to the Enzo dinner I will be able to leave the parking lot properly. I learned what to do when the Ferrari starts to slide. At one point, during a session after just it had rained a bit I got on the gas too hard exiting the chicane. The car slid. The ground was wet and while we were going slower than during the sessions when it was dry track the car lost traction because of my clumsy foot. I did a much better job of controlling this slide. I did not immediately let off the gas and resisted the urge to violently over correct. It was not graceful but I kept the car pointed in the right direction and Tony only made a passing remark about being more careful with the throttle.

So how do you keep a Ferrari from sliding around? Don’t ask it to do too many things at once. When you think about it there are really only four things you ask of a car. Speed up, slow down, turn, or maintain speed. At the track the very first thing I learned was I had to use the brakes to slow down for corners. It is seldom on the road that I am driving fast enough I have to brake for a corner. On the track if I had to brake for every corner. If not, one of two things would have been true. Either I was going too slowly or I would end up getting well acquainted with a tire wall.

If you get to drive on the track or if you are going fast enough on the road that you need to brake for a corner don’t ask your car to slow down and turn simultaneously. Get all the busy, distracting stuff involved with slowing down and changing gears done while the car is going straight. Let the car settle down then turn.

Why? Turning unsettles the car, braking unsettles the car, and shifting unsettles the car. Together, these unsettling events reduce the tire’s grip and the speed at which you can safely get through the corner. Easy stuff, but watch other drivers. Most people apply their brakes when turning and do not release the brake until they are well past the apex of the turn.

That’s it. That’s what I learned. Drivers are important, I had been using the wrong gauge to estimate my cars’ limits, driving on the road is scary, and only ask a car to do one think at a time.

I had several reasons for taking the driving course. One was to safely explore the limits of the car. I didn’t get there. I safely explored the limits of what I was capable of. I wanted to improve my ability to drive the car. Job done, but I could have learned so much more. If you have the opportunity to take a driving class, listen to your instructor.

I left a bunch of potential learning on the table. Tony kept saying “get on the gas, get on the gas, quit coasting” as we were going through turns. At that time I knew we were at the limit. I was wrong we were nowhere near the limit. It seemed like we were going so fast. I will defiantly be back at the track and when there I will do some things differently. Trust the car, listen to the instructor, and push myself. There were a few, fleeting moments when I got it right. Tony would immediately say “Did you feel that? Did you feel how the car unwinds more quickly when you are on the gas?”

Yes, I did feel it, when I get back to the track, more gas.

Chapter 12 - Let the Tinkering Begin

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 17 May 2011 17:24:00 +0000

Let the Tinkering Begin

The parking lot attendant at our office likes the car. When I first drove it to work he quizzed me about it.

“How much did this car cost?”

“Not as much as you might think.”

“It is new?”

“No, a 98.”

“Looks like a new car.”

“Tell me, how much did you pay?”

“Just over seventy thousand.”

“Seventy thousand for a car! You can buy a house for less than that.”

Now he tells people the car is his. He lets them take pictures but won’t let them get to close.

“You can take a picture but stay away from my car.”

Starting Friday April 11 2008 the “SLOW DOWN” came on every other time I drove the Ferrari home from work. At the time I thought the car was trying to tell me something.

“Don’t drive me to work, what do you think I am? A sedan? Some pedestrian four door piece of garbage? You think I am a sedan. I know it. How dare you treat me like this? I deserve better.”

The warning light came on at almost exactly the same spot where it appeared the first day I had the car. Literally, within ten feet, right before the left turn I make onto Humphrey Boulevard. I was driving home from work then as well. Each time the light went off within a few seconds. I am not making this up.

Perhaps in the roughly four miles between my office and the Sylvan exit the car was exceeding its temperature threshold but why did the warning light go off almost immediately? Why did it not come on when I drive the car, often in a more spirited nature and for much longer distances, on the weekend?

In addition to the intermittent “SLOW DOWN” light the car developed had developed another small problem. The light(s) that illuminate the speedometer, tachometer, and other gauges no longer worked. This was only inconvenient if I drove at night and was interested how fast I was going or how much gas was left. I hoped it was just a fuse. I did not want to consider the effort it would take get up into the space behind the gauges to change a bulb.

It took a few minutes but I found the fuse box and happily discovered that my dash light problem was due to a blown fuse. Ferrari had been kind enough to supply spare fuses so problem solved. Deep down I suspected the problem was greater than a blown fuse. Fuses do not self destruct just for fun. I was pretty sure there was a short somewhere in the circuit protected by this fuse but at that instant I chose to believe that changing the fuse would solve my problem.

While looking for the fuse box I discovered the CD changer and a big knob that says “OFF”. I thought the car had a CD player but as I can’t imagine listening to anything other than the motor I had never looked for it.

In case you ever have to change a fuse in a 355 the fuse box is in the luggage compartment, on the driver’s side, just behind the headlight assembly. It is not under that odd little bump in front of the windshield, no matter how hard you look under that odd little bump, which is shaped just like a fuse box, you will not find any fuses.

To get to the fuse box you have to remove a carpeted cover. The cover is held in place with bolts that don’t look like bolts. They look more like something you would pull to release, not turn. Each one has a little Cavallino on the top. Later I learned that some 355s were supplied with an almost identical looking device that had to be pulled. Once you remove this cover you will see a bunch of wires, connected to a weird machined aluminum block with metal tubes coming out of it and a plastic cover. The fuse is under the plastic cover. There are two nuts which hold it in place.

Why am I telling you this?

Because the owner’s manual does not. It simply says the fuse box is in luggage compartment and provides a diagram of the fuse box. The diagram has to be held upside down to line up with the fuses unless of course you are standing in the luggage compartment.

This would be annoying in my Toyota. Come to think of it a blown fuse would be unacceptable in my Toyota but in the Ferrari it was endearingly idiosyncratic. While searching through the owner’s manual for clues to the short I came across the following gem.

“Warning - Always remove the ignition key when leaving the car in order to avoid risk to passengers remaining in the car who may accidentally operate the window switches.”

I chose not test the fuse right away. I knew it was going to blow the instant I turned the lights on. A few days later when driving home around dusk I had got my answer. No lights. The fuse I replaced was also blown. Is it correct to say a fuse has blown? Not sure. In any case the instrument lights did not work. To add insult to injury the lid that covers the gas cap is no longer opening. To open the gas lid you push a button on the central console, a little pin retracts, and a spring forces the lid open.

My hunch was that the spring no longer had the oomph to open the door. Unfortunately, I cannot buy just the spring. I can buy the entire hinge assembly for $72 but I would like to try to fix it myself before replacing the whole thing. I don’t think the electo – magnet (Ferrari’s term) is bad because the pin holding the door closed is retracting.

Back to the fuse.

According to the owner’s manual the instrument lights are on the same circuit as the lights which illuminate the license plate. This circuit appears to have nothing to do with the gas cap lid. Since would be easier to check the license plate lights than remove the instrument panel I decided to start with them. No luck. I was hoping to find a frayed wire partially welded to the rear bumper. Nope, everything was in good shape. I took the time to clean the sooty exhaust buildup off the bulbs, lenses, and bracket. When I was done I had very clean license plate lights which still did not work.

Some online research pointed the possibility of a problem with the ground for the instrument panel lights. Unfortunately the ground is located behind a vent with no convenient or even inconvenient access. I can get to the ground by removing the vent or the instrument panel. As neither seemed like easy options I decided to remove the pod which holds the instrument panel. The vent is fairly small and I don’t think I could fit my hands in there to do any work.

On a quiet Saturday morning, right after I made a cup of coffee, I went into the garage, set up my shop light and went to work.

That’s not entirely true.

I was too impatient to wait until the coffee was done. I ground the beans, went to the garage and set the shop light up, went back in the house and poured boiling water into the French press, back to the garage to find and remove the two screws holding the instrument pod in place, back in the house to press the coffee.

The 355’s dash has three major components, the instrument pod, the upper dash and the lower dash. All three are covered with leather. In my car the instrument pod and the upper dash are black. The lower dash is Bordeaux. Removing the instrument pod requires a Phillips head screwdriver and no mechanical aptitude what so ever. Remove the two screws near the bottom, lift the end facing you up and pivot the back down to free it from a bracket.

Both articles I read recommending turning off the power to the car prior to removing the instrument pod. Remember when I was poking around looking for the fuse box and I found a knob with the word “OFF” on it? In the 355 you turn that knob to “OFF” instead of disconnecting the battery. Cool huh? I figured I would start out following the directions. There would be plenty of opportunities to disregard instructions and do what I wanted.

I also took the precaution of covering the steering column with a cloth to protect it from scratches. The steering column is covered with two trim pieces made from the silly putty rubber product that Ferrari used on the interior of the 355. I am sure this product had some redeeming features at one time if it still does they are lost on me. In spite of my precaution I scratched the top of the steering column. You wouldn’t notice it if you were not looking. I will notice it every time I get in the car. I had planned on replacing the lower of the two panels, now I will have to replace both. The material is so soft you could scratch it by covering it with terry cloth and yelling at it.

In the manual version of the 355 there are six different wiring connectors which need to be disconnected to remove the instrument pod. There is no need to mark them as they are all different shapes. After a minute of two of fiddling they came apart and the instrument pod was free.

At this point I had a Ferrari with a big hole in the dash. Nice. The car looked like had I stolen it and was parting it out to pay for drugs.

With the pod out I looked at the ground. It was not really “behind” the vent. It was behind and to the side of the vent, enough so that my big fingers would never be able to get to it. The ground looked fine. Makes sense, the gauges still worked and they were connected to the same ground.

I wish I would have thought of that before removing the instrument pod.

I messed with all the wires looking for corrosion, burns, or any other weird stuff but found nothing. I loosened the screws that connect the lighting rheostat to gauges and made sure they were making a good connection. Before connecting the wiring and putting the instrument in place I cleaned and conditioned the leather.

I doubt I fixed the problem but I didn’t have a 7.5 AMP fuse to test my work, having destroyed all the spares Ferrari was nice enough to provide.

I was right. I did not fix whatever was causing the fuse to blow. Luckily it does not appear that I broke anything while I had the dash apart. I picked up a packet of 7.5 AMP fuses, put one in, turned the key far enough to provide power to the headlights but not so far as to start the motor. No instrument lights. Checking the fuse revealed it was blown. With the ignition off, I put another fuse in, and immediately pulled it back out to check it. Still intact, I put it back in and turned the key. I did not turn the lights on. When I checked the fuse it had blown. Hmm, gonna have to think about this.

Inexplicably my tinkering with the dash and license plate bulbs has fixed sticky fuel lid. I know the two systems have nothing to do with one another. Well, I think the two systems have nothing to do with one another and I cannot fathom how my messing with the dash or the lights would have any effect on the fuel lid but it now works perfectly. My efforts were not completely in vain.

A new approach was needed. I called another Ferrari owner with more mechanically aptitude than I. Kevin Matlock and I met on a wine country drive with arranged by a mutual friend, Jon Lebre. Barb and I met Kevin and Jon at a Starbucks.

We drove out to JK Carrier, a winery in the Yamhill valley. Jim Prosscer, owner/winemaker/friend, was bottling wine but took a break from his day to taste a few wines with us. The road we took to Jim’s winery was bumpy so I switched the 355 to comfort mode. If there was a difference in the ride quality I could not detect it. The only way I was sure the car was in “Comfort” mode was a big orange warning light shaped like a shock absorber.

Kevin suggested removing all the bulbs, putting in a new fuse, and adding bulbs until the fuse blew, this way if the short was in one of the bulbs I would locate it and could replace the bulb. I had already put the dash back together so I tried this approach with the license plate bulbs.

No luck. However, motivated by Kevin’s scientific approach I experimented with the light switch in different positions. The fuse did not blow if the exterior lights were off. This led me to conclude that the short is between the lights and the relay. Maybe.

I needed a break from the electrical gremlins. I decided to wax the hood and front fender, a project where my chance of success was pretty high. Shortly after buying the car I purchased a bottle of Zymol. I did not think different brands of wax would have such a large difference. I used good wax before but I can see the difference made by the Zymol. I can also smell the difference. Zymol smells like banana vanilla wafer pudding. I love banana vanilla wafer pudding but ate too much when I was young. Since then I have not been able to eat it. Luckily, the smell brings back only fond memories.

Waxing the car started my love hate relationship with its paint. The color is beautiful with a wonderful liquid quality. It is one of those colors which changes dramatically depending on the light. On a cloudy day the paint takes on a silvery blue tint. In bright sun the blue is gone and metallic titanium dominates. The paint is beautiful as long as the surface has not had to face any road debris. The lower section of the hood, front edges of the fenders and mirrors have taken a beating. My 911 has more than 78,000 miles on it. It has fewer paint chips than the Ferrari. I think the chips are due to the amazingly thin paint. Don’t get me wrong it is not poor quality paint or a bad paint job. It is just thin paint.

The paint chips gave me an excuse to go to Tonkin. A previous owner tried to touch up a few chips with the wrong color of silver. Steve Wintermantel, the fellow I would have bribed with Borolo had my Ferrari buying experience been exactly what I expected, called their service center and asked them to send over a vial of grigio titanio paint. While waiting we looked at a F40, 599, and 456 which were parked in their garage and a Radical on the showroom floor.

Steve suggested I ask Kelly, RTGT’s service manager, about the short. I drove to their service center hoping to get some tips on fixing the fuse. “Bring it to us, we will fix it.” was all Kelly would offer up. I suspect he knew something I did not. Letting Tonkin fix the car would have been the right choice. At the time and now as well I doubted my ability to find the short and didn’t want to end up with pieces of the Ferrari spread all over the garage and be unable to put it back together. Regardless I was not ready to give up quite yet. Not ready to admit I could not fix it.

There were other reasons not to take the car to Tonkin.

Tonkin would fix the car. No doubt about that but I would have to pay for it. Taking the car to Tonkin would ruin my plan. Gone would be my goal of spending no money on maintenance. Not only would my plan be shot but I was worried about other issues Tonkin might find. The “Slow Down” light probably will not fix itself. I was afraid Tonkin would find all sorts of things wrong with the car, that my perfect car was not so perfect. If so I did not want to know.

I took another run at the short but this time I was prepared. Well maybe not prepared but better equipped than before. I bought a multimeter. Before starting I made the mistake of looking up the cost of new gauges, $2,718.59 for the set. How’s that for exact pricing? Not $2,699 or $2,719 but $2,718.59 and not a penny less. I didn’t imagine the gauges are causing the short, after all they still work. Looking up the price was macabre entertainment.

I laid out a big moving blanket, tools, and my new multimeter on the garage floor behind the car. The multimeter was just like the one my Dad had when I was a kid, the old fashioned kind with a needle. I removed the license plate light assembly and bulbs. Presto, continuity. Like I thought, or anyway like I hoped, there was a short somewhere on this circuit.

What I still didn’t know was if the license plate bulbs and the gauge bulbs are on the same circuit. I decided to assume they were. There was evidence which pointed to my assumption being false. According to the owner’s manual the gauges share the circuit with the license plate bulbs. The gauges still worked it was just the lights which are out.

I worked my way up the wire from the license plate bulb to a junction, disconnected the junction and tested the upstream end. Continuity again. The short was further up. I continued working my way up the wire. Unfortunately, the air intake got in the way. To get past the air intake I had to remove a panel, about eight inches wide and a few feet long that Ferrari put in place to hide wires and hoses. With the panel out of the way I was able to remove the hose connecting the air filter box to the intake on the side of the car, behind the passenger’s ear.

The hose is flexible, made out of fabric, and takes an odd route from the intake vent near the front of the engine to the air filter box at the rear. I followed the bundle of wires as far as I could before they disappeared into the bowels of the car. I did not find anything that looked or felt like a short.

Everything went smoothly until I was replacing the Allen bolts I had removed to take out the panel. Each had a washer and I dropped the washer from the last bolt into the engine bay. On a regular car this would not have been a big deal. The washer would bounce off the exhaust manifold and land on the garage floor. In the Ferrari it landed on the tray that runs from the front to the back. I considered leaving it there to fall out the next time I drove but that did not seem right so I took a coat hanger bent it straight and fished it out. Barb asked what I was doing.

“Building custom Ferrari maintenance tools.”

With the car back together I tested the circuit at the license plate bulb. No short. Fantastic, maybe my wiggling of wires had temporarily fixed it. Then I remembered I had not reconnected the junction. Still shorted.

Know what would help?

A wiring diagram. Anyone who knew what they were doing would have looked for a wiring diagram after the second fuse blew. Since I have no idea what I was doing it took me several days to come to the conclusion that a wiring diagram would help.

I could not find one anywhere. Then I had an idea. I went to the Ricambi site, found the parts catalog for a 5.7 Motronic 355 and looked up the part diagram for the license plate light. Ah ha, a wiring diagram. Well kinda, more like a top view of the car with some lines showing the routes of the various wire bundles. The wire I am interested in runs from just above the license plate around the engine on the passenger side then behind the passenger bulkhead to the center tunnel. From there it runs under the ashtray and up into the dash. It goes nowhere near the gas cap lid.

Maybe I nicked the wire when I was installing my new ashtray. After I tucked the kids in I went into the garage, set up my shop light, we have terribly weak lighting in our garage, and took the ashtray out. No luck. The wires are well below and too the side of the screw that holds the ashtray in.

Uncle. I surrender. Tonkin it is all yours. Really, I mean it. I hope there is nothing other than the short and the catalytic converter ECUs wrong with the car.

The instant I decided to let Tonkin take care of the car I realized no matter how much it costs to fix, no matter how much I spent on maintenance I would not regret buying this car.

Chapter 11 - A Mistress You Keep in the Garage

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 19:35:00 +0000

A mistress you keep in the garage

Winter in Oregon is a cruel time to own a Ferrari. Before the car was mine I assumed I would drive it almost every day. Now the idea of driving it in bad weather has gone out the window. I know it won’t melt, I know nothing bad will happen but I have become uncomfortable with the idea of the car getting dirty.

I was not alone in not wanting to drive my Ferrari in the rain. Most of the folks I met who owned Ferraris, exotics, or other unique cars were loath to drive them in wet weather. Some keep their cars so clean that I understand their not wanting to drive in the rain due to the amount of effort necessary to return the car to such a state after a rainy drive. Most of them are like me, their cars are not that clean but they could not provide a good reason why they don’t want to drive in the rain. They just don’t. As a result the Ferrari sat in the garage for weeks at a stretch. On the few days when there was a chance of dry roads I always had errands at work which prohibited the use of the car.

There was another reason I did not drive the car. In hindsight it was a silly reason. I was scared I might damage it. That it would get a door ding or a paint chip. I rationalized my fear by saying “It’s a Ferrari. No one drives them in the winter.” If I could do it over I would drive the car all the time. What good is it to spend one year with a Ferrari in my garage?

Since I was not driving it I decided to spend time fixing small cosmetic flaws and buying the Ferrari trinkets. It is possible to spend the gross domestic product of Tokelau on a Ferrari. Not including the purchase price. If you include the purchase price and a track day or two you would have Tokelau’s Head of State, Queen Elizabeth, at the time this book was written, visiting the World Bank for a loan.

My spending on the Ferrari began innocently enough. I bought it some jewelry. I spent $41.00, plus $8.00 shipping, on four valve caps for a car I was afraid to drive. I knew it was absurd but I didn’t care. I knew $41.00 Ferrari valve caps will not make the car faster, handle better or look substantially different but I was developing a concrete vision of what the Ferrari needed to be and small details were important.

As valve caps go they were pretty nice. They were chrome with little yellow and black Ferrari logos. A small hex head bolt on the side locks them in place. They will not end up gracing a bike messenger’s fixie without putting up a fight. After I bought them they sat in my desk drawer for over one year. I thought I would only use them for special occasions. Special occasions? They are not cufflinks, they are valve caps.

There were a few other items on the Ferrari which were inconsistent with its overall condition. The first out of place bit I decided to tackle was the Ferrari badge on the engine cover. The badge is held in place by compression fittings on two pins which poke through the engine cover and had pulled up slightly on the right side. I thought one of the compression fittings had worn out or broken. It would be an easy task to replace the compression fitting if there were not a wire screen attached to the underside of the engine cover. I suppose the screen keeps leaves, birds, and small mammals from falling through the slats in the engine cover and into the engine. The screen is attached in several places and is about two inches below the engine cover. The screen made a simple repair significantly more complicated.

To replace the compression fitting I would have to remove the screen. Not hard but time consuming and risky since the screen looks like it would bend easily. Purchasing a new compression fitting would only set me back $1.95 but I don’t know how I can fit it in place without removing the screen. To replace the screen would cost $781.85 so I opted to leave it in place.

The engine cover is unlatched by pulling a handle between the driver’s seat and the door. The cover is amazing light for such a big piece of metal. It feels like it is made of balsa wood. With the cover open and my shop light blazing I could see that the compression fitting had not failed but had slipped down the pin about 1/6 of an inch. That should be easy to fix. I took a screwdriver and gently pushed the fitting back up the pin while holding the badge in place. It held. Total time to fix this problem, about three minutes.

I am a tinkerer. Like most tinkerers I am better at taking things apart than putting them back together. I am well aware of this but with the best of intentions I still take things apart. Buoyed by my success with the badge I decide to take on the trim around the ash tray. One of the nice things about mostly handmade cars is they are easy to take apart. By removing the part of the ash tray where one would put ashes a Phillips head screw was exposed. Remove the screw and the ashtray/lighter module came out. With ashtray module out of the way the electronic mirror remote and the climate control module can also be removed.

I placed a towel on the garage floor and soon had a small pile of Ferrari pieces arranged on it. It did not look good. What would Barb say if she walked into the garage? It would have been difficult to explain why, after nine days of ownership, I had taken the Ferrari apart. Luckily my tinkering went undetected.

The interior of the 355 is a combination of leather, aluminum, wool, and silly putty. I expect when the car was new the silly putty was plastic covered with a coating which gave it a matte finish. Now it is black silly putty.

The ashtray is covered with silly putty. When compared to the steering wheel column or the door handles the ash tray was in great shape, but it had cracked and a one inch long piece of the trim was missing. I noticed the crack when I test drove the car but at that time the piece of trim was just cracked not missing.

The missing piece was in the most likely place, between the passenger seat and the center console. Two drops of super glue fixed the trim but I discovered another crack in the frame of the lighter module that I was not sure how to fix. The crack was not visible but it caused the entire assembly to sit at a slight angle in the center console. I was going to have to replace the whole works if I wanted it to look perfect.

With the components of the center console out of the car I decided to remove the 10 years of dirt that had collected in various cracks and crevices. I took a cloth, dampened it with rain water, really, I did not have any Pelligrino handy and you don’t expect me to clean up a Ferrari with tap water.

After cleaning the interior I decided there were four trim pieces I wanted to replace. The ashtray/lighter module, the mirror control, the door handles, and the lower covering for the steering column. That sounds like a lot of components. Saying I want to replace all those parts makes it seem as if the car’s interior was in bad shape. It was not, the interior was in fine shape. However, it was not consistent with my vision of what the Ferrari should be.

A new ashtray for the Ferrari is $375, pretty steep, especially since I don’t smoke. Let’s say you wanted to replace the ashtray in your Toyota Matrix. $15.24. Your Lexus LS 430 $86.40. For $499 I can buy a complete motor for an Isuzu Pup.

I decided to buy the ashtray anyway.

On a lark I looked on eBay. Someone was selling a new ashtray for $149 with a “buy it now” price of $300. Worse case I save $75. I decided to risk it, live on the edge and not take the “buy it now” option. The auction closed on Friday morning at 6:05. I waited until 6:03 and put in a bid for $301. I won, spending $270 for the ashtray.

When the new ashtray arrived I decided to see if I could recoup some of the $270 by selling just the lid from the old ashtray. It sold to a guy in France. The new ashtray came in a nice yellow and black box that said “Ferrari Original Parts” all over it. To give the new owner a treat I put the lid in it. I took the box to the Post Office, filled out the customs sheet and went to pay.

“An ashtray?” asked the postman.

“Yes.”

“A $60 ashtray?”

“Yes, and what’s worse it is from a car and just the lid.”

“No kidding. And a guy in France wants it?”

“Yep.”

“What kind of car?”

“A Ferrari.”

“Don’t they have other Ferraris in France; did you sell it on line?”

“Yes.”

Then the postman gave me a high five.

“Way to go. $60 for an ashtray. Go figure.”

I noticed that the ashtray bins were being offered on ebay for $175. That is totally insane. It is about seven cents worth of plastic. Plastic that will turn to silly putty if you insult it or look at it wrong but I have an extra that no one has ever even said the word “smoke” around. It sold for $40.

While taking it apart was certainly fun there were things I wanted to do with the car which involved driving. Things I thought needed to be done to have a proper Ferrari owner’s experience. Before buying the car I made a list. Take the Ferrari on a road trip, take it to the track, and let my Father drive it.

In addition to the standard stuff I thought it would make interesting reading if I took the Ferrari on a fly fishing trip and used it for a ski day. Aside from the obvious issue of a Ferrari being the wrong tool for either excursion I clearly had not thought about the logistics. Where would I put my waders or skis? Using the Ferrari in this way appealed to me before I owned it because they seemed rebellious and anti typical Ferrari owner. With the car in my garage they seemed foolish.

Without a doubt the best part of my Ferrari experience, was driving the car on the track. Over the course of my year with the car I participated in three track days. I have had no driving instruction, other than self-inflicted learning opportunities, for over 25 years since Dad taught me to drive in a little yellow pickup. It was a Mazda or maybe a Datsun, I can’t remember which. We called it the Bumblebee. Any surface which was not already bondo was in the process of losing a battle with rust.

I was 13 and spending the summer with Dad in Hawaii, later that year my new found skills were put to a test when I drove my Grandmother’s farm truck 60 miles through the Missouri countryside. We were taking a rafting trip and needed a second car to ferry my uncle, cousin, and sister back up river to where we put in. At 13 I was the oldest of the kids and probably taller than my uncle so I drove the farm truck. Maryann and I drove behind my uncle so we would not get lost. The transmission on Grandma’s truck was not as forgiving as the Bumblebee’s. I ended up leaving the truck in second for the entire drive. This strategy got us home but irritated my uncle and most other drivers, especially when we were on the highway.

I miss cars like the Bumblebee. Cars where closing the door too hard will result in parts falling off. This truck had a garden hose in the engine bay. You could shift it with or without the clutch. There are not enough old junkers on the road these days.

Since that I learned most things the hard way, through experimentation. If you enter a corner too fast and hit brakes you usually exit the corner backwards and not in the line you would have chosen. If you are parked in tall dry grass, do not turn the car on and let it idle.

It took an incident, on Saturday February 16, 2008, to render with perfect clarity the fact that the Ferrari was more car than I was able to handle. Fortunately I did not hurt anyone learning this lesson. Unfortunately, I learned it leaving the Ferrari Club’s annual celebration of Enzo Ferrari’s birthday.

You read that right, no reason to review that last sentence.

All over the United States, possibly the world, Ferrari clubs gather to celebrate Enzo’s birthday. I joined the Ferrari Club of America during my search for the car. I wanted the opportunity to ask members questions about maintenance and gain insight into what to look for in a car. The Enzo dinner was the first local event of the year and as newbie member I thought it would be polite to attend and possibly provide some interesting people watching.

The Portland celebration took place at an Italian restaurant not far from our house. Before leaving Barb joked that she should wear tight white pants and a leopard print top. I did not know she had such an outfit and while I am sure she would have looked nice her comment shed some light on her expectations of Ferrari owners, or more specifically owner’s wives. I countered that it was the Ferrari club not the Camaro club then asked what her comment said about Ferrari owners and their wives.

“They like fast cars and fast women.”

“So… I own a Ferrari does that make you a fast woman?”

The dinner was fine, uneventful, but fine. It was exactly what one would expect of a dinner to celebrate the 16th anniversary of Ross Perot announcing he would run for president on the Larry King show except people were talking Ferraris not Perot.

No trophy wives, no outlandish outfits. No one danced on the tables. I was disappointed.

When dinner was over we dutifully sat in the parking lot letting the car warm up and then followed a black 430 out of the lot. The 430 took off with a significant amount of gusto. So that’s how you are supposed to leave Ferrari club events. I tried to follow his example. Before I knew what was happening we were facing back into the restaurant parking lot. Unfortunately, our path would have taken us over the curb, across some grass, through a low hedge and then into the lot. I over corrected and let off the gas, a combination which resulted in the Ferrari suddenly gaining traction and reorienting itself about 135 degrees to the left.

I had turned right out of the lot so I was now pointing across the street at the other curb, luckily the street was wide and there was no traffic. It is cliché to say time slowed down. Time was oblivious to my little stunt. What I do know was that while part of my brain was rapidly shouting commands to my hands and feet another part of my brain was considering how embarrassing it would be to re-enter a parking lot full of Ferraris through the shrubs and yet another part of my brain was calculating the cost of a new air dam, wheels, and alignment. Finally, a fourth part of my brain determining how to best explain all this to Bart, our insurance guy. For the parts of my brain not charged with coordinating hands and feet the incident seemed to take about five minutes not three or four seconds.

Smack dab in the middle of my pirouetting Barb calmly said, “I’m not looking.”

In those three or four seconds I learned something about the Ferrari. Make a mistake and it will kill me. Ferraris do not suffer fools lightly. The experience did more than convince me I needed some driving instruction prior to driving the car on a race track, it convinced me I needed some driving instruction right away.

Chapter 10 - A tourist in Ferristan

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 22:05:00 +0000

She asked Google “why men buy Ferraris”. It was Tuesday February 9 2009. I expect I was able to provide several different answers.

Tourist in Ferristan

In the nanosecond before I owned a Ferrari I was anticipating immortality. If not immortality at least better looks, a bigger brain, and a better tan. I was going to be a titan. I was sitting across from a smiling bald guy and had just lifted a pen from the last letter in my last name. I now owned a Ferrari. For an instant, just for an instant it was all there. Venezuelan expats who fix elections own Ferraris. Members of the Russian Duma crash Ferraris on the Promenade des Anglais with underwear models.

I was all of that.

For an instant. It did not last. No tan. No underwear models. Everything was the same.

There was a difference. I was now in debt and may have just acquired a beautiful rolling Italian liability. Guess what? No would know. It would be my secret. For almost everyone else I could have a suit case full of cash and be easing a member of the senate out of his seat.

It was Friday December 14th. I collected the car at 1:00. Picking up the car was not eventful. It was not anticlimactic. It was less than anticlimactic. I signed some papers and Joe handed me a set of keys. That was it. I walked over and sat in what was now my Ferrari. There was a splattering of oil on one of the rims from an old MG that had been parked perpendicular to it. As I turned the key I was nervous and excited but my overwhelming feeling was of disappointment. The search was over. This was my first Ferrari. This 355 was it. I was disappointed with the car. Disappointed I was not sitting in a 430 or Challenge Stradale. The 355 was a compromise. Nothing happened. The car did not start. I got out and asked one of the service guys. With the 355 and probably other Ferraris you have to use the remote to activate the starter. Two chirps and a turn of the key and the car came to life.

The disappointment did not last.

My first order of business had nothing to do with to do with fixing elections. I was going to pick Alex up from school. Alex climbed in, stuffed her giant parka in the passenger foot well and said, “Dad, this is a cool car.” Then, “Dad, that guy is taking our picture?”

I have only been to South Beach once and have never been to Monaco but I bet the experience of owning a Ferrari in Portland will be a substantially different from the experience had by owners in those hot beds of Ferraridom. I drove the car for about 45 minutes and stopped counting the number of times people took pictures. People honked, waved, and gave me thumbs up. I did not see another Ferrari on the drive home. I cannot remember the last time I saw a Ferrari driving around in Portland. If I were in South Beach I would see Ferraris every day. Portland, especially Portland in December is a fun place to drive Ferrari.

If the event of picking the car up lacked drama, the drive home made up for it. Less than five hours into Ferrari ownership I had my first maintenance scare. I had just left the freeway and was looking forward to my first drive on Humphrey when what appeared to be a warning light flickered briefly on the dash. It flashed on and off so quickly I was not sure it was a warning light at all, maybe it was the light from the car behind illuminating my dash. A few moments later and I was sure it was a warning light but it was so quick and infrequent I could not make out what it said.

My stomach sank. I was four and one half hours into Ferrari ownership and warning lights were flashing. When the light finally stayed on long enough for me to read it the words “SLOW DOWN” were illuminated in big letters. Slow down? I was going 35 miles per hour behind a minivan. Slow down? I can’t go much slower. What kind of a warning light says slow down? Was this some sort of joke?

Maybe the car was looking out for me. The temperature was hovering just above freezing and it was misting rain. Maybe the Ferrari had bonded with me and was worried I might get frisky on the wet pavement. All the other gauges look good – as far as I could tell I had only owned the thing for a few hours.

I followed the cars advice and slowed down. The “SLOW DOWN” light disappeared before I made it home. Perhaps I had gone slow enough to make it comfortable.

“SLOW DOWN” lights have nothing to do with bad weather or Ferraris’ care for their drivers. According to the owner’s manual the “SLOW DOWN” light illuminates when the exhaust temperature exceeds a certain threshold. If the light is blinking you drive slowly home and call a service center as soon as possible. If the light is solid you stop immediately and have the car towed to a service center. The warning is to keep you from ruining the engine by running it too hot.

That did not sound good.

I did not like that answer what so ever. Further research revealed the “SLOW DOWN” light can occur for a number of reasons, most caused by one of the many maintenance gremlins which haunt 355s. “SLOW DOWN” warnings are frequently caused by the connections between the sensor and the catalytic converter becoming corroded or if there is a bad connection at the ECU. Dampness may aggravate this problem. The car had performed flawlessly throughout the day and I doubt the drive from my office to my home warmed the engine beyond acceptable operating temperatures.

After considering all the possible causes I was no longer so worried. When I drove the car the following day the “SLOW DOWN” light did not reappear. Further I realized that the value of the experience was going too far exceed my estimated budget and if I do end up spending a bit on repairs fine. I had entered the honeymoon period. After every drive my appreciation for what a wonderful piece of machinery a Ferrari is grew. The chassis design, the engine, the aesthetics all wonderful, all with the exception of the climate control system. The climate control system was not wonderful. The Ferrari was fantastic but it was incredibly cold. Even with the heater turned all the way up I had to wear a jacket when driving it.

There was a reason. I discovered it while waiting in line at the DEQ to have the smog check done on the car. As I sat, idling in the Ferrari for a bit over one hour, during which time I used about 1/8th tank of gas and belched 84 pounds of green house gas into the atmosphere. There were a few hundred other cars doing the same. You can do the math. We were all waiting at the DEQ CLEAN AIR STATION. Waiting to have our vehicles emissions checked.

To keep Oregon’s air clean.

When it was finally my turn I pulled the car into the bay and climbed out. The DEQ guy plugged in the data cable. Nothing. No output. “Sorry” he said. “Take it back to the place you bought it. We can’t test it. Sorry about the wait.” Non parlo italiano. DEQ computers don’t speak Italian.

There was an upside. Sitting in line I learned how the heater works. Actually, (I strongly dislike starting sentences with “actually” but in this case feel it is the appropriate word) I learned how to turn the air conditioner off. To turn off the air conditioner in a Ferrari 355 simply push the button, located on the climate control panel in between the seats, labeled “STOP”. To turn the air conditioner back on push the “STOP” button again. I noticed the “STOP” button the first time I drove the car but had not worked up the courage to push it. Who knew what might happen? Sitting in line at the DEQ with the car in neutral and the parking brake on I pushed the “STOP” button. In about 5 seconds the windows fogged up. A freezing Ferrari became a sauna.

Learning to operate the climate control was not my only Ferrari ah ha for the day. When sitting perfectly still, with no forward motion what so ever, the Ferrari’s speedometer read 11MPH. I had pushed the “STOP” button during my first few minutes at the DEQ I now had almost one hour to ponder the optimistic speedometer reading.

My first guess was electrical malfunction. I did not remember the car reporting a speed which seemed high when moving,. 20 seemed like 20. 60 like 60. When I got home and parked the car I noticed that the tachometer did not drop to zero when the ignition was switched off. If you just had the gauges to go by you would assume that 500 RPM is the slowest the engine can ever turn and 11 MPH is the slowest the car can go.

I researched “Ferrari Speedometer Malfunction” on line. I posted questions on the Ferrari Club technical forum. Lots of people looked, no one answered. After two days with no responses I did the sensible thing. I used a shop light to illuminate my dash. You know the little pins on the speedometer and tachometer that keep the needle from going below zero? Well, below zero in a sensible car. On the Ferrari the pin stops the speedometer at 11 MPH and the tach at 500 RPM. Ferraris don’t just go to 11, they start at 11.

This episode taught me a valuable lesson in Ferrari ownership. If you want to enjoy owning a Ferrari don’t worry about the stuff which would be unacceptable in a Toyota. You have every right to expect a Toyota’s speedometer to start at zero and accurately record every increment of speed thereafter. In a Ferrari anything under 50 is irrelevant. The little things that make a Toyota great are lacking in a Ferrari. The big things that make a Ferrari great are lacking in a Toyota.

Chapter 9 - Stop Shopping

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 15 Apr 2011 22:10:00 +0000

On Tuesday January 13 2009 someone asked “how to talk your wife into buying a ferrari”. That’s an excellent question. Good luck fellow traveler may your manifolds never crack.

Stop Shopping

Gran Prix asked for a check for the entire amount of the car. I wrote it. Joe said they would hold the check until Scott comes through with the loan then I will have a Ferrari and Gran Prix will have $71,000.

Later that day Joe called to say that Dick Guthrie had given the car “a thumbs up” and Gran Prix would trailer it to the paint shop. I used all of my negotiating powers to get Joe to throw a re-spray of the front bumper. It took several hours and I had to storm out of the dealership twice but he finally capitulated. Actually, he volunteered to have the bumper cover repainted saving me the expense of doing it later.

I called Dick to get the full measure of his opinion. He told me the car was in great shape and needed nothing. That was good news. Even better the car had the best compression Dick had seen in a 355. The only negative item he discovered were some scrapes on the undercarriage, maybe from a bit of off-roading in the car’s past.

I felt good about the car after the last test drive. This news made me feel even better, I was confident this was a good car. Based on what I learned during my search for a Ferrari I developed a theory about 355s and Ferraris in general. This theory is based on nothing more than my own observations and prejudices. As such it may be entirely worthless but as I have gone to the trouble to tell you other nearly worthless things I believe I should be consistent and throw this in too.

My theory is that there are milestones during the life of a Ferrari when the opportunity to purchase is more compelling. The first opportunity is when the car is new or nearly new. In a Ferrari nearly new means fewer than two thousand miles and only a year or two old. The only downside with a new or nearly new Ferrari is they often sell for over MSRP.

The second buying opportunity exists in the mid twenty thousand mile range for cars which have been well taken care of and had major service items completed. As I researched 355s I noticed that cars with very low miles sold at a premium. This does not make sense. I can understand why a newer Ferrari with a few thousand miles and a warranty would sell at a premium but the newest 355 will be of 1999 vintage and out of warranty. It seems to me that a 355 with fewer than twenty thousand miles comes with a fairly large maintenance liability. A bunch of critical items have not had a chance to break yet.

Cars with over twenty thousand miles often have had this work done but sell at a discount when compared to their less well traveled peers. If my math is right a car with lower miles and lacking the valve and manifold services will sell at a $15,000 premium over a higher mileage car but may require upwards of $20,000 in service. That is spread of over $35,000 for a car with ten thousand fewer miles, roughly half the price of the higher mileage car.

Take it or leave it, that’s my theory.

On Friday December 7, 2007 I had some free time and used it visiting ADT. Easier said than done. After two trips around the block I gave up driving, parked my truck, and started walking. On foot it did not take long to find Dick’s shop, the Ferraris parked inside gave it away.

I will do my best to give you a description of what I saw and heard after walking in. There was stuff everywhere. Interesting stuff, stuff best described as having lots of texture. If ADT were sandpaper it would be 40 grit. Ferraris, in various states of disassembly, classic motorcycles, and other interesting mechanical bits were piled everywhere. Some cars were hidden under covers. There was an old, partially restored Aston Martin and remote control airplanes, big ones, mostly models of World War II fighters hanging from the ceiling and stuffed onto shelves.

Classical music was playing loudly from speakers mounted atop the office space which had been carved out of one corner of the large, old commercial building which housed ATD. A heavyset fellow, dressed in shorts and a tee shirt, was arguing that the complexity of the universe and the difficulty human’s encounter when attempting to understand nothingness is compelling evidence for the existence of a higher power. He did not appear to be addressing anyone in particular.

ATD was one of the most wonderful places on the planet. It was perfect, I could live in here.

A woman came out of the office and introduced herself as Linda Guthrie.

“Are you David?”

“Yes”

“I had expected someone shorter. Tall people are disadvantaged when it comes to Ferrari ownership.”

“Uh, well I slouch a bit when I drive”

“Are you going to buy the car?”

“Yes, I bought it.”

“Congratulations, what a beautiful car. I like the contrast between the silver exterior and red interior. And 355s are such nice performing cars. Have you owned an exotic car before?”

“No, but I have a 911.” I said hopefully, but could see from Linda’s expression that my 911 does not count.

The fellow talking metaphysics decided it was time for him to leave, said good bye and wandered out. Almost simultaneously Dick emerged from the office. Dick was bigger than I am and so at an even greater disadvantage when it came to driving Ferraris. Dick asked if I bought the car and upon hearing my answer reassured me that I had made a good choice.

Our conversation switched to some of the cars in his shop. The Aston, whose restoration has been stalled for years as the owner decides on a paint color and the old red truck whose dash had repeatedly come in and out. Finally, I asked Dick how much I owed for the inspection.

“One hundred eighty dollars.”

“You said two fifty when we talked.”

“Well my memory’s not what it was. One eighty will be fine.”

While I hope my car does not have to visit them, I looked forward to the chance to talking with Linda and Dick again. Sadly this was not to be. Dick passed away shortly after I had the pleasure of meeting him.

Things seldom work out exactly how you planned.

The car left ATD on Thursday and went to the painters. I hoped that between the time at ATD and the painters I would be able to arrange financing and not have to dig into savings to cover the cost of the car. Scott had fast tracked my request and should have the money early next week. If possible I would like to pick the car up on Wednesday, one week after I bought it.

Everything was in order for the loan. Everything looked good. No skeletons in my closet. Scott had to attend a seminar in Portland on Tuesday so he was going to bring the paperwork Barb and I needed to sign.

Only two months ago I decided to buy a Ferrari and write a book. I had accomplished a good bit toward that goal; posted an on line journal of my progress, found a good car, and hopefully, found a way to purchase the car using little to none of my own money, and most importantly convinced Barb that buying a Ferrari is a good idea.

Did you know that banks are required to give you three days to think about what you have done after you sign papers for a loan so you can change your mind? I didn’t. Once I signed the loan papers Summit will not be able to apply the funds to my account for three days. I will not be able to give Gran Prix a check that will clear until Friday.

For about 10 minutes this was not a problem. Almost immediately after learning I had to wait three days for the money I received an email from Joe letting me know the painters were unhappy with the quality of the paint job on the bumper and decided to do it over. If I had the money for the car I would be disappointed but as I am not ready to pay for the car it was blessing, but only for 10 minutes. Hot on the heels of the “car is not ready” message was the “we accidentally cashed your check” message.

I called Barb and asked her to stop shopping.

Chapter 8 - I just bought a Ferrari

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:20:00 +0000

On Thursday October 9 2008 someone was led to my site by Goggling “how to build a model tar pit”.

I just bought a Ferrari!

It was anticlimactic.

One day after the test drive Joe called to ask what I wanted to do. He caught me sitting in my truck, stopped at a red light on Highway 30 in northwest Portland. I had decided to buy the car, even if I had to spend over $73,000. Even so I was still not ready to say yes. Close, but not ready. I bet many potential Ferrari owners become non-potential owners at this point. I was comfortable with the 355, both Barb and I liked it. It would make a great character in this story but I did not want to commit to buying it, was not ready to commit to buying it, sitting in my truck stopped at a red light.

30 Minutes later I emailed Joe and told him I did not want to get in a bidding war with a 12 year old and would pay $71,000 for the car. I then closed my email and did not look at my Blackberry for an hour. When I logged back in I had a message from Joe saying the car was mine.

Simple as that. It was Wednesday, December 5th 2007.

I am not sure what I expected. The rain to stop, maybe some theme music punctuated by an F1 motor howling in the background. I called Joe to start the process of getting the pre-purchase done. I then called Scott and told him I needed money as soon as possible. I had started to fill out the forms for the line of credit but stopped when the car was “sold” on ebay. I now have to hustle to get those done, to make matters worse Scott is going out of town for a few days.

That’s it.

I had just bought a Ferrari. I was sitting in my office. It was quiet. It was raining. No different than before.

I am not being truthful. I know exactly what I expected.

My expectation of my Ferrari purchase did not include rainy Oregon weather, email, or filling out forms. Frankly, my expectation for my Ferrari purchase did not include 355s.

This is tad embarrassing but this is what I expected.

After finding and negotiating the purchase a perfect F50, Silverstone with Bordeaux, from a Count who was a dear friend of Enzo’s I made arrangements to collect the car the Ferrari factory and enjoy a few days of great driving and wonderful food in Italy.

The flight to Italy was pleasant. I am a big guy but the 1st class seats were comfortable and accompanied with a never ending supply of cheese and champagne. Plus, the flight attendants were nice enough to bring warm towels every hour or so. I usually don’t travel well but getting to Italy was effortless. Even customs was easy, I got a laugh from the customs agent when I wrote, “To pick up my dream car” as my reason for entering the country.

This was our first time in Italy and I confess I was nervous about driving the Ferrari here. I don’t read Italian. There are were little cars, scooters, and motorcycles zipping chaotically around. After a full day of traveling I decided not to rush to see the car. I wanted to take a shower, a nap, and get a good meal.

We booked a room at the Giovanetto in Castelfranco Emilia, a small town just outside of Modena. It’s a quiet bed and breakfast, the beds have thick comforters and big down pillows. The room was painted a pale yellow. After a glass of wine and a plate of antipasti I slept well.

When I told other Ferrari owners I was picking the car up at the Factory and getting a tour they were incredulous. Why should I get a tour? I bought a used car. Sure, it’s an F50 but it was still used. The answer is simple. I bribed my local Ferrari dealer.

I was not taking any chances, how often will I get to go to Italy to pick up a F50? It did not take as much as you might expect. Tonkin arranged the sale and I made sure two cases of Barolo found their way into Steve’s hands. Admittedly they were 2001’s but I think it was well worth it. That was it, 24 bottles of wine and we are picking the car up at the Factory and getting a tour.

Barb and I arrived at the Factory at 11:00 am. I am glad we chose to wait and recover from the flight prior to seeing the car. We were met by an attractive tour guide, wearing red, who led us to the only F50 parked inside the main entrance. Sharing the courtyard with the F50 were two 430 Scuderias and a 599.

The F50 is essentially a formula one car with an extra seat and wearing a slinky dress. The car has a 4.7 liter V12 that produces 513 horsepower. The chassis is made of carbon fiber. If you look closely at the bodywork you can see the carbon fiber weave through the paint. Ferrari made only 349 F50s and our car is one of only a few which is not red. The car looked perfect in each of the 312 pictures I had been sent. It looks even better in person.

I hope the weather will stay dry as the F50 does not have a roof. That’s not entirely true. I made a commitment to being honest. The car does have a roof but it was stored in a rather large piece of luggage which arrived in Portland the day before Barb and I left for Italy.

I spent 20 minutes looking at it. Just staring. I didn’t touch it. I was afraid to get in, worried that doing so might cause me to wake from a dream. After a broken Italian/English conversation with our guide Barb learned we were going to have lunch before going on the tour. That was fine, I was hungry.

We went across the street from the Factory to Cavallino for lunch. The tour started at 1:00 so we had plenty of time for lunch. I have no photos to share. The rumors you hear about Ferrari not allowing cameras on the tour are true.

I can tell you that the Factory is amazing. The most memorable part of the tour was the Ferrari Classiche department. Classiche will restore older cars with original parts or build new “original” parts for the car. There were some beautiful cars undergoing restoration.

With lunch and the tour over it was time to drive the car. It was only now that we realized we couldn’t leave the Fiat in the parking lot across the street from the Factory. One of us gets to drive the Ferrari one of us would be stuck in the Punto.

Barb and I flipped a coin for it. She won. Jealously, I followed her back to the B&B to drop off the Fiat. For our first drive in the Ferrari we had mapped out on a driving tour which took us on some narrow country roads north of Castelfranco Emilia.

The weather was perfect, 70 degrees big clouds, blue sky, and beautiful Italian sun. This was the right place to pick up the car. The roads were barely wider than the Ferrari and twisted through farms and little villages. We nearly got stuck in one village when the road became too narrow for the car. The houses were built right up the road.

An old woman wearing a shawl poked her head out of her window and shook her fist at us. If she could have I bet she would have slammed her shutters. Admittedly the car is loud and the sound was amplified by the echo of the exhaust note off the houses. We made quite a scene backing out of her neighborhood in search of wider roads.

We had five days of this. Great roads, wonderful food, beautiful wine, and the Ferrari to enjoy in Italy. When we returned the car to the Factory I got to drive. I said good bye to the F50 and was back in the Fiat to the airport for the trip home. Tonkin arranged for the Factory to ship the car to Portland.

Of all our experiences one stands out as unforgettable and completely surreal. It was our third day and we planned a driving trip south to Monfestino, for no particular reason other than the roads looked nice on the map. Just outside of Pazzano di Sotto we turned right onto a small, narrow road. We had not gone more than 300 meters when the road was lined with attractive, young people, male and female, in underwear. They were standing about 10 feet apart. Some were standing at attention, some talking with their neighbors. Those at attention seemed annoyed by their chatty neighbors.

The underwear started off white, then as we progressed, now slowly, down the road the underwear started to gain some color, first light blue, then greens, the yellow, then orange, the last was red. Needless to say we were both confused until we saw several cameras mounted on a motorized rolling platform. I stopped and asked what was going on and a British guy told me they were filming a laundry soap commercial. He said they had 312 models in their underwear. I asked why they did not close the road. Why bother was his answer.

That is what I expected.

Chapter 7 - Barb drives a Ferrari

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:19:00 +0000

On March 29, 2009 someone mused about a “speedometer sitting at 10mph” What could that have to do with Ferraris?

Barb Drives a Ferrari

We have a tradition of making homemade pizza every Friday. We call it “Pizza Date.” We make the dough a day in advance and let it rise in the refrigerator. We use Italian bottled water. While I would never presume to say we have perfected pizza I would venture to say we make a pretty good pie. One of my plans for retirement includes opening a pizza restaurant in an interesting town and pursuing the perfect pizza.

Mom came over and after a slice of pizza and a glass of wine I asked if she would watch the kids Saturday morning so Barb and I could take a look at the 355.

It rained.

Not much chance of a test drive, I doubt Joe would worry about the car getting wet but I want to focus on the car not navigating a powerful sports car on slippery roads. It would certainly make for exciting reading but I don’t want a chapter describing my experience of losing control of the Ferrari and stuffing it into a muddy ditch while avoiding a family of ducks.

Rain or not Barb and I decided to take advantage of mom coming over and drove to Gran Prix. The folks at Gran Prix had been cleaned the 355 up. It looked much better.

Originally, silver was not high on my list. It seemed to me that silver was a non-color for a Ferrari. A color picked by someone unsure what color they wanted. Not flamboyant like yellow, classic like red, or menacing like black. Silver was an admission of indecision. This 355 is technically grigio titanio or titanium silver. The color has a liquid quality which does a nice job of highlighting the complex curves on the cars flanks.

Walking around the car I notice there is a spot in the interior where the leather does not quite cover a trim piece. The exposed bit of trim says much about the Ferrari. Ferrari’s goal was to craft a magical suspension and mate it to a fantastic V8 then cover the result with the thinnest veneer possible. It also suggests that quality control was not what it should have been.

Barb fit in the 355 better than I.

“I like it more than I thought I would.” Was all she said.

We are off to a good start.

Joe wants us to take it for a drive but you already know I am uncomfortable with that. While I plan on driving any car I buy in the rain I don’t think I can answer the questions I have about the car if I take it out in this weather. Further, I like to approach decisions carefully and Barb driving the car is a major step in any purchase. If she has not driven and approved of the car I will not buy it.

Yes, I am hiding behind Barb’s test drive, but by delaying the test drive I can postpone my decision and chew on it a bit longer. Joe is leaving on Sunday for a vacation and is gently pressuring us to put some money down or just buy the car. I’m not doing either. I don’t like extraneous deadlines influencing my decision making process and have not yet had the time to settle on this car. After all, it is the first 355 I have looked at and only the second Ferrari I have driven.

Before I decide to buy a Ferrari I want to look at others, talk with a Ferrari mechanic about the problems I can expect with a 355, 360, or 456, and find a shop to perform a pre-purchase inspection, PPI for short. Tonkin seems the obvious spot for the inspection but Gran Prix does not want the car going there as there is some bad blood between the two dealerships.

Turns out I was able to kill all three of those birds with one stone. A few days later, when searching for Ferraris online, I found a black 355 for sale just a few miles from my office.

I snuck out to take a look.

While the asking price is over $10,000 less, cosmetically the car was not in as nice of shape as the silver 355. I didn’t feel comfortable enough with the car to drive it. I had a hunch it would be pretty easy to spend $10,000 fixing cosmetic items on a Ferrari. Further, I suspect anyone who would neglect cosmetic issues would neglect mechanical issues as well.

The trip was not a total waste, after I explained my plan to the owner, he recommended I contact Dick Gutherie at ADT, an independent Ferrari shop, to do the pre-purchase inspection and serve as a resource to discuss Ferraris.

I called Dick when I got back to the office. He was wonderful to talk with. Of the cars on my list he liked the 456 the best, saying it was a wonderful car. Unfortunately, there are no 456s anywhere near me and I would like to limit my search to local cars to keep costs and complexity down. If I were searching for a rare Ferrari or had more specific requirements staying local would not be an option but as I am open to a number of models and color is not a sticking point I expect to be able to find a good car close to home.

While I hoped he would know the car, there are not that many 355s in town, Dick was unfamiliar with the 355 at Gran Prix but agreed to complete the PPI if I wanted to move forward with the purchase. He believed the most important component of the PPI on a 355 is a compression test to make sure the valves are in good shape. The PPI for the 355 will be about $250. He did not want to perform a PPI on a 360, too many electronic parts. He suggested I go to Tonkin for that. During our discussion he expressed some doubt regarding the long term reliability of the 360. His concern was the cars were still relatively young and have lots of complex parts that may or may not age well.

After talking with Dick and hoping for a sunny, or at least dry, day I scheduled another test drive. The night before the drive I decided to do a bit of homework, to be ready to wheel and deal with Joe if necessary. To check sales activity and recent prices on 355s I looked at completed eBay auctions. Yes, I know eBay is not a dependable source of pricing information for Ferraris. It’s a great venue for dealers or private sellers to get their car in front of a national audience but not an entirely viable tool for buying something as personal and complex as a Ferrari without seeing the car. I checked eBay to review the “Buy it now” prices of Ferraris. I think those prices are often more appropriate than bids from potential buyers.

Two 335s had sold recently, a yellow 1997 spider with 49,000 miles and a black 1997 spider with 24,000 miles. The yellow car went for $55,100 while the black car brought $60,000. There were several pictures of the yellow car and it looked to be in good shape but neither car had enough service history information to provide a good picture of its mechanical state.

After viewing the sold items I looked at the current crop of 355s for sale. The silver 355 from Gran Prix, the car I was supposed to drive the following day, was already bid up to $72,950, Gran Prix’s asking price. I planned to drive the car then make an offer in the high 60s, pending service history review and PPI.

I was frustrated.

Had a higher power dedicated itself to ensuring I never parked a Ferrari in my garage. Higher powers should have more important stuff to do.

There were two bidders chasing the 355. After reviewing their bids I felt better. The bid history was not consistent with what I would expect from someone with the intent to purchase a Ferrari, an Xbox and some video games. Huh? Seems like a big jump from Gran Theft Auto to a real life, full size, dents if you wreck it Ferrari.

Finally, I compared the price for the silver 355 to other cars currently for sale. The silver car is the most expensive 355 in terms of bidder activity on ebay. Based on the bid history, the other items the high bidder’s has sought, and the unusually high price relative to other cars I believe the bid is spurious. The higher power has pitted me against a pimply 12 year old in Peoria who at this very moment is bragging to his friends how he is buying a Ferrari.

I could be completely wrong. The bidder could be a local buyer, familiar with the car, who does not want to purchase directly from GP. The bidder could be someone who has always wanted a silver 355 with red interior and is willing to pay extra to get it. If either scenario was the case, I apologize. Please know I meant no harm. Enjoy the Xbox.

Spurious bid or not I was still frustrated and decided not to drive the car. If the ebay auction falls apart I can make an offer for the car. If the auction is successful I may have missed out on another car but there will be others and I will have some funny content for this book: Beaten to a Ferrari by an 8th grader.

I will know in three days.

I called Joe and told him I didn’t feel it was necessary to drive the car as they have already “sold” it for more than I am willing to pay.

“Come drive it anyway. No one is going to buy the car until you decide what you want to do.”

Flattering Joe. This is a tactic to get me back in the dealership and back in the car and I know it. It worked anyway. Minutes earlier I had resolved to let the auction run its course, to risk the opportunity to buy the car to see if the 12 year old was really a questing mid lifer. My internal critics were howling. “What are you doing? You just decided to stand on higher ground. Stay true to your decision.”

To placate my critics I thought, in my most reasonable inner voice, “I am not going to buy it or even place a bid. Barb and I are just going to drive it. It will give her a chance to drive a Ferrari. Where is the harm in that?” All the while the speaker (thinker?) was privately thinking “Tricked em. Now we can buy the car no matter what.”

How can one part of my brain conspire against other parts? How is it that at least some of these different parts seem aware of their skullmate’s intentions but are unable to resist his manipulation?

Did Joe know about this when he made his offer?

I assumed my test drives would take place on warm, sunny days. On the day of our second attempt at a test drive, it was raining lightly at our house. In Wilsonville the weather was worse; it was 37 degrees and trying to snow. It did not fit my mental image of what a Ferrari test drive should be.

The first car I noticed upon walking in was not the 355. It was a red 360 Challenge Stradale. It was the most impressive 360 and one of the most impressive Ferraris I had ever seen. If you are unfamiliar with the Challenge Stradale it is a performance oriented 360, as if ordinary 360s are not performance oriented enough.

Folks in the know call it a CS or just a Stradale. The Stradale is Ferrari distilled, a Ferrari with all the extraneous stuff boiled out. The interior has just the creature comforts needed to make the car bearable. The seats are a carbon fiber shells covered in Alcanthra. There is no carpet and not much trim. The floor and other guts of the car are exposed. There is a carbon fiber center console with a big red “START” button. Generally, I dislike the idea “START” buttons in road cars. “Start Buttons” seems silly, especially if you need a key in addition to the button, but I am going to give Ferrari some leeway in the case of the Stradale. Engine output is increased to 425 bhp and the more powerful motor is mated to an even faster F1 gear box.

Ferrari added some significant but unobtrusive aerodynamic modifications and a stiffer suspension to take full advantage of the power. This car is fantastic. With the exception of the $230,000 price tag this Ferrari would be perfect for my project.

The 355 was hiding behind the Stradale. Even with a big red bow on the roof it looked pedestrian and uninspired when compared to the Stradale. Barb and Joe were out first. After about 15 minutes she was back and it was my turn. “Easier to drive than our Porsche” was her only comment as we changed places.

Joe’s crew had found and fixed whatever had caused the odd noise coming from the engine. The car sounded great with no out of place or worrying noises what so ever. I told Joe I wanted to take a longer test drive to get to know the car better. Joe suggested a route with some nice stretches of road and good curves. As we were driving he mentioned there was a dip in the road where he became airborne with a fellow during a test drive in a 911 turbo. I kept the Ferrari on the ground.

The car performed flawlessly on the wet roads. It turns out that Ferrari’s have windshield wipers which work just like windshield wipers in regular cars. It did not leak, the glass did not fog up and the paint was not water soluble. During the drive I tested the clutch for slippage by putting the car in 6th at about 45 miles per hour and flooring it. The car accelerated smoothly as the RPMs rose.

Why was it OK to test drive a Ferrari in the rain this time when I did not think I would learn what I needed by driving the car in the rain last week? Don’t know. It might have had to do with the car being “sold” on ebay. It might have had to do with my realization that I wanted this car and if Barb did not drive it I would miss the chance to buy it.

This is the Ferrari I was going to buy. I knew it before the drive but never admitted it to myself (or you). The car has a solid service history with all the services documented in a binder. Also included is the original window sticker, pictures of the car being delivered and a receipt for a $250 model with a color scheme with matches the car ordered by the previous owner. The service history reveals that the valves were replaced during the 30,000 mile service which was performed about 3,000 miles ago. Unfortunately the model does not come with the car.

If I am going to buy this Ferrari or any Ferrari eventually I will have to make an offer. I hear myself telling Joe I would like to buy the car in the mid 60’s around $67,000. I was removed from this, like an out of body experience. Joe responded that he already has an ebay bid for $73,000 and they have high 60’s in the car. I countered by asking what they want for the car. Yes, I know that’s a dumb question but negotiating is not my strong suit. Closer to $73,000 was his reply.

On the drive down I had set my high offer at $67,000. I felt that if I could buy the car for $67,000 I would be getting a great deal and have a good chance of breaking even on the car. When I did not know the service history $67,000 gave me a bit of wiggle room. I now know the service is up to date but do not want to offer a higher bid without reflection and consultation with Barb. I told Joe I would be in touch and we left to pick up Max.

Chapter 6 - 355 Test Drive

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 14 Apr 2011 20:18:00 +0000

“where is the door handle on a Ferrari 355?” This question was posed by someone on May 3, 2009. Don’t scoff. It is a pretty good question.

Ferrari 355 Test Drive

Nine days after driving the silver 360 I dropped by Gran Prix, and parked next to a slightly dirty 355. After I walked in Joe told me the red 360 was not there but suggested I take a look at the silver 355. As I said earlier, the 355 is a good looking car, old school when compared to the 360 but still an elegant and compact Ferrari. The car parked in front of Gran Prix is the older, smaller brother to the 360 I drove; even the color combo was the same, silver with a red and black interior. I didn’t loiter around the car for too long, I didn’t want to make the owner nervous.

There was a yellow 355 spider on the floor. I had yet to sit in a 355 and this seemed as good a time as any to see if I would fit. The door of a 355 has two large air intakes which take up most of the bottom half of the door. On the top half of the door there is only the key hole. No door handle is visible. Hmmm. I discreetly pushed on the key hole but that didn’t do anything. I don’t want to demonstrate my Ferrari rookiness by asking how to open the door but I could not figure out how to get in the car. The top was down, but I could not figure out what on the interior of the door constituted the latch either.

Joe saved me. He walked up and asked if I fit in the silver car.

“Don’t know I thought it was owned by someone wandering around the dealership.”

I didn’t add that I could not figure out how to open the door. Best to keep that bit to myself. When we walked back out I purposefully followed a few steps behind Joe so he would reach the car first. It worked. The door handle is tucked inside the top of the two air intakes. I had run my hand along the intake but the door handle is recessed and I missed it.

Gran Prix had just taken the car on trade. While I did not drive the red 360, I did get to drive a 355. From the second the motor started the different character of the car was apparent. 355s are less refined than 360s. It is a loud, rowdy little car. Joe reinforced the rowdy ethic by getting the car sideways in the dealership driveway. You could do the same thing in a 360 but it would seem out of character. The 355 is less refined in a good way.

Joe drove a few blocks then pulled over so we could switch places. I was more comfortable in the 355. Not physically, physically I was less comfortable but mentally, the 355 was not as intimidating as the 360. I suppose there are two reasons I am more comfortable. This was the second Ferrari I had driven and I knew I was not going to do anything foolish. When driving the 360 I was keenly aware of the price of the car. I did not want to shunt $140,000 worth of Ferrari into a ditch or have a piece of wayward piece of gravel put a divot in the windshield. The 355 is significantly less expensive and already had a small divot in the windshield.

At first, the sensations delivered driving the car reinforced the differences I felt from the passenger seat. The 360 is a bigger, broader, stiffer car. Where the 360 felt refined and elegant the 355 felt nimble and playful. The 360 felt as if it would bail me out if I got in over my head, the 355 felt as if it would joyfully get in over my head with little help once I got there.

With the exception of the gated shifter, everything about the car felt lighter than the corresponding component on the 360. Shifting the 360 was effortless. Shifting the 355 requires a firmer hand. In many ways the 355 is similar to my 911. It is analog where the 360 is digital.

After just a few moments the similarities between the cars began to shine through, there was the same feeling that all systems in the car were built to work together. That nothing was out of place. I take that back. There is one piece of the 355 which did seem out of place. The steering wheel. I liked the size and feel of the 360s steering wheel better. The 360’s steering wheel is a slightly smaller diameter than the 355s, making it easier to fit my legs under the wheel, and the air bag housing on the 360s wheel is much smaller. The 355’s steering wheel looks like the giant steering wheels found in early 90’s Mercedes.

Even though my test drive methodology prohibits fast driving my seat of the pants analysis suggests the 355 was not quite as quick as the 360. I bet it had to do with the 355’s slightly lower amount of torque. As Joe and I wound out through the country, on the same roads we used when test driving the 360, I was struck with the feeling that this car was more delicate than the 360. It did not seem delicate in the sense that it was fragile or going to fall apart but delicate in the sense that it had only the lightest touch on the road. I think the best way to describe the way the 355 feels on the road is that it is dancing. The car danced down the road.

In the 360 there was more of everything. More room, more dash, and more power. Well, maybe not everything. The 355’s massive steering wheel dwarfs the wheel in the 360. When driving the 360 the view out the front and through the rear view mirror constantly reinforced the sense that you are someplace special. The view from the 355 is more pedestrian. With the exception of the fantastic engine note coming from just behind my ear the car is less of an event to drive than the 360.

During the test drive I did have one bit of trouble. My feet are big and the foot box in the 355 is small. The one time I found myself with an open stretch of road in front of me and decided to give the car some gas I over revved the engine on the shift from 2nd to 3rd by about 3000 RPM. I couldn’t let off the throttle. My foot was stuck under a heater vent above the throttle. The RPMs immediately jumped to about 8000 and the bypass valve for the exhaust snapped opened. The car was shrieking, but coasting since I pushed the clutch back in the instant I realized there was a problem. It only took a second or two to free my foot but that is something to remember if I drive another 355. It would be inconvenient if that happened in traffic.

Back at the dealership I inspected the car more closely. It was clearly used, with some pitting of the paint on the air dam and a scratch here and there, but in nice shape. During the test drive I noticed an odd rattle coming from the motor that seemed to vary with RPM. I cannot afford to buy a Ferrari with any hidden problems and I am predisposed to fear the maintenance liability that I think 355s have, but Gran Prix’s mechanics have yet to give this car a once over so it is still on the list.

355s had been at the bottom of my list due to their history of maintenance problems but the car I drove started fine and with the exception of the rattle, ran like a champ. It did not seem like an unreliable car. Plus, 355s had depreciated to about ½ of their original sale price and should not depreciate much more over the course of the year.

The 355 seemed like a good deal.

This car might just satisfy my goals for “one year with a Ferrari” better than the 360. Why? It is less stuffy, less serious, costs a bunch less but is still obviously a Ferrari.

That said, I am one of those people who are attracted by bargains. Sometimes I feel compelled to buy stuff I don’t need just because it is a good deal. Away from the car I was not sure if I was attracted to the 355 because of the price or because it is a fantastic car. To compound matters after becoming so spun up about the 360 I am unsure if the 355 will satisfy my Ferrari desire. I needed a sounding board. Someone who would not call me a dork for wondering if a 355 is Ferrari enough. A call to cycling buddy and fellow car nut Brain Abers was in order.

Let me paraphrase our conversation.

“Brian got a question for you. Do you think my one year with a Ferrari idea has less value if I go with a 355 rather than a 360?”

“Well Box what are we talking about here? Are there any bad Ferraris?” Brian responds.

“No it’s not like it’s a Magnum PI car.” I say.

“And even a 308 is a Ferrari and is faster than most cars on the road”

At this point Brian’s cell phone lost its signal and our conversation ended. Brian answered my question. A 308, Testarossa, Mondial, or even 400 would be a fine car for the book. Any of the Ferraris I was considering were more than adequate and there were more pressing problems to deal with. I still had not found a home for our 911. I was pretty sure I could talk Barb into parking the minivan in the driveway for a few weeks but winter is well on its way and it would be unfair to ask her to load our kids and Max’s wheelchair, into the minivan in the rain. Thoughts of winter, rain, and snow lead to another question, is the beginning of winter the right time to buy a Ferrari? The car might be less expensive but there will be many days ahead when it will be impractical to drive. Plus, I will be selling it in the winter and need to remember that I should expect a slightly lower price as well.

I don’t want my book to be titled “One year with a Ferrari – How I turned a Supercar into a Messy Divorce in 365 Days” so attention to detail where both money and reducing the impact of this decision on Barb’s quality of life is concerned is important.

Back to storing the 911, if you live in Portland and want to store a boat, RV, or the pile of junk from your attic you are in luck. If you want to store a sports car you are out of luck. Some creativity was required. My Mom has extra space in her garage. Tempting but my sister’s Honda Del Sol had been abandoned there for months and ended up looking like a washboard after losing countless battles with door of Mom’s car.

It remains a mystery why Maryann abandoned the Del Sol. Originally, she left it at Mom’s house in California. After Mom moved to Portland the Del Sol followed like a lost pet you would read about in a gossip magazine in the check out isle at the grocery store. Miraculous little Del Sol reunited with owner in different state. “I don’t know how the little guy found us.” Overjoyed owner exclaims. Unfortunately, the little guy followed the wrong person. Maryann did not want Mom to sell the Del Sol but did not want it back either. I suggested we dissemble it one small piece at a time and send parts to Maryann. A shift knob one month, a hubcap the next. No one appreciated my plan.

This was all noise. Picking a good car, finding the space for it, buying it at the right time, at the right price and finding a way to pay for it were obstacles to overcome on my way to Ferrari ownership.

They were not big obstacles.

In hindsight all the obstacles I faced seem trivial but when faced with the prospect of doing something outside my comfort zone it was easy to slip from considering where to park the car to being consumed with the thought that buying a Ferrari was a bad decision, horrible waste of money, and would spell financial doom for our family. It was easy to become overwhelmed by the noise.

I decided not to buy a Ferrari several times during my searching for a car phase. It would be so much easier not to buy one, to give in to doubt, fear, and laziness and go back to doing what I had always done. I could always look at cars on line and I had now driven two Ferraris. These thoughts were my response to trying to do something new.

Do people come with a built in system of checks and balances or do we learn them as we grow? Sure, a cautious analysis risk is good for survival but why do I allow this analysis to spiral out of control and produce unwanted outcomes?

My perception of risk is not appropriate for my situation. My gauge for assessing risk is similar to that used by my parents when they were my age. Their situation was different than mine. They were divorced and struggling financially. Their parents lived through the depression and the stories of hardship they heard when growing up greatly colored their acceptance of risk.

When assessing a situation I tend to focus on the things that may go wrong. You know the old adage “Hope for the best, plan for the worst”? That sums up my approach. What a horrible way to approach life. Typically you get what you plan for not what you hope for.

Planning involves the creation a series of actionable steps which will bring about a desired result. There is nothing wrong with hoping for the best but hoping is not actionable. I think a better approach is hope for the best, plan for the best, and hedge against the worst. Not as catchy but a better way to manifest desired results.

Chapter 5 - Ferrari 360 Test Drive

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 21:52:00 +0000

February of 2009 was a busy month. On the 28th someone wondered “what are the advantages of an older mistress?” What type of question is that? Is it reasonable to expect of find the answer on the internet?

Ferrari 360 Test Drive

On Thursday November 1st I arrived at GP precisely at 1:00 with my friend Tony along for moral support. The red Ferrari with the F1 gear box was unavailable but Joe had a Maserati, which uses the same F1 gear box, I could drive to give me a feeling for the paddle shifters. The Maserati was sitting outside, in blue it is an understated, pretty car. Not beautiful or sexy but pretty.

Joe started the car then left to fetch a license plate. Sitting in the driver’s seat of the idling Maserati I was torn between amazement for how quickly engine speed increased when tapping the gas pedal to considering that Tony and I could steal this car if only one of us knew how to put a car with paddle shifters in reverse. I assumed it had something to do with pulling the paddle shifters in a certain sequence. It does not. There is a funny little “t” shaped lever where the gear shift would be in a regular manual. Gently pulling up and back on this shifter puts the car in reverse. To get back to first, pull one of the steering column mounted paddles.

With the car in 1st it will sit at idle, provided the brake is pressed and act just like an automatic or a manual with the clutch disengaged. To get the car moving, let off the brake and push the gas.

It’s a bit freaky. Remember when you were a kid and you drove a go cart or tractor with a centripetal clutch? It’s just like that. I remember the first time I drove a go cart. It was at my friend Dirk’s house. I think the go cart was blue and and shaped like a quarter midget. It did not have a starter and needed to be pushed to get it going. Even as a kid I was tall. Dirk was not. After Dirk demonstrated how to drive the car it was my turn. I climbed in and unbeknownst to anyone my big feet completely depressed the accelerator. Dirk and my Mom started pushing the car and when it started it took off. Dirk let go, Mom did not, Mom held on. After a few seconds the go cart was going faster than she could run so she sat down. She still did not let go. She sat down and I dragged her around the track. I remember looking back, being amazed to see my Mom and knowing I was going to be in trouble.

Now is a good to describe my test drive philosophy. I like my first few drives in a car to be slow. I believe driving a car slowly allows me to better understand the car’s characteristics and identify attributes I would miss were I to devote my all attention to keeping on the road. There is a good argument to be made that I will miss the car’s behavior at or near the edge, but the car is new to me, I don’t know where that edge is and don’t want to explore it in my first few minutes in the driver’s seat.

I like to find a nice winding country road where I can roll along, get the feel for the clutch, suspension, brakes, transmission, engine response, everything. I learn more and can better digest what the car is telling me on these kinds of roads at just a few miles per hour over the speed limit than if I were pushing the limit of my skills.

I learned something right away about the F1 style transmission; if you want to accelerate smoothly don’t let off the gas when shifting. My first several shifts were awkward for me, the car, and my passengers. The revs climbed, I got ready to shift, let off the, taped the shifter, then stepped on the gas again. This confused the car; I imagined its little electronic brain wondering what I was doing.

“He is accelerating, he wants to go faster, he is shifting, wait, he is letting off the gas, are we stopping, does he want to stop, is he going to brake, what should I do, oh he is on the gas again, he is accelerating.”

My guess is the car thought I wanted it to act like a roller coaster. I put the car through this confusing cycle five or six time until Joe told me to kept my foot in it.
During the drive Tony suggested we stop by his friend Andy’s house and take a look at a Corvette Andy had purchased. Probably not how Joe wanted to spend his afternoon but hey I might buy a Ferrari so he had to be nice.

I missed the entrance to Andy’s house. Remember how I said to pull up and back gently on the shifter. Turns out if you skip the gently part it is possible to pull the shifter completely out of the car leaving you with an idling Maserati and a bit of metal with some wires attached to it in your hand.

“That’s not supposed to happen” I said looking in the rearview mirror at Joe while holding the shifter in my hand.

“No, you don’t need to pull that hard”

“I think I can fix it.”

Before anyone could object I reattached the wiring harness, snapped the shifter in place and voila we had reverse.

Tony drove back. Tony’s test drive philosophy is different than mine. I was a bit sea sick and more than a bit thankful when I climbed out of the Maserati at the dealership. We poked around the Maserati for a few minutes until Joe uttered a truly wonderful phrase.

“Ready to drive the 360”?

The car I got to drive was titanium silver with a Bordeaux and black interior. It had 19” 430 wheels and Scuderia shields on each front fender. Scuderia shields are little shields about four inches tall and three inches wide. They are placed on the front fenders just behind the wheel arches. The shields have the Cavallino, the prancing horse in the middle, the letter S on one side and the letter F on the other. At the top of the shield there are green, white, and red stripes, the colors of the Italian flag. The S and F stand for “Scuderia” and “Ferrari” respectively. Owners who were paying attention paid extra to have the shield inset into the fenders. Some folks just glued the shields on later. This 360 has inset shields.

The instant Joe fired it up it was obvious this was an entirely different animal. The Maserati had a subdued tone. The Ferrari did not. It shouted. I had an immediate and visceral reaction; a voice in my head shouted BUY THIS CAR NOW! I am not impulsive, it took me over a year to buy my 911 and that was after several years of talking about it but I almost bought the Ferrari right then and there.

Before I could reach for my checkbook I was in the car and Joe was driving out of the dealership. The manner in which the car was thrown forward by the engine was nothing short of obscene. The car did not accelerate in that pin you to your seat feeling you get from a car with big torque. It accelerated like an object dropped from a building; smoothly, effortlessly building up more and more speed.

We were about 150 feet from the dealership entrance when Joe broke the speed limit in Oregon while I sat in the passenger seat with a big, silly grin on my face. I have been in fast cars before but there is something different about accelerating quickly in a Ferrari. The combination of the engine sound, view over the hood, seating position, expectations, and all the history of Ferrari reinforced my perception that I was in a special car.

There is a reason Ferraris are Ferraris. Even from the passenger’s seat the connection to the road was apparent. Driving the Maserati was fun but I did not have any desire to buy it. I really wanted this car. My time in the passenger seat was divided, between being absolutely thrilled, frantically concocting plots which will allow me to take it home, and trying to act cool.

Joe pulled into a parking lot by a church, stopped the car and we switched places. I was intimidated. I am not embarrassed to admit it. I have not driven many sports cars and I had never driven a Ferrari. The seat was manual with no annoying power adjustment, just levers and knobs. I moved the seat to a comfortable position, checked the mirrors and familiarized myself with all the other important bits so I would not have to hunt for them later.

It was really great to sit in this car, not in a dealership surrounded by glass, concrete, and other cars but out on the road. The view out the front was great; the view out the back was great.

I closed the door, took a deep breath, pushed in the firm but not too firm clutch, slipped the shifter into first, let out the clutch and away we went. I did not stall it, we didn’t even jerk back and forth the way cars do when you let the clutch out improperly.

I was driving a Ferrari.

Once I was able to contain my excitement, put aside the nerves and giddiness I realized how effortless it was to drive. Ferrari has created the most beautiful, most talented dance partner in the world, but she is not for dancing, she is for driving. The steering was perfectly balanced and precise. The clutch pickup was progressive with great feedback. The whole car worked together, flawlessly. There did not seem to be any part, function, or aspect of the car that was incongruous. Rolling down a curvy country road the car imparted a sense of complete composure.

If anything the Ferrari was too easy to drive.

I expected the car to be more raw, more intimidating. I grew up reading stories about how difficult it was to drive a Ferrari. This car was the antithesis of difficult to drive. I have to admit I never exceeded the speed limit by more than 10 miles per hour during the drive. The car was nothing but civil, graceful, and entirely fulfilling to drive. Maybe if I were going fast it would have been more difficult.

One aspect of driving a Ferrari I had not anticipated was the commotion the car caused on the road. Other drivers took pictures. Pedestrians took pictures. No one takes pictures of me when I drive my truck. Did they just realize how special I am? In Oregon celebrity status is bestowed upon the driver of a Ferrari. It would be difficult not to get carried away by this attention.

The voice in my head was shouting “BUY THIS CAR!” even more loudly now that I was driving it. Remember when you were a kid and you really wanted something? An ice cream cone, an AC/DC tee shirt, a skateboard it doesn’t matter what, just that you really wanted it. There was a physical attraction which accompanied the want. As a child I was physically drawn to things I wanted by an attractive force. I was physically drawn to this Ferrari. I could feel it in my stomach.

Before driving the car I wanted to experience a Ferrari in an abstracted way. The thing I wanted was Ferrari the experience not Ferrari the thing. Now driving a Ferrari that abstract want has been replaced with a visceral, gut level want. I am so lucky the folks at Tonkin did not offer me a ride or, even worse, a test drive in the 430; I would have sold our house.

Barb wouldn’t be surprised if I came home with the car; she knew what I was up to. One night, over dinner and a bottle of wine, I told her I wanted to buy a Ferrari. I spilled the beans, told her everything. She did not say no, she did not say yes either but the idea is now on the table. Over the course of two or three days I built my case. It went something like this.

“Hun, the kids are getting older and more expensive. If I don’t get a Ferrari soon I am going to be too old and feeble to drive it by the time I am done paying for private school, orthodontics, their cars, college, and weddings.”

“Barb, you know these cars are not depreciating, we won’t lose too much money and it will be a lot of fun for you and your friends to take the Ferrari when you go out to dinner.”

“I know parking is an issue but I can park the 911 at Mom’s house or get a lift for our garage.”

“I have a clever plan. I will buy it without using any of our money then write a book and make a profit on the experience.”

How could she disagree with that? The long and short of it was she didn’t. Barb gave me permission to buy a Ferrari. She was not going through a mid life crisis, not even interested in cars but she was getting a Ferrari. Until writing this book I did not realize what a huge vote of confidence in me and in our relationship she had made.

Too soon we were back at the dealership and it was time to get out of the car. I wanted to just buy it. I didn’t. Before driving the car Joe mentioned he expected it to sell for around $140,000, a heck of a lot to spend on a car. I asked Joe what I could expect if I sold the car back to them after one year with and about 6,000 more miles. Joe replied it might be as high as 92%. That means I will have to shell out about $11,000 in depreciation for one year plus payments on the debt of about $825 per month. I can write off the interest so that $825 will look more like $555 but that still amounts to over $17,000 to drive the car for one year and I have not paid for insurance, gas, or maintenance yet.

That was too much.

For a week I spent more time thinking about Ferraris, really one specific Ferrari, than I had in my entire life, then it sold. I received an email from Joe telling me the car was sold. He offered to set up a test drive of the red car and has a few others on the hook, but the silver car was gone.

Well, on to the next car. There were other 360s for sale and I wanted to drive a 355 and 456. It is not the end of the world. It is not even the end of my Ferrari experiment. There are many things worse than not buying a Ferrari.

Buying the wrong Ferrari might be worse than not buying a Ferrari. From my perspective a Ferrari can be the wrong Ferrari for two reasons. First, and by far the lesser of these two evils, the wrong car will not provide a Ferrari ownership experience, whatever that is. The experience of owning and driving the car would be vanilla, like a Camry.

For someone with my goals and limited budget a car with serious mechanical issues would definitely be the wrong car. A car requiring significant repair would be akin to starring in my own reality TV show but without any commercial breaks and no easy way to get voted off the island. I am not so worried about buying a Ferrari which falls short in the experience category. I am petrified by the prospect of buying a Ferrari which breaks down on the drive home.

I expect to become less petrified once I have the car and get accustomed to it. When I was going through the process of finding and buying our 911 I had similar worries. What’s going to happen if the engine is bad, what if it needs a clutch, what if it needs something I did not even know the car had? After a few months with the car I realized it was much the same as our other cars. The Porsche has always started when asked, hasn’t needed much care and feeding, and has generally been a good citizen in the garage. I expect the Ferrari will be the same.

Chapter 4 - Finding the Right Car

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

On Thursday, February 19 2009 someone sat at a computer and typed “nasty new ferrari” into a search engine. Actually two people typed that phase on the 19th or perhaps one person typed it twice.

Finding the right car

I began my search simply enough, I looked at cars online. Pretty quickly I decided a 360 was the right car for me but before I got too spun up it seemed like a good idea to see if I would fit in a 360. I was lucky, there were two dealerships in town which regularly had Ferraris; Ron Tonkin Gran Turismo (aka RTGT) and Gran Prix Imports. Ron Tonkin is the oldest Ferrari dealership in America. Go figure, America’s oldest Ferrari dealership is in Portland, Oregon. I had a strong predisposition to buy the car from Tonkin due to their reputation and dealership status. When I checked their website Tonkin had several 430s but, unfortunately no 360s, 355s, or 456s.

Grand Prix had a different vibe than RTGT. Nice espresso maker, fancy floor, and a F1 car mounted on the wall. Hip where Tonkin is old school. I checked Gran Prix’s web site, they had two 360s and one F355 spider. This was good because I wanted to see if I would fit in both models but bad because the 355 was a spider.

My process of buying a Ferrari proceeded in discrete steps. First, I decided I was going to buy a Ferrari. You could argue that the first step was discussing death with Alex or riding in a Ferrari when I was a kid. After deciding to buy the car I told friends what I was planning to do. I did this to create a consequence for inaction. If I did not get a Ferrari I would have to make excuses to family and friends.

Next, I started researching Ferraris, a step which could have gone on forever. Eventually, I would have known everything about the marque except what it was like to own one. If I was going to buy a Ferrari I was going to have to go to a dealership, kick tires, and deal with sales guys.

Walking into the Ferrari dealership would be the third step, and as luck would have it I ended up at Tonkin first. I had been to RTGT before but with the intent to drool not buy. Now I was walking into a Ferrari dealership as a customer. It was scary. I was giddy, and felt like I do after too many cups of espresso.

There were three F430s on the floor. Two spiders and a coupe. Wow. What great looking cars. I did nothing but stare at them for a several moments, I did not drool. Why feign disinterest when there is no other reason to be there? Eventually, I went over to talk with the sales guy.

“Do you have any 360s?”

“Coupe or spider?”

“Coupe.”

“Not on the floor but we have a red one that just came in.”

“Is there any interior room difference between the 360 and 430?”

“No, they are the same size and you will fit fine.”

“Can I sit in that coupe?” Gesturing to the yellow 430 on the floor.

After giving me a long look, “OK, but it’s a new car”

“I promise not to hurt it.”

Good news, I fit in the 430. I fit perfectly in the 430. For anyone reading this and over 6’4” rejoice. You can buy a Ferrari, do not have to attend Yoga classes to get in and won’t have to tilt your head to the side when you drive. Now for the bad news, I sat in a 430 and will now be disappointed with the 360 or any other car, ever until the end of time. Not that there is anything wrong with 360s, they were my Ferrari of choice until one instant before sitting in the 430, but the 430 has a knob on the steering wheel that can be dialed too ”RACE”.

The interior of this 430 is absolutely stunning; a combination of black leather, polished aluminum, and carbon fiber. I felt like I was sitting in an alien space craft, a thing designed by an intelligence not bound by traditional ideas of what is acceptable in a car. When the aliens were done with the design they employed an army of gnomes, not scary alien gnomes but the cute ones from Scandinavian forests, whose only purpose was to perfect the blending of leather, carbon fiber and aluminum. I was unprepared for how perfect, in both design and execution, the interior of the 430 would be.

Next surprise, when I turned my head, as if I were backing up, I can see the engine. There it was. I could see it in the rear view mirror. Inescapable twin red intake covers that say “FERRARI” down the top. Ferrari did absolutely the right thing in making the engine visible it is the heart and soul of the car and should not be hidden.

Sitting in the car I was glad I decided to buy a Ferrari. Deciding to buy the car was not a lark. Why had I waited so long? After meditating in the car for a few minutes I realized that at $230,000 this car is beyond my budget and I should get out. I didn’t want to but I couldn’t think of any plausible excuse which would keep me in it longer. Doing my best to hide my excitement, I coolly asked to be contacted when the red car was ready to see and drive.

The red car at Tonkin sold before I had a chance to drive it.

My first chance sit in a 360 came at Gran Prix. GP had two 360s, one in red, one in silver. Joe Hermes, the salesman, was very helpful. Even answering my question of how much I would lose after driving it for a year then selling it back to him with the glib but 100% honest answer of “Depends on how much I makes selling it to you.” I told Joe I was interested in both cars and would like to drive them. He said to pick sunny day next week.

That was easy.

I thought it would be harder to test drive a Ferrari. I understand I was looking at used cars and the best way to sell them is to get people to drive them but it still seemed too easy. Shouldn’t I have had to take a test or provide last year’s tax return? Frankly, I expected to jump through a few hoops prior to test driving a Ferrari. I did not drive to the dealership in a fancy car, I drive a Toyota pickup. That was too easy, almost disappointing.

With a test drive immanent it was time to figure out how to pay for the thing. To stay true to my goal of driving the car for about one year and only paying the minimum I needed a clever way to keep my cost of money low. My research told me I needed to budget about $140,000 for the purchase price of a 360, $80,000 for the 355, and $65,000 for 456. I called Scott Goldstein, a friend who is the chief investment officer at a local bank.

“Scott, I need you to lend me some money so I can buy a Ferrari.”

Long pause…

“Hmm, ok we can do that.”

I shared my plan of driving the car for a year and writing a book about the experience. We discussed the best way to finance the car, best defined as the way which would cost me the least. After a couple of false starts we decided a line of credit as the best option because it is cheap money and I can write off the interest. The ability to write off the interest should result in a savings of between $3,000 and $4,000 for the year, assuming I get a 360.

It was hard for me to accept this option as being the best choice. I am fundamentally opposed to debt. None the less, the line of credit seems to be the best way to finance the car. My plan was to take out an interest only loan trusting I had done my research and picked a good car. With the interest only loan my monthly payments would be low. Further, getting a one year loan enforces my goal of only keeping the car for one year as additional action would be required to keep it longer.

Chapter 3 - Ferrari F355, F360, and 456 in Detail

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 28 Jan 2011 00:03:00 +0000

On February 16 2009, a Monday, someone Googled “ferrari interior turning to goo”. Why would anyone do that?

Ferrari F355, F360, and 456 in Detail

At this point I think it will be helpful if I describe the three models of Ferrari I was considering, the F355, F360, and 456.

Ferrari introduced the F355 in 1994 to replace the 348. Like the 348, and entry level Ferraris back to the 308, the car is powered by a mid engine V8. The 308 was not the first mid engine Ferrari road car. That honor goes to the Dino. I know there are some who will argue that the Dino was not, strictly speaking, a Ferrari but I am not one of them. Originally, Enzo was concerned about putting too powerful of a motor in mid-engine cars. He was worried they would be dangerous so the Dino got a V6.

The F355 is available as a Berlinetta (coupe), GTS (targa), Spider (convertible), and as a race car (loud and fast). In 1998 the F355 was made available with paddle shifters as the F355 F1. When production ended in 1999 the F355 was the best selling Ferrari to date with 11,373 cars sold. It is credited as one of the cars, along with the 456, which dramatically improved Ferraris financial fortunes and reestablished the company’s position in the exotic car pecking order. I know 11,373 cars, worldwide, over a period of 4 years does not sound like much, but for Ferrari, 11,373 cars represented a significant output. High production numbers are good for me as there are several cars to pick from and the price is more transparent, and lower, than many of the models with lower production numbers.

The F355 is wonderfully proportioned; the best way to describe it is svelte. I believe it is the last Ferrari to be designed by a Pinanfarina family member. It is low and wide with the cockpit positioned almost right in the middle of the car. The car is unmistakably a Ferrari with evolutionary styling clues that can be traced back over 20 years. Compared to the F360, I like the F355’s subtleness, if painted a quiet color you can easily overlook a F355.

For the F355 Ferrari developed an aluminum block engine with a short stroke. Stroke refers to the distance the piston travels through the cylinder. A shorter stroke facilitates higher RPM but reduces torque. The block utilized Nikasil-coated wet steel liners. I had no idea what Nikasil was so I looked it up. Nikasil is a coating consisting of a nickel silicon carbide matrix which, among other things, can be used to coat engine components, mostly pistons and cylinders to allow for very tight tolerances. Total engine displacement is 3496cc for you new money types, 213 cubic inches if you are in the heartland or about 3 ½ big soda bottles if you dislike exact units of measurement.

Ferrari used five valves per cylinder, two for exhaust and three for intake or according to the owner’s manual “itake”. The model number 355 denotes 3.5 liters and 5 valves per cylinder. If you look into the engine bay of a F355 you can see red head covers which say “cinqueovalvoe”. I don’t speak Italian but I am willing to bet that translates to “five valves”. Ferrari went to the trouble of putting prancing horses on the covers for the timing belts which are pressed up against the cockpit, where no one can see them. To keep weight down the engineers made use of titanium connecting rods and light aluminum alloy forged alloy pistons. Lubrication is provided by a dry sump engine oil circuit. Dry sump is a fancy way of saying oil is held in a tank and pumped through the engine at startup. Dry sumps do a better job of keeping oil in the engine when the car is cornering hard.

To move all those valves around Ferrari utilized variable rigidity valve springs and hydraulic tappets. I am not sure how you make a variable rigidity valve spring but I bet they are expensive to repair. Unlike most road going V8s the F355 has a 180-degree "flat" crankshaft, which produces equal firing impulses between each cylinder bank. The flat crankshaft allowed Ferrari to optimize both intake and exhaust tuning since each bank can be treated as if it were its own little four-cylinder engine. This results in an engine that vibrates wildly when running since it is not balanced like a traditional “V” configuration engine. The entire thing is controlled by a Bosch Motronic system, M2.7 in earlier cars or M5.2 in later cars. These advances when coupled with the engine management system and four overhead cams allow the motor to rev to 8500 rpm. Compression is 11.1:1 almost exactly the same as our 3.6 liter 911’s 11.3:1.

When they were done Ferrari had a motor capable of producing 375 horsepower at 8,250 rpm and 268 lb/ft of torque at 6,000rpm. The motor in our 911 produces 247 horsepower. Add it all up and the F355 is producing about 109bhp per liter. Imagine stuffing 109 horses into a one liter soda bottle. I like Motortrend’s analysis “To put this in perspective, if they had the same specific output of the Ferrari, the Chevrolet Corvette's 5.7-liter LT1 V-8 would produce 611 horsepower (instead of 300) and the Dodge Viper's 8.0-liter V-10 would make 858 (instead of 400).”

Slackers.

The exhaust note from a F355 is one of the most beautiful and thrilling sounds to come from a car, said to rival the song of mythical sirens and able to lure car lovers to part with prodigious sums of money. The exhaust system starts out like that of a regular car with each bank of cylinders emptying into an exhaust manifold. At the end of the manifold there is a “y” pipe which splits the manifold into two pipes. The lower pipe connects to a catalytic converter while the upper pipe joins inner pipe from the opposite manifold bypassing the catalytic converters and ending in a muffler with three inlets.

The F355 lacks any driver’s aids other than power assisted steering and antilock brakes. I have always been a fan of cars which follow this ethic and feel it is the right for a Ferrari. Ferraris should be difficult and dangerous to drive fast.

Now for the problems. There is not much room in the cockpit and to say interior styling is dated is to be gracious. Further, the interior did not receive the same amount of attention as the beautiful exterior. Several of the interior bits of the 355 have the disturbing habit of turning to goo, (now we know what that search was about) as the coating that Ferrari applied to interior plastic pieces melts and turns into a sticky tar like substance.

More importantly any major engine maintenance, and even some minor ones, requires the removal of the motor. F355s have a nicely documented history of engine problems. In case you didn’t catch it that was a euphemism for they break all the time. Although the cars need the timing belts changed every 15,000 miles or three years Ferrari sandwiched the timing belt between the engine and the cockpit so out comes the motor when it is time to change the belts. The cars also appear to be rough on their exhaust manifolds, which are prone to cracking. Finally, many cars need the valves replaced as some were made of brass and wear out. In spite of its good looks, performance and relatively low purchase price, the maintenance issues alone are enough to keep the F355 near the bottom of my list.

The F360 was introduced in 1999, replacing the F355. Like the 355, the 360 is available in a number of models ranging from several versions of the coupe, sporty to track focused to race car, and for the playboy a spider. You may have noticed that I just dropped the “F” from the F355 and F360. I think you will know what I am talking about if I just call the cars the 355 and the 360. The 360 was resounding commercial success for Ferrari with 17,518 cars produced. Despite being about 10% bigger, and looking it, the newer Ferrari is stiffer and only a few pounds heavier than the 355. This is largely due to the 360 having an entirely aluminum chassis and body, a first for production Ferraris. Ferrari put the aluminum to good work as the 360 has a wonderful, curvaceous form. It is a beautiful, stunning car drawing on shapes from significant Ferraris of the 60’s. Stylistically the 360 has little in common with the 355.

Ferrari responded to people saying “pop the hood and let me see the engine” by making the engine cover clear, saving 360 owners the countless hours spent walking to the driver’s side door, opening it, and pulling the latch to open the hood. Now 360 owners can spend those same countless hours cleaning drool and fingerprints off the clear bonnet covering the engine. It sounds like a small thing but the clear engine cover is a dramatic statement.

When the 355 was released in 1994, Ferrari claimed to have spent 1,900 hours of wind tunnel testing to refine the cars design. They must have liked the results as the 360’s shape was refined during 5,400 hours of wind tunnel testing and as a result generates almost 400 pounds, 396 to be exact, of down force at full tilt.

The 360 is powered by a 3.6 liter V8 producing 400 hp at 8,500 RPM and 275 lbs/ft of torque at 4,750 RPM. Since the 360 has five valves per cylinder Ferrari could have followed the naming convention they used with the 355 and called it the 365 but no, they called it the 360. I suppose they could have called it the 36 but that would be 319 less than the 355 and I doubt the marketing folks would have approved.

Overall the 360’s engine appears to be quite similar to the 355’s, dry sump V8, five valves, and about the same size. Where they differ is in valve timing, with the 360 benefiting from variable valve timing. The newer car also sports a Bosch ME 7.3 engine management system which I suppose is better than the 2.7 or 5.2 systems available in the 355. The changes resulted in an engine which develops 112 horsepower per liter.

Like the last year of the 355, the 360 is available with a standard manual transmission or an F1 style paddle shifting manual. In the 360 Ferrari utilized the same F1 style gear box as the 355 but improved the downshifting with new software. Essentially the new software controlled an electronic throttle which can increase engine RPMs automatically on downshifts, allowing for a smoother transition to the lower gear. Shifting the F1 gearbox is initiated by pulling large paddles, mounted on either side of the steering column and behind the steering wheel, towards the driver. Pull the paddle on the right for an up shift, the paddle on the left for a downshift.

In both cars the F1 system was based on the standard 6-speed manual gearbox but with the traditional mechanical-link shifting mechanism replaced by an electronic clutch and a hydraulic shift actuator, all of which seems like a heck of a lot of moving parts to me. There are three different shift patterns, one which allows the lazy to pick “Automatic” and let the car do all the shifting. What makes the F1 gearbox special is the ability to control and integrate clutch and gearshift action. Within milliseconds the computer adjusts the throttle, disengages clutch, shifts to next gear then re-engages the clutch. The whole process takes about 0.15 second. While that is not as fast as I can shift, it is pretty quick. Internally Ferrari code named the Selespeed which sounds fast but does nothing to improve the speed or performance of the gearbox.

When I look at the dash of the 360 the first thing I think of is Frankenstein’s forehead. The dash of the 360 is all leather and has prominent stitched seams running across it. It is not an ugly dash, it is flowing and organic but the stitched seams remind me of Frankenstein. The 360 boasts quite a bit of interior room in all dimensions. This is good for me because I am larger than most Italians in all dimensions. Where little attention seems to have been spent on the 355’s interior Ferrari did a nice job on the 360.

Better yet, possibly best yet, maintenance is less of a concern with the 360 than the 355. Partially this is because it is a modern car, but most of the reduction in maintenance risk is a result of the fewer operations requiring removal of the engine. Ferrari learned a lesson from the 355 and put a removable panel behind the seats so the 360’s timing belts can be accessed without removing the engine. Ferrari seems not to have learned or more likely just does not care about the tendency of interior parts to melt because the 360 is plagued with the same sticky interior part problem.

The 456 is quite a change from the 355 and 360. First the engine is in the wrong place, in front of the seats, like a regular car. Second it has four seats, also like a regular car and unusually practical for Ferrari, and third it has four more cylinders, maybe to make up for the engine being in the wrong place and the extra seats.

The 456 was built for a different purpose. The 355 and 360 are sports cars. The 456 is a GT. A GT car is about getting places quickly and comfortably. When compared to either the 355 or 360 the 456 looks huge and a bit bloated, like it has just eaten a very large meal. There is less variety in the 456 model line, basically you get a manual or automatic but unlike the other cars there were a small number of 456 wagons produced and two sedans. Both sedans were purchased by the Sultan of Brunei. The Royal family of Brunei must have appreciated the 456. In addition to the two sedans they received six of the seven wagons, and two convertibles. The 456 wagon is one of my favorite Ferraris. All in all somewhere around 3,289 cars were produced.

Ferrari introduced the 456 in 1992 and at the time it was the second most powerful road car produced by Ferrari, the F40 holding the top spot. The car also heralded a shift from angular, hard lines to the smoother flowing lines that define the cars today. The car weighs in at just over 3,700 pounds, a good deal more than the 355 or 360. I suppose the extra cylinders and seats are to blame for the extra pounds.

The 456 is powered by a 5.5 liter V12. The name 456 comes from the displacement of each cylinder, 456cc. If Ferrari had stuck to the naming convention they used for the 355 the 456 would have been the 554. Ferrari never bothered putting an “F” in front of the “456”. You can figure out what they would have called it if they used an approach similar to the 360. 5.5 liters is not a huge engine when looked at from the American SUV perspective but 5.5 liters of V12, stuffed into the front of a Ferrari, is an impressive sight. It has all the moving parts of a V8 with a V4 tacked on for good measure. The motor was developed and tuned to deliver a grand touring driving experience, meaning more torque and horsepower available at lower revs with less peekyness.

In what must have been a nod to the increasing size of their American clientele Ferrari fitted the 456 with a self leveling suspension which can adjust rear ride height depending on passenger load. It wouldn’t do to have the rear of a Ferrari dragging on the exit from the MacDonald’s drive through and spilling the supersize Coke. Unfortunately, this feature is totally worthless. The back seats of the car are so tiny that only a small child or short super model would be able to fit back there, neither of which should require a self leveling suspension. Fancy self leveling stuff aside the rest of the 456’s suspension was also complex, using non-parallel arms, coil springs, telescopic dampers and stabilizer bars both front and rear, making it one of the most advanced suspension systems at the time and allowing the damping to be manually selected from three programs, Intermediate, Sport, and Touring. In addition to that, the stiffness of each damper changed automatically as a function of the car’s speed.

Generally, the 456 tends to be a reliable car. Unfortunately, if a 456 ever deviates from that tendency the maintenance on the V12 is catastrophically expensive; there are 50% more moving bits in it than a Ferrari V8. Just like the 355 and 360 some interior pieces of the 456 turn to goo. The interior on the 456 is more like that of a normal car than either of the 3 series cars.

When I was searching for cars the 456 was priced about the same as a 355. Aesthetically the car is not as appealing as either of the sportier cars but it represents a far more practical choice. With its bigger interior and back seats it would make a much more comfortable and flexible daily driver.

Any Ferrari I buy will have a roof.

Enzo Ferrari is quoted as saying “Convertibles are for playboys, coupes are for serious drivers.” I am neither but my Porsche is a cabriolet and I often wish for a coupe. I planned on taking the car to the track and using it as an everyday driver so a spider, in addition to being to showy, seems impractical. Practicality aside, I think the lines of the coupe are prettier on the cars I was considering.

Aesthetically, mechanically, and emotionally the 360 was at the top of my list as I began my search for a car. That said the purchase price of a 360 is roughly twice that of the 355 or 456. 360’s had not yet met my requirement of having suffered substantial depreciation.

Chapter 2 - Choosing a car

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:20:00 +0000

Throughout my experiment with the Ferrari I kept notes, which I posted on a blog. I did not expect many people to read it but the threat of someone stumbling across it kept me focused on writing. People did read it. Predominantly surfers found their way to my blog through keywords. Most of the keywords made sense. Some were humorous. Some made no sense at all.

Eventually an attentive reader will realize that the dates for the keywords I chose are inconsistent within the context of the book. Keywords presented early in the book come from the future. Part way through the book this paradox undoes itself. It is as if the keywords become aware of time and their relationship to this story.

Choosing a car

Choosing a Ferrari was more difficult than you might think. Ferrari is a small company but they have been making road cars since 1947 and have produced a staggering variety of models, sometimes turning out only a handful of each model, sometimes only one. To narrow my choices I identified four requirements and decided to focus my search on cars which met at least two.

1st the car had to have suffered significant depreciation.

2nd the car had to be unmistakably a Ferrari.

3rd the car needed to be at a point in its life where it would be inexpensive to maintain.

4th back seats were a plus.

While they met two, or more, of my requirements I did not consider, the 308 and 512 TR. They are great cars but they are too iconic. They didn’t make the list because they are iconic in the sense that they quintessentially define Ferrari for an era, they do. They didn’t make the list because of their association with TV shows.

When I see a 308 my first thought is of Tom Selleck, Magnum PI. Specifically, I think of the opening to the show where Magnum looks over, grins, then power slides the car in the grass by the side of the road. At over six feet with bunch of dark curly hair I look too much like Magnum to drive a 308. Besides, my head would stick out of the targa top. The Testarossa brings back memories of Miami Vice. Sure the earlier shows featured a Daytona but I associate Testarossa’s with pastel jackets and loafers without socks.

If, after deciding to buy a Ferrari I did nothing different, did not alter my actions from the second before the decision I would never end up with a Ferrari. I didn’t have a Ferrari, why should I expect a Ferrari to appear in my garage if I continued my current course? I decided that each day I would take some action towards finding and buying a car. Each day I would do something which moved me closer to my goal.

My first step would be to research the different models and identify those meeting my requirements. The hours spent aimless browsing car sites on internet was no longer aimless; I was doing research, valuable, important research. Unfortunately, my research did not take long. I chose to focus my efforts on three models: the 355, 360, and 456. These three made the cut because of their price, looks, Ferrariness, and in the case of the 456, back seats.

What about the Mondial you say? It has back seats. Back seats would be really useful. If it had back seats, I could use the Ferrari to take the girls to school. What’s more, a Mondial costs less than a Camry, yet comes in Ferrari red with a little prancing horse hood ornament. Mondials are even easy to maintain. The Mondial looks like a Ferrari and sounds like a Ferrari yet I could not accept the Mondail as an appropriate choice. Mondials didn’t fit my vision for a Ferrari.

I wanted a Ferrari which would be wonderful to drive. By drive I don’t mean the get in the car and trundle to the nearest coffee shop. By drive I mean to take as much from a twisty, challenging bit of road as I can. I love the constant, subconscious analysis this type of driving requires. The digestion of data from eyes, hands, ears, seat and feet that combine with intuition to telegraph what the car is doing and what it will probably do next.

I am lucky, less than half a mile from my house is a perfect road. Well, as perfect as a road dotted with pot holes and frequented by gardeners with big trucks and Starbucks sipping minivan driving soccer moms can be. Humphrey Boulevard hugs a wooded hillside as it winds through the southwest hills of Portland. On Humphrey the view of the road ahead seldom exceeds more than a few hundred feet, through some corners even less, the line of sight blocked by the hillside and trees. There is one set of tightly spaced turns where you can feel the car roll over the ridge created by the transition from one turn to the next, like rolling over the wake behind a boat. The pacing of the turns and changes of elevation are graceful. Humphrey is proof that somewhere in the Oregon Department of Transportation lives a genius.

Humphrey invites a brisk pace. A pace at which the elevation changes, turns, and bends can be appreciated without the worry about driving fast. When I drive on Humphrey the short lines of sight and tight turns conspire to make me feel like I am going fast, like I can really drive. A quick glance at the speedometer and what I thought was 50 is really 30. I am not that fast after all. Going fast is not the point, go too fast and the rhythm of the road will be missed, the pacing of the turns obscured by stress and the transitions lost to excessive body lean.

At 1.6 miles Humphrey is fleeting but 1.6 miles is enough. It is a stretch of road you can know intimately. Each bit of uneven pavement, each dip, each hole. Start on the west end and exhaust echoes off the hillside, trees form shady tunnels. Stone walls, lawns, driveways, a hillside and steep drop off, a wooded section, an unexpected big house, more woods and another steep drop off, two great back to back turns, then it’s over. I go out of my way to drive on this road. There are certain turns where I swear I can feel rubber shearing off my front tires, others, when driven just right result in a weight shift which balances the car perfectly for the exit.

Maybe I need a fifth requirement, engaging to drive with better performance than my 911.

Chaper 1 - I am going to buy a Ferrari

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 26 Jan 2011 22:50:00 +0000

So, yet another edit is done. This time I thought I would post my chapters on this site as I complete them. I am a bit ahead of the curve at work and hopt to complete a chapter every day or so. Please let me know your thoughts.

Cheers.

David

I am going to buy a Ferrari

After many late evenings, discussing death with my daughter, it occurred to me that I should buy a Ferrari. No, I was not dreaming about cars while Alex and I were discussing where she, Christina, and Max would live when I was dead. During those conversations my mind did not wander. The idea popped into my head one day at work. It was Tuesday October 4, 2007, just after lunch and it took only an instant to make the switch from thinking I should buy a Ferrari to resolving to buy a Ferrari.

Discussing my death with Alex was one of the most painful experiences I have had. Not painful because I was forced to confront and discuss my death but because I witnessed the pain my dying will eventually cause Alex. Painful because, I wanted, more than anything, to tell her it would not happen that we would be here, together, forever. She wanted to hear this, wanted me to reassure her that I would be around. I didn’t. I still feel bad about it; I feel that I let her down.

I am grateful I was able to comfort her during this phase and that she chose to share it with me, grateful that I was able to help her prepare for a time when I will not be around. I remember as a young adult grappling with the realization that my parents were mortal, that I was mortal, but did not share my feelings with my parents.

Although this was a sad time, Alex gave me a wonderful gift. A gift beyond the gratification of knowing my daughter needed me. By sharing her feelings she reminded me that our time here was finite and precious, not to be squandered but cherished. She reminded me to focus on what we had right now and make the most of it.

It is important to note that in the fall of 2007 I was not dying. Well not dying any more quickly than one would expect but what was I waiting for? When was the time to start doing the things I wanted for my family, for myself? In the fall of 2007 I was waiting but I did not know for what or why.

Sitting in my office I did not connect my conversations with Alex to my decision to buy a Ferrari. Sitting in my office I was not thinking about death, I was not trying to focus on the now. One moment I was staring at cranes unloading shipping crates in the Port of Portland the next moment I had decided to buy a Ferrari. There was nothing in between. At the time the decision to buy the car seemed completely related to other events in my life. Hindsight suggests otherwise.

I remember when my father decided not to buy a Ferrari, when a fellow brought a red, rosso corso if you must, Ferrari 308 GT4 to our house. I was probably 10 maybe 11, about the same age as Alex during our mortality discussions. Dad and I were working outside, I think he was building a stairway for the entry of the house and I was helping as best I could. I could hear the car come up our driveway. You can often hear a Ferrari before seeing it. Our driveway was steep and over one hundred yards long, the car sounded great, fantastically mechanical as it made its way up to our house.

As the car climbed the hill I imagined I could hear each valve lifting, not that I knew what valves were when I was 10. I imagined this because Dad had once said if you listened carefully you could hear the individual components in a Ferrari engine and the only engine components I knew by were valves.

The owner, I don’t remember precisely what he looked like but do recall he had brown hair, parted in the middle, wanted to trade the car for a piece of property my father had for sale. They let me come along for the test drive.

GT4s have tiny back seats. When you are 10 these seats are perfect. Thirty years later I can still remember the roads we took and where we made a U turn. I remember when Dad accelerated down a short hill and how the quality of the engine note changed as the revs climbed. When I was older and drove on those same roads I would look back on the ride in the Ferrari with fondness. I would also consider how our life might have been different had Dad traded the lot for the Ferrari. The drive was too short.

Dad chose not to trade, a good financial decision, but I bet we would have had more fun with the Ferrari. I have a faded copy of a photograph of my brother and me standing by the car, dressed in our favorite striped shirts. I thought about this experience as I was going through the process of purchasing a Ferrari. Dad was about my age when he had a chance to own a Ferrari and passed it up.

This was Dad’s second decision not to buy a Ferrari. He was just out of college when he chose a Pontiac GTO over of a 250 Lusso which had spent some time as a race car. If you are not familiar with the Lusso it is a wonderful, flowing GT produced by Ferrari in the early 60s. Under a beautifully sculpted hood the Lusso had a 2.9 liter V12 producing about 250 horsepower. Without a doubt the GTO was more reliable, less expensive, and more practical but Dad, come on, a Ferrari race car when you are just out of college.

When I told friends I was planning to buy a Ferrari they would smirk and pronounce my decision the result of a midlife crisis. Though I expect this is a common response when a nearly 40 year old male decides to buy a Ferrari I resented this assertion none the less. The process of aging was not a worry to me. I told my smirking friends I had two a reasons for buying a Ferrari. First, I love cars and had always wanted a Ferrari. Second, I was buying a Ferrari because I believed it was possible to buy one, drive it for about a year, and sell it for about what I paid for it. Buying a Ferrari was an experiment, to validate my hypothesis. The idea for this experiment and plan to document my experiences in a book came on the heels of deciding to buy the car as a cleaver way for me to validate my purchase.

My friends were right.

A mid life crisis may not have been the only factor in my decision to buy a Ferrari but it played a role in my decision making. To my friends the influence of 40 approaching may have been obvious. For me it took the process of writing this book and examining the reasons underlying my decision to recognize its effects.

I suspect you chose this book to read about Ferraris. Stick with me a bit longer; most of the book is about Ferraris. In addition to the fuzzy mental stuff there were a few practical problems to work out before a Ferrari could find its way to my garage. First, I needed to convince Barbara, my wife, that buying the car was a good idea. Imagine that conversation. “Hun, I am nearly forty, I’ve been discussing my death with Alex and want to buy a Ferrari. What do you think? Good idea?”

On a more practical note, I didn’t have anywhere to park a Ferrari. We have a two car garage and already have three cars; a few years ago I decided to give myself an older 911 as a birthday present. I didn’t want to sell the 911 so not only did I have to convince Barb to let me get a Ferrari I had to convince her to give up her spot in the garage so I could have two sports cars. “Oh yeah Hun, you will have to park the minivan outside because I will now have two cars that will melt if they get rained on. You won’t mind herding the kids in and out of the van during the winter will you?”

The third problem is going to sound a bit silly. I didn’t know which model I was interested in. I didn’t have a vision of the perfect Ferrari, if there ever was a good problem to have this had to be it.

Finally, we have three young children, two in private school and one with special needs, and are fortunate enough that Barb can stay home with them. Not a situation I was allowed to jeopardize. So my purchase budget was limited as was the amount I could afford to lose on depreciation or spend on maintenance. Limited budget, no appetite for depreciation, and little cushion for maintenance, doesn’t sound like a recipe for Ferrari ownership does it? Any reasonable person would have abandoned the plan at this point but I proceeded on the assumption that if I purchased the right Ferrari it would not depreciate much or cost a fortune to maintain.

10 Best Drives

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 16:27:00 +0000

I couldn't take it. I had planned to wait until One Year with a Ferrari were published in some format before taking on a new project but I don't have the patience or discipline. 10 Best Drives has lurched into existence.

One Year with a Ferrari is, hopefully, being edited right now and will soon make it onto Amazon’s ebook shelves.

A Friend Indeed

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 23:05:00 +0000

This is an excellent chance to win a Ferrari and help a good cause.

Learn more at http://www.afriendindeed.cc/

Long overdue update

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 21:49:00 +0000

The 355 has been out of my garage, but not forgotten, for almost a year. I admit I miss it. Who wouldn't? While there is nothing wrong with Toyota trucks mine lacks that bit of magic which appears when driving a Ferrari.

As near as I can tell my book is progressing nicely. I have a few friends who are reading in now. Once I receive their comments, criticisms, and suggestions I plan to publish it electronically.

I am not wussing out. I have thought quite a bit about going physical or ebook and I think most readers of the book will be comfortable with the ebook approach. It is also a lot less hassle and I want to get on to the next project.

Finally, started submitting the book to publishers

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 17:18:00 +0000

The book has been mostly done for several months but I have not had the nerve to submit it to publishers. After a couple of false starts I began that process today. I am ready for rejection.

On another note. I miss having a Ferrari. I don't miss the car itself but the intangibles which went along with it. I don't miss having to pay for it. But I miss having one.

Ferrari Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 17:41:00 +0000

Ferrari 458 Italia to be Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle

In hastily pulled together announcement Luca di Montezemolo revealed today that the Ferrari 458 Italia and all new Ferraris will be Partial Zero Emissions Vehicles. The announcement comes as a shock from the marquee known for making high powered, gas guzzling, sports cars for the rich and famous. Ferraris Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle or PZEV claim rests on the limited usage Ferraris receive. According to di Montezemolo Ferraris are driven an average of just under 3400KM (2112 miles) per year and consume a scant 151 gallons of petrol in the process. Compare this to a hybrid like the Toyota Prius. The average Prius consumes over 260 gallons of petrol per year. A whopping 58% more than the Ferrari. “Ferrari will be known not only for exciting sports car but also as a leader in green technology” thundered di Montezemolo when a reporter for Autoweek questioned Ferraris math.

In a related story an official at Lamborghini, speaking on the condition of anonymity suggested that Lamborghini had been working on similar technology for some time and had been in negotiations with the governments of California, Oregon, and Maine to allow Lamborghini to test market a PZEV Lamborghini in those states. The hold up appears to the colors Lamborghinis are available in. Apparently some bureaucrats in state office considered the colors themselves to constitute an emission even if the car was not running.

Sold.

noreply@blogger.com (David) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 18:12:00 +0000

I have been remiss in my posting. I apologize. It took a few tries but the car has sold. After installing the new clutch I put about 100 miles on the car then started to think about how to store it for the winter. I looked into storage facilities and talked to a few clients who have warehouses. Barb was very understanding and told me if I could not find a home for it for the winter she would park outside.

Deep down I knew it was time for the car to go. I sent an email to Steve at Ron Tonkin and Joe at Gran Prix to see if they were interested in selling the car. Joe responded in about five minutes that they would be interested in selling the car. I never heard from Tonkin.

About two weeks after sending the email I dropped the car off at Gran Prix. After signing a few papers Barb picked me up and we drove out of the dealership, past the Ferrari. That would be the last time either of us would see it. I was sad to leave the car. Not too sad but I did miss it.

The missing the car passed quickly. Honestly. After a few days I no longer thought about the car. It took about a week but Joe had an offer on the car for 50,000. I passed. I hoped the car would sell for between 55,000 and 60,000. Nothing happened for about two weeks then Joe called to say the car had sold for around 60,000.

Fantastic.

It was Monday when Joe and I talked. The car was due to ship to the new owner on Thursday. A day or two later I called Kevin to let him know the car was sold. Literally two minutes later Joe emailed letting me know the deal had fallen through. Oh well. There would be other buyers.

A week or so later and the deal was back on. Same buyer. Same price. This time he had put down a big chunk of change. I called Kevin to let him know the deal was back on. After I talked with Kevin. Joe waited about five minutes to call and say the deal was off.

It was Kevin’s fault. Car jinx. I decided I would not discuss selling the car with Kevin until Joe called and let me know I could pick up my check.

After a couple weeks of no activity I began to consider trading the Ferrari for a Porsche. Eventually, I will get another fun car and I think it will be a 911 of some sort. I resisted the urge to call Joe and say “lets trade it on a 911 turbo or a RSR replica.” Another week went by then I received a call that the car was sold. Gran Prix expected the money in a day or so then the car would be shipped to Texas.

The amount was less than I had hoped for but fair.

I did not call Kevin. Two days later Eric at Gran Prix called to let me know they had my check. I loaded the original muffler, solid rear grill, and miscelanous Ferrari parts I had around the house into the truck drove to GP dropped them off and picked up my check for 49,000. I didn’t think to take a look at the car when I was there.

So that’s it. The car has sold.