re: Ferrari Stradale: YWDI

There is no doubt, he lived for high reving, power producing engines that made a distinctive sound all their own. And his mind wasn't going to be overnight. But I think once he started seeing the potential of what this generation of world class cars could be, I think he would have a narrow interest, but not an altogether closed one. That was going to take some prodding and time to win him over. He's been gone 10 years? That can be a long time in the auto industry.

Can't haul my toys with it.

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Looks like they ripped off the Ford GT's flying buttresses.

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Nope, Ford stole them from the Ferrari 599 GTB, as did MaLaren, Acura and BMW. The 599 borrowed them from the earlier Ferrari 8 cylinder mid-engine cars ending with the 355.

That’s kinda fine. I bet it’s super fast and sounds awesome too.

So yeah, i would definitely drive it

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The only Ferrari I have ever driven was a neighbors 308. It was a fun car for its time. Certainly nothing to compare with later cars. It did spend a lot of time in the shop and was the prime reason he didn't keep it very long and he didn't want another one. Too bad for me

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It is almost hard to drive something like a 308 and come away impressed considering you could probably put sticky tires on a 2019 Camry and produce better lap times.

The problem with the earlier 8 cylinder midengine cars was the only thoughts toward maintenance cost was seemingly only to keeping it as high as possible. Considering the low cost of a 308 the maintenance cost can be staggering. One of the big issues was the use of timing belts, belts along with high revving engines and the required high valve spring pressures and interference engines meant they had to be changed often. The problem with mid-engine cars meant this required removing the engines to replace them. IIRC the 355 (maybe it was the 360) included a removable partition behind the seats to access the engine but it required removing the seats and working in a tight space. The 430 rectified the issue by going to a gear driven valve train.

The 355 while beautiful is a freaking money pit. Headers are made of nikasil which is great for a race car, horrible for a road car. You never know when they will fail and they will, if you don't identify the header leak early enough you could be in for burned valves or even a full rebuild. Replacing the headers is about 4-5K. Then there are the bronze valve guides that will fail.

A 360 costs a lot less to own than a 355 and the 430 about half what the 360 does. Mo money up front and less on the backend with less depreciation too.

Name me, if you can, a better feeling than the one you get when you're half a bottle of Chivas in the bag with a gram of coke up your nose and a teenage lovely pulling off her tube top in the next seat over while you're going a hundred miles an hour down a suburban side street. You'd have to watch the entire Mexican air force crash-land in a liquid petroleum gas storage facility to match this kind of thrill. If you ever have much more fun than that, you'll die of pure sensory overload, I'm here to tell you.

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Looks a lot like a Corvette with improvements.

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It looks like an Alfa Romeo.

the only idea worse than an italian hybrid-electric car would be a british hybrid-electric car. i swear both countries have no auto manufacturers who hire electrical engineers to review their designs at all

My groundskeeper was considering buying one of those

Also I love that we're in an era where 600 hp is getting to be on the low end for suoer/hypercars. It's fricking crazy.

10-15 years ago 600 hp was seen as pretty lofty. Now we have like at least 5 or 6 production vehicles pushing near or above 1000 hp.