Grand Touring Bargains
From 1947 to 1957 Ferrari evolved from a small race shop, producing only two cars, to a world-recognized, high-performance company building 200 cars. However, its cars were still mostly custom-built and very expensive to produce. Ever the realist, Enzo Ferrari felt there was a market for a luxury Gran Turismo that could be built and […]
Which Boxer for You?
Ferrari’s sporting and Grand Touring reputation through the ’50s and ’60s was built around low and sleek Italian bodies fitted with front engine V12 engines. The pinnacle of the road-going, front-engine V12 era was the 365GTB/4 Daytona of 1969–1974. By 1973 the Lamborghini Miura and Countach were making the Daytona look and feel old-fashioned, and […]
Thank you, Mr. Gates
Until recently, if you wanted to own and import an exotic car that was never certified for sale in the US like a Jaguar XJ 220, a McLaren F1, a Porsche 959, a Mercedes CLK-GT or a Bugatti EB 110, you were out of luck. Thanks to the substantial, well-funded lobbying by a few car-loving […]
Due Diligence
After a quarter of a century in the exotic car business—having owned, sold, or brokered about 2,000 exotic cars (mostly Ferraris)—I have witnessed almost every variation of multiple factors that can “go wrong” in an exotic car sale. The buying and selling of exotic cars should be a pleasant experience. The seller is ready to […]
Pay More, Get Less, Lose More
Here’s the good news. Utilizing contemporary technology, it’s possible to make your four-, six-, eight- or twelve-cylinder Ferrari much more powerful than Enzo’s minions ever dreamed possible. Here’s the bad news. The more you customize your car, the less it is worth upon resale. When I ran European Auto, we often built trick motors for […]
The Last Factory Hot-Rod
Just as the F40 represents the ultimate Ferrari street car of the 80’s and early 90’s with 470 horsepower in a 2,800 lb. package, the F40 LM, built by Michelotto for Ferrari, with 750 horsepower and a track-ready weight of 2,300 pounds, could have been the GT class race winner of the late 80’s and […]
Digital Buying
Just as the fax machine helped fuel an explosion in the collector car market in the ’80s by making information available instantly and inexpensively, databases and the Internet are fueling a very different and more-detailed information-driven phenomena in the ’90s. Voluminous databases and the enthusiasts dutifully recording the history of many collector cars often make […]
Pay to Play or Walk Away
In the 1950s, Greg Garrison was the producer of the Dean Martin show, and just as Martin was well-known for his love of wine, women and the good life, Garrison was well known in the Ferrari world as an aficionado of the best coachbuilt Ferraris. Garrison’s collection consisted of the best of the Lampredi-powered, coachbuilt […]
Move over Daytona
The F40 was introduced to the press on July 21, 1987 to celebrate Ferrari’s 40th anniversary as an auto manufacturer. Original production plans were to build 400–450 cars for worldwide distribution with a list price of about $250,000. As has been well documented, Ferrari prices skyrocketed from 1986 to 1990 and, some say to cash […]
Going Topless
I knew it was going to be a long day when our esteemed Editor called to request that I write a short, witty and insightful article reviewing front-engined V12 Ferrari convertibles under $100,000. I explained that since the starting price for any front-engined V12 open car was just over $100,000, an article on the under-$100k […]