Keyrekt. And the "B" in GTB stands for Berlinetta. Loosely translated from Italian to 'small saloon body' in English.

I investigated moving up from the Mondial a few times, and despite everything Hacker has said, the general consensus for years has been the 355 is the model to stay away from due to so many deficiencies. It bares mention that I have never owned, nor worked on one, and had only a short passing time driving one. However, the fact the 355 was broken during the comparison fits right in with the overall impression on ferrarichat. Things I found in a modest search were issues with exhaust coming apart, EFI faults, clutch trouble, cam pitting and flatting, and a few other concerns. I believe Ferrari replaced a significant number of engines that didn't make more than 10,000 miles. However, owners are often rather defensive, or protective of the model, having spent a bigly amount of money. It is quite attractive, in either Ferrari Rosso or fly giallo. Definite step up from the 348.

IMO the 355 is the poster child for a car that needs to be driven every time it's started. I know this seems obvious but many of these cars live such a pampered life, they almost never see full oil temp and high RPM's. Some people on the forum brag about "never going above 6k" which is horrible for these engines.
Once my father found his, I pointed out the coolant and oil temp gauges, told him every time he starts the car he is to drive it easy until both reach 12:00 and then at least once, hit redline.

I made a lot of friends in the 355 world and still help some of them from time to time with their cars, and my impression after 15+ years in that community is they are rock solid. Two good friends regularly track their cars and with 50k+ miles, they run fine.

"Exhaust coming apart" - early cars had header failure, most have been upgraded to different brands or what I did was eliminate the air pump tubes going into the headers & put on a better ceramic coating. Also eliminating or upgrading the cats helps a lot and that goes right along with the EFI faults since the most annoying one is CAT temp.
As for the EFI faults, 96+ are ODBII cars, no different than every other ODBII car that burps up a CEL any chance it gets.

Clutch trouble only for those who don't know how to drive. My fathers was sold with 32k miles, clutch was original. Trying to drag race a 355 is a great way to shred the clutch.

Like any exotic the 355 is far from perfect, but the overblown issues I hear about are not different than certain "experts" who claim the 928 block is prone to cracking and how unreliable they are overall...... we know the reality.

I'm not trying to change your mind, in fact the more "rumors" that spread around about the 355 the more affordable they will remain.

Yup, everything you mentioned makes sense. It all kind of fits together as well. Exhaust issues, lead to CEL, leads to some messing with EFI.

I also agree the worst thing for the exotics is to let them sit. However, I have to admit I don't get my car out enough too. I have > 100k miles on the little 3L V8 QV! Some people swear that a often driven V8 Ferrari will go well over 200k with proper mx. I wouldn't doubt that, if it weren't thrashed type driving.

I can't blame all the clutch woes on bad drivers. As I recall, it's a dual mass deal, and there were problems with the springs, and the fingers. Not sure of the specifics, but they had a number of them with broken fingers or springs, or both. But yes, of course the burnt disk is always operator error. Sadly, the whole things has to come apart to change the clutch. Although I've heard it can be done in the car, it's the same labor to pull the whole thing out and do it on the floor. I can do the clutch and TB/WP with the engine in.

If I were to move up to the 355, I'd want one just like you take care of. Someone who has made effort to find the deficiencies, and get them sorted right one time. A bad Ferrari can be bad, bad, bad to the pocketbook. Still nothing like any 928, GTS or other. Two vastly diff cars.

The real difference between these two completely different cars is the 928 owners have fixed all the factory flaws, and continued to make the better than new. Just like the DeTomaso, Pantera owners!

If a Ferrari owner works on his car, it's considered a POS, by all the other owners. In the Ferrari world, spending handfuls of cash with halfass'd results is considered part of the Ferrari Mystic. SCREW THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Truth is Ferrari's look great, have a stellar bunch of groopies, but the car itself is a "TURD"!

NO KIDDING!! That is exactly what I delt with when selling both of my Ferrari’s! Since I had done all of the work myself the car was considered scrap value by most. It was comical and irritating at the same time.

I have found that philosophy true of the V12/flat 12 cars, and modern V8. However, there is a bustling DIY network for the 308/328/348/Mondial. I have done 5 TB/WP jobs on 308 and Mondial, and no one has lost any sleep over the work. I've also been on several valve lash jobs because I have the shim kit, and the lifter compress tools. But - that does not translate to the bigger costly F cars.

Is the 928 world really any different? Is a 928 fully maintained by Greg Brown not worth more than an equal car maintained by the owner in their garage?

My father got full value for his 355GTS and I did most of the work, Motion Products did the PPI. All work was meticulously documented and photographed.

The 348/355 world is very similar to our 928 community. They've worked through many flaws, documented better parts and cross references to avoid the "Ferrari tax" and they are very much not turds by design.

There are a lot of turds out there, but that's no different than neglected and improperly maintained 928's.

348/355 forum is not unlike the 928 group here, very passionate bunch of enthusiast helping each other out.

However, your statement is quite true with the higher dollar cars and Porsche's are no different. Few Carrera GT and GT3RS owners are doing their own wrenching and I'm sure doing so would hurt the resale value.

I can vouch for this.
I was the only HPDE participant banging on his car between sessions. ;)
The high rollers and Carrera people were sipping on juice boxes. It looked quite refreshing.

Ok, I don't care who you are, that was just funny. Juice boxes. lolz.... :roflmao:

I'd ask how many had aviator shades on but the answer is self evident.