John H. in DC Area

I went to check out a red Ferrari 355 Spider for a fellow Rennlister today. He's unloaded his 996TT and wants a more visceral and soulful experience. He'll get it. Aesthetically the car was immaculate, 8k miles, never seen rain, no rock chips, no repaint, engine compartment was spotless, leather like new, interior design dated but classic. Handling was flat and stable, including at speed, usual thwack-thump over bumps like any stiffly sprung sports car. It was pretty cold, so we didn't put the top down. With the top up, the engine note inside the car is vastly different than outside the car. Inside, lots of indistinctive mechanical racket right behind the ears. Outside the car, with the revs over 4k rpms .. beautiful music. Great car.

Hope everyone in or even remotely connected with the US ate themselves silly over the holiday. Everybody else: come up with something you can celebrate by eating turkey, stuffing, and all your favorite side dishes and desserts until you've reached maximum density. For the brave, add alcohol. Then sleep on it. If I don't get back on my jogging program, I'll pick up an easy 10 lbs between now and New Year's. Cheers!

Some pics...

Anir

John,

Happy Thanksgiving to you, as well.

Beautiful car. What are 355's selling for nowadays?

John H. in DC Area

Thanks, Anir. BTW, I've got a good friend (eye doctor) who finally traded in his Porsche engineered Merc 500E after 130,000 trouble free miles. Hope you have similarly good luck with yours.

Re: the 355's, the Seller's asking in the mid-$80's for this one. I recently learned of an identical silver 355 spider (black interior), but with more miles in the 15k range for $80k. Seems prices are coming down somewhat. I must say that I'm tempted by that sweet sound.

Darren911

Is that the 355 for 6speeder Dr Bill ?

JS

Porsche 911 Turbo over it anyday.

John H. in DC Area

Yup, Darren. If Doc's bent on acquiring one, I doubt he'll find a better specimen out there.

John H. in DC Area

To date, that's been my conclusion as well, JASCLASS.

tlark

I turned down a couple of 355s for the tt, they are tempting. They do wail at full throttle though, and the Dr. will love its sound w/a Tubi.

mkhn

I was close to picking an F355 over a 993TT as well since the prices were relatively close, but the thought of maintenance costs brought me back from dream land to reality pretty quickly. The 993TT is my perfect car, but sometimes the allure of a Ferrari is so intoxicating.

whyb2nd

What Mike said...........

Woodster

The black one is gorgeous, the red one is" pretty and finicky"...

SLVR

John,

We all heard these stories about "a friend". Just do it!! I'll store the black car for you, plenty of space. I'll exercise it too....

SLVR

P.S. We did a min-thanksgiving yesterday! Happy thanksgiving!

Rassel

I just love the black Ferrari on the picture. What a beutiful car! Awesome lines and so powerful looking! Tell your friend that I back him up 100%!

Oh.. it was the red one?!
No comment then....

John H. in DC Area

I'm capable of hiding behind a "friend" to explore things on a trial basis, but in this case I'm innocent of the charge. Also, if the "space" in which you'll store the car is the garage of your newly acquired Bethesda house that's being torn down (or is that substantially remodeled?), I'll pass.

If I lived in less of an urban setting and had less urban driving to do, I would consider a Ferrari, but as it is the TT is a challenge to operate while avoiding or worrying about potholes, prying eyes, fingerprints, police, and jealous motorists. My fuse would quickly blow if I had a red 355 that magnified those headaches exponentially. Maybe in understated silver, however, hmmm.....

It's interesting that people complain about a highly powered turbocharged car being difficult to use on a daily basis. I find the TT to be the opposite. It's a pussycat if you want it to be, just stay off boost and stay with traffic, and then on boost it's a better point and shoot car than anything else out there, quickly dispatching other cars and leaving trouble in its wake. In contrast, the 355's relatively tame low rpm performance can't be changed, you simply have to light it up to 4k rpms if you want to mov briskly, it felt downright slow below that. As others have said, I'll take the jekyll and hyde, or is that the beautiful beast, of the 993TT.