A return to form: Say hello to Banana MK2, the Italian Prancing Horse (Ferrari 458 Italia)

[Gibbo]

I’m taking it as a given the 458 was tucked up in the garage during OC/UK’s blizzard today? - if not, how was a Ferrari with the white fluffy ****?

Tucked away.

 

[Gibbo]

Gibbo of you had say 10k to 15k as a collectable to keep to get with something what would you get ?

Or have all these ships sailed.

To buy to sit on for ten years with hope of a good return?

Completely standard as low miles as you can get E46 M3 or E92 M3.

A low miles low owner 182 Trophy for 10k.

As a fun car to keep that won’t lose money an Evo X FQ 330-360 manual for 14-20k.

Or get a LHD yank muscle car!

Honda S2000!

Problem is boat has sailed will keep sailing?


I sense market and car manufacturers have got so obsessed with chasing numbers and trying to be the fastest have got too and passed the point where those who love driving for driving but also at the same time don’t want to risk losing their license or jail time don’t find the latest machinery as enjoyable.

For me a perfect example is something like a 600 LT or 720S there is literally zero effort to go fast it’s just so easy and whilst doing so there is like no drama either, you can’t as the saying goes ring a modern cars neck or if you do your going to be breaking speed limits by vast amount to get that rush or another example the 488 again boost builds and you fly and it’s just over in no time. OK I’m not fond of big turbo motors so I’m not fairest person to judge but it’s hard to say I find something so fast boring but well I just do.

But the Huracan had the NA noise I love and the motor was amazing and the gearbox incredible but where it has the drama for noise again it never felt challenging literally floor it point and shoot and it did it and was just so easy.

Yet on the flip side I’m not a good enough driver or brave enough to say drive a Caterham, Exige or other similar stripped no aids car on the road.

I like that middle ground that has aids but feels thrilling at legal speeds with a decent auto gearbox with short ratios and though I also love a manual too but for me when it comes to manuals I only really like S2000 and Porsche 6 speed, I’m just picky I want fast but not easy I want engaging and epic noise and I want an engine that feels truly special and addictive.

Maybe it’s an age thing too as I’ve got older I’m less interested in maybe having a dabble with another car on the roads or modifying a car as much as I maybe once would, I just want to drive a car for my own driving pleasure and enjoyment not giving two hoots about anyone else on road who may want to race me or who says why did you sell a Porsche to buy a Ford, buy what makes you happy and what you enjoy I’ve always done as such but feel for the road I don’t want faster than the 458 it’s more than fast enough whilst having that balance of thrill, I like power and performance just like anyone else but the 458 for me is where it stops.

I think from here I foresee the 458 staying or only being replaced by a GT3 RS or GT3 manual or maybe even something like an F430 manual or R8 V10 manual and also I do plan to keep chopping and changing the daily for fun to drive cars and plan on selling the Abarth in a few months and trying a GT86 manual so I have something to tweak a little and do some skids in and perfect my drift skills a little and then maybe after that maybe a muscle car and just sit on the 458 as irrelevant what happens to values there I’m getting money back when I sell it.

 

[Gibbo]

The problem with predicting the next big thing or gambling on a continued rising prices is that the buying public are notoriously fickle and if/when government policy shifts away from petrol cars to EV in a big way (the current trends are just a dipping their toe in the water) then combustion vehicles will see bigger increases in taxation and fuel duty. An E46 M3 is going to be worth about £3.50 in 10 years if fuel is £2/litre and tax is £1000+ a year. Most enthusiasts of the 1990-2010 period of cars are old enough to remember when they were not that expensive. Gibbo, I remember your minty mint CSL at the time was ~£25k? And it wouldn't have been all that old and now a grotty one is £40k and that's been the case for ages.

I just don't think there is a big enough pool of people willing to pay silly money for a lot of these cars that won't just run a mile as soon as they start costing serious money fuel/tax/servicing and begin to depreciate heavily as part of that. Driving fast/loud/silly petrol cars will gain a stigma similar to smoking has now (which used to be the height of cool) and the vast majority of investors who bought up old crap because their money was doing nothing in the bank will move on to something else. Leaving this to return to a more normal state.

A good example is the 996, given the quite frankly absurd prices of most 911s, there's no sensible reason why 996s should be languishing at £10k. Early ones are really old and analogue just like a 993/964 which cost 5 times as much now. Ooo boo hoo the engine is cooled by water and it's got funny headlights. Totally irrational and given how unloved 964s were until 6 or 7 years ago it it just shows how silly things have got.

You have to remember though as time goes on, the vehicles naturally reduce in numbers, written off, broken down and can't be afford to repair so scrapped, turned into track/race cars and or stolen.

When I got my 172 Cup there was 1000ish taxed and on the road, I paid £1100 for it, when I sold it over a year later, albeit fully restored there was 650-700 on the road and because it was an original example, 1 previous owner and relatively low miles I sold it for £6500 and they continue to go up in value as the numbers drop on the road and those left with unmolested clean original examples the value goes up.

However many E46 M3 are on the road today you can sure bet that number will half or more in ten years time and the ones left standard, clean will be absolutely minimal.

Regarding the CSL mine is still on the road, taxed and MOT with 59k miles now, that car will be worth 60-80k being a low mileage example in good condition, the sub 30k mile cars have traded hands closer to the 100's, in another ten years there will be less CSL's on the road, not so many because most owners do seem to have garaged them, for example my old CSL in the past 5 years has done 5000 miles so clearly the current owner is preserving its mileage and either betting on its value going up or its become a dedicated weekend / track car.

Yeah it will be bad if fuel becomes £2 a litre, tax £1000 but I guess another way I look at it, I pay £570 tax now and £1.50 litre now, if it goes up well it goes up I am not going to stop enjoying cars. What I may do is get a boring hypersonic fast EV to save money, and then on weekends have something truly proper special, that sounds awesome, chokes people on its fumes as it drives by and thoroughly enjoy the thrill of not being the lemming and following a trend, fuel combustion cars will still be on the roads in 50 years time, they will just be a minority but will still be running. People always want to be different and well with EV its just a sheep thing, they are all the same, all sound the same and all totally souless in the way they drive.

As to regards to 996 I guess I am of that camp its got funny headlights, I just find the 996 not a nice looking car but also having driven 996 Carrera's I am sorry but for me they drive not a patch on the 997 series that came after, the 997.1 if anything was the last and best of Porsches totally analogue cars, the hydraulic steering hit a pinnacle height of feeling, the looks and size was spot on and they were lighter than the 996's, there only downside was engines made of chocolate but judging by values it does not seem to hinder them much, looks, noise wise I prefer 997.1, but to drive a 997.2 GTS is fantastic even if the steering is not quite as crisp but still fantastic. The newer 911's though although excellent did grow in size considerably but if I was to buy a GT3 today I'd buy a 991.1 GT3 RS, I just love how it looks and though a 997.2 GT3 might be worth more in future and though a 991.2 GT3 manual could really tempt me if the clutch weighting is suitable for daily driving.

Any car sold in lower numbers or produced that is special and the last of NA for example the clean examples will generally always be worth more money as they become rarer, particular if they were the cars reviewers raved about.

 

[Gibbo]

Well Ferrari / DL continue to impress me.

Spotted on FB today they are now allowing customers with mechanical skills to perform maintenance and get free training:









They are allowing customers to watch, learn and be trained on servicing and doing jobs on their Ferrari's, something Ferrari are quite passionate about is how their cars are DIY friendly whereas competing brands won't even let you see the engine, as such contact DL this morning and asked if the same is possible when mine goes for its service in April and have agreed to have their head technician do my car and show me how to perform it, of course I pretty much know how anyway but an opportunity to have a proper look around the car, be told all about it in a lovely shiny workshop is an opportunity I cannot miss, April cannot come soon enough now.

The service just keeps on impressing me, never before have I encountered such generosity, service and on hand help/advice before from any other dealer or brand.

 

[Gibbo]

Fair play, that sounds excellent

To be honest I just recognised the shorter guy, he was the guy who did my service last time and was changing my spark plugs for me and answering questions and telling me how the spark plug change is no special tools and the car in general requires no special tools, just a lot of extensions and patience.

 

[Gibbo]

Your comment about not seeing the engine struck with me. Ages ago I was bored one evening, and saw a tv show about Mclaren building one of their cars, it was the most soulless white collar CAD experience I've ever seen. The ricardo engine looked like a marine unit, with not even anything on the rocker covers. Just a silver blob with a million black pipes. There was no passion or artistry.

It is very sad and another thing that will impact used values hard as modern day Mclarens are not DIY friendly, not in the slightest, all they give you is a small flap to top up oil and washer fluid in most the models, crying shame, engines are a masterpiece, show them off and let the customer tinker, though its not just Mclaren modern Porsches just look like a NVIDIA card under the bonnet.

Of course you can still work on them but it is like the manufacturer is trying their best to prevent you from doing so.

 

[Gibbo]

Sun was shining and I just had to drive the car and experience the sound with the valve mod, oh my its loud but fun, of course I took some photos:
















Love how the 458 and earlier Ferrari's show off the engine by using no plastic covers and painting the intake manifolds red and stamping them, was one of the main reasons I wanted the coupe over the spider, plus it weighs less too.

 

[Gibbo]

Summer dates with MSVTrackdays just went up

Shall be looking at Donnington May / June time based on good weather, also requested Kosta organises a day at the sprint circuit too, but will probably take Abarth to that.

Loved driving home last night, car is seriously loud and the burbles, gurgles and odd pop are really cool, my girlfriend was stood waiting for me in and said she heard me coming four minutes before I eventually arrived on the drive, she was like it is so loud that she can hear it coming from so far away and all windows were closed. I guess that is because before the 458 is designed to make really little to no noise under 3000rpm, even in race mode as the valves always remain shut unless you go full throttle or the revs go beyond 3000, so in the area you drive around in it is normally quiet, whereas now its just a V8 singing and gurgling, fantastic.

My guess is when the valve is shut the gasses exit the centre pipe which is narrow diameter 2.5" piping going through the back boxes, so my guess is as now the gasses exit the two outer larger diameter pipes those maybe bypass the back boxes in some way, hence volume increase.

In short now its like driving an angry V8 around at low revs and a screaming Ferrari at high revs as it always was.

 

[Gibbo]

I bet not really any dealership could make a video that has three F40's in the workshop, wow:

I am very glad though its not even in the same ball park as an F40 but I have all documentation of my 458 including the original customer details as the handbook and original service book it all gets hand written into it, so am so glad it was given with my car because I guess due to GDPR it could be argued such information should not maybe be present any more?

 

[Gibbo]

how many F40 are left appose to how many were made ?

when your done with the 458 garage it for about 25 years see if its worth a killing then, i know there is a lot of them but..

Absolutely no idea, my guess is maybe there could be around 100 in the UK, maybe more but the majority are probably garage queens as they tend to command around a million and as high as 1.5M:
https://www.pistonheads.com/classifieds/used-cars/ferrari/f40/ferrari-f40/9964182

10-15 cars for sale in UK at moment.


In comparison there is around 500x 458 Coupes on the road in the UK and around 50 for sale and low mileage later cars advertised as high as 200k. At the other end of spectrum there are high milers, cars with bad/poor history or LHD/Low spec as low as 100k also, but these cars simply never seem to sell. People don't buy budget cheap Ferrari's it seems.

F430 manuals will be a car that goes crazy regards to value, as its as rare or rarer than F430 Scuderia and a lot of investor car types believe 458 Speciale will appreciate and high spec good examples are 458 a little too as they are the last of the NA V8 generation and last to be designed by Pininfarina, but only time will tell, but F40's and F430 manuals will keep rising for sure as the numbers were so low and they are now at that age if you have a totally original clean, low owner, low mileage car it can command a huge premium.

Plus Ferrari and specialist are always trying to buy the good examples, its a lucrative business for them.

 

[Gibbo]

Driven 812 Super fast !

OMG !!

Next up V12 Lusso AWD!

 

[Gibbo]

Hi there

Got over two hours of footage today.

min short to summarise the day:

08:30 arrival: Hand over to my service guy for the day James, he is assigned to my car and ramp for day to do service, MOT and any other work I wish to conduct or any issues or questions I have.
09:30 uses approve: Spent around two hours looking at various Ferrari’s including Speciale, Pista and California’s and in depth conversations with staff regarding different models.
11:30 health clinic: back to my car and showing me its condition and allowing me to see everything or under trays removed and all engine covers removed and car was given clean bill of health no leaks or issues of any kind. Was taken to see one of the new 3.9 turbo motors being stripped down and rebuilt due to an oil week, about a 50hr job but cover by warranty. As the guy doing my car was James who is Ferrari’s highly positioned mechanic as he is one of the few who can rebuild a DCT gearbox and being with them 18 years he was telling me some very cool stuff and also how the 458’s are the model they see least for issues simply as himself and another tech guy was talking how Ferrari massively over engineered that particular model as it was a major pivot point for Ferrari regarding reliability and service cost. He said though most the modern stuff is very reliable the 458 has no known issues and as such are rather bullit proof, touch wood.
12:30 812 Superfast: Got nearly an hour in the car and all I can say take an M3 CSL for handling and chassis, but with a whopping V12 800HP motor and it’s just a whole event of a car and in conditions took real throttle modulation to try and get the power to ground as they let me drive it not in wet mode so had to be mindful and thank god it was on Winter tyres but I only achieved full throttle in 3rd gear for all of a split second until it broke loose around 8000rpm but it felt fast on another level I’ve being in some fast stuff but this thing is bonkers and V12 sounds insane and it feels like a psycho to drive but also flick the maratino to wet and box to auto and drive it gentle and it will do the GT thing spot on but what a car and what a noise!
13:30 lunch: as per usual a full lunch for us both and endless supply of drinks for the day.
14:30: Got the bill, a whopping £54.85 for MOT and marketing lady me two free red ferrari cups so now have entire set. Plus got an invite to Italy !!!

Not home long checked my email and Ferrari are putting me and Briony up in a hotel in May to drive the new F8 Tributos in Italy for a day and then on second day to spank them around their test circuit in Italy and maybe also factory tour too.

All we have to pay is flights which are cheap! Will probably also stay and additional day or two and make a holiday of it.

Service on another level!

 

[Gibbo]

That is good service, but let’s be honest here, if you went to look at a privately sold Ferrari and the chap said he serviced it and worked on it himself and it hadn’t seen a dealer or trusted independent in years you’d run a country mile, right?

Absolutely, my point is Ferrari are not trying to stop their customers from working on their own cars unlike other brands.

 

[Gibbo]

If you take certain hondas into a dealer you're forced to do the work yourself sometimes as they don't know what they're doing unless there's an error code

Saying that, it's probably a common story with other similar companies.

Well just had a Honda dealer do a major service, spark plugs, valve adjustment on my S2000, so I hope they did not break it lol.

 

[Gibbo]

You gonna be going all god hand in the s2000??

Your making zero sense......

 

[Gibbo]

How long did you leave your car with Honda? IIRC the valve clearances should only he checked/adjusted on a cold engine. Honda didn't adjust the clearances correctly only my old CTR and it had to go back and be left overnight to do it properly.

Had it a week as no rush from my side to collect it, they have repainted rocker cover whilst doing so as well and some other jobs. So yeah adjustments being made on a stone cold engine.

"Toshiya Joshima (城島 俊也 Jōshima Toshiya) is a character that appears in the manga and anime Initial D, and one of Project D's most fierce opponents. He is also known as "God Hand" due to his ability to control the car's rate with very delicate steering and throttle inputs all while using only one hand to steer."

Joshima is famous for driving his S2000.

In that case absolutely not, I've not driven this one much yet but if its anything like my 1999 then I am more likely to be crashing it rather than being a single handed driving god lol. Time will tell.

 

[Gibbo]

Well I guess I could not go through Ferrari ownership without issue, car has developed a creak on uneven roads and when pulling away or reversing and my first though was dampers but they both seem dry and though ferrari have not seen these videos I made one earlier where they commented the front suspension movement was normal.

The car handles absolutely fine and rides fine but it sounding like a creaking boat is not pleasant.

A couple of videos:

I’m gonna send these videos to Ferrari so they can comment the noise to me sounds like a binding bush or a seized bush, what do others think?

Im still concerned by how easy the car seems to bounce and it’s same with car on in race mode but again it seems to handle and drive spot on.

Also the noise is not present when car is cold which may make life difficult when attempting to pinpoint this noise.

 

[Gibbo]

Sounds exactly like my 4C ball joints. Like creaking floor boards, worse at low speed or with lock / bumps. I actually thought the leather dash was warped or something at first.

Have you been on any wet journeys lately? Mine got worse in the rain I think the grease got flushed out a bit which amplified it further.

Yes when I did a 400 mile round trip for service seems to have gotten worse since then and it was motorways in wet conditions.

I’m think ball joints is spot on my guess is it’s passenger side now as to whether how big of job it is on a 458.

I doubt warranty covers it so specialist it shall be.

 

[Gibbo]

Guess this is the part:
https://www.scuderiacarparts.com/part/417165/ferrari/343376/ball-joint.html

 

[Gibbo]

Car is booked in with Ferrari next week as it turns out they might be covered under warranty, if not I just pay the £160 inspection and decide what I want to do, in the meantime I enjoyed watching this and cannot wait to do similar later this year on NC500:

The 458 is just perfect, not the most capable, not the fastest but it is without doubt the most fun and best sounding.