Chris Harris takes on Ferrari on US website....in a big way

[havoc]

andyps said:

The contention that it relates to safety is a very dangerous one for Ferrari to take, there must be a number of Ferrari buyers who do take their cars on track days and, in the wonderfully litigious world we now have, could well claim that the lack of a factory support crew was the reason for their accident and then sue. On the basis Ferrari feel it important for the journalists to have their car set up specifically, it could be argued it is unsafe to not have that support.

Or a very lucrative one for Ferrari to take: "It is not safe to take our cars on track without Ferrari personnel on hand to assist. We will offer Ferrari track-days at £5,000 per day with factory support. We will not honour any warranty claims for cars taken on non-Ferrari trackdays."

[andyps]

havoc said:

Or a very lucrative one for Ferrari to take: "It is not safe to take our cars on track without Ferrari personnel on hand to assist. We will offer Ferrari track-days at £5,000 per day with factory support. We will not honour any warranty claims for cars taken on non-Ferrari trackdays."

To the best of my knowledge this is not offered, although I guess it could be a good money spinner for Ferrari. It could really impress at the golf club if someone were to say that they had Ferrari factory support when they did a track day - I am sure some would pay it!

[mollytherocker]

andyps said:

havoc said:

Or a very lucrative one for Ferrari to take: "It is not safe to take our cars on track without Ferrari personnel on hand to assist. We will offer Ferrari track-days at £5,000 per day with factory support. We will not honour any warranty claims for cars taken on non-Ferrari trackdays."

To the best of my knowledge this is not offered, although I guess it could be a good money spinner for Ferrari. It could really impress at the golf club if someone were to say that they had Ferrari factory support when they did a track day - I am sure some would pay it!

Ferrari offer this with their old F1 cars. You 'buy' them and Ferrari store them for you. When you want to play with them, Ferrari bring the car to your chosen track and provide full support.

I think it might be a touch more than £5000 though....

http://www.ferrari.com/English/Scuderia/F1_Clienti...

MTR

Edited by mollytherocker on Tuesday 22 March 23:11

[andyps]

mollytherocker said:

I think it might be a touch more than £5000 though....

I doubt it. I'm thinking of a "per minute" basis of course.

[FishFace]

Pesty said:

“For most Ferrari owners,” he says, “these things are not important. I think that Chris has done more harm to himself than Ferrari.”

hmmmm

Ferrari are wkers.

[hotmelt]

I think main Ferrari problem is GT3RS, and journalists like Harris who are proper car enthusiasts and gourmands also come under attack.

[havoc]

andyps said:

havoc said:

Or a very lucrative one for Ferrari to take: "It is not safe to take our cars on track without Ferrari personnel on hand to assist. We will offer Ferrari track-days at £5,000 per day with factory support. We will not honour any warranty claims for cars taken on non-Ferrari trackdays."

To the best of my knowledge this is not offered, although I guess it could be a good money spinner for Ferrari. It could really impress at the golf club if someone were to say that they had Ferrari factory support when they did a track day - I am sure some would pay it!

I didn't say it was...but if anyone pushes the legal angle that's exactly the response I'd come back with...

[Alfanatic]

havoc said:

andyps said:

havoc said:

Or a very lucrative one for Ferrari to take: "It is not safe to take our cars on track without Ferrari personnel on hand to assist. We will offer Ferrari track-days at £5,000 per day with factory support. We will not honour any warranty claims for cars taken on non-Ferrari trackdays."

To the best of my knowledge this is not offered, although I guess it could be a good money spinner for Ferrari. It could really impress at the golf club if someone were to say that they had Ferrari factory support when they did a track day - I am sure some would pay it!

I didn't say it was...but if anyone pushes the legal angle that's exactly the response I'd come back with...

1) It won't support their safety claim regarding professional car tests because they'd be saying that journalists need this support for their safety, owners can have it if they want but have to pay for it. The only thing that makes the journalists different is that they use stopwatches and publish the results to a wide audience, so if safety is really a factor, they're using double standards and not favouring their existing customer base.

2) It could backfire as they'd start out as the only performance car supplier saying that their cars are not safe to use on a track without factory support. This would mean either that Ferrari sportscars are much less safe than their competitors when driven in a sporting manner in a controlled environment, or that Ferrari care more. No doubt their competitors will take full advantage of option 1.

3) Despite that I agree they would actually make lots of money from such a scheme, and the FXX programmes, and the historic F1 option mentioned earlier could be precursors to such a scheme. After a year of making profit with the scheme and soaking up ridicule from competitors, Lambo, Porsche and co. would probably offer their own versions and get rich too. I wouldn't be surprised if many manufacturers already have track use clauses written in to their warranty small print in some way or another, perhaps not as a complete invalidation of warranty but as limitations on some points or others, like clutches, brakes, etc.

[vladcjelli]

Now don't get me wrong, I agree with what Harris has done. The pictures in EVO of the Ferrari support team fettling their car during a review makes my skin crawl. If you can't produce the figures without that support, the car can't produce the figures.
Also, I mostly like Harris as a journo. He seems to tell it like it is, and doesn't fall into the trap of just copying sections out of the press pack like some other reviewers do.
But, if you're going to stand up as a paragon of motoring ethics, at least wipe the milk off your top lip from suckling at the corporate teat. I spotted him on Renault TV a short while ago doing this. Check out the falconry at about five minutes in. A subtle allegory for the cars ability to "attract the birds"?
I find him harder to take seriously after his appearance as a very earnest and knowledgeable car salesman.

[vladcjelli]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Damn, spotted. Thought I was incognito.

Was it the purple fedora?

No problem with getting paid, but wouldn't Ferrari say that was their aim as well?

Doing the salesman bit makes his trusted opinion on other cars harder to swallow, when the Renaultsport range are obviously his favourite.

[vladcjelli]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Not sure I can agree with that.

If your only protrusion into peoples consciousness is telling people what you think of cars, then your credibility hangs on your neutrality and independence.
This isn't the same as getting a racing driver or a talking head celebrity to read a script.

And if the term advertorial had never been invented, I for one, would be a happier magazine reader.

[Fractal]

k-ink said:

Yes it does.

When you buy a laptop would you be happy if it arrived with 20% less memory than advertised?

I'm already not happy buying hard drives and it having less storage than advertised thanks to hard drive manufacturers managing to convince a court to redefine the value of a kilobyte/megabyte/gigabyte/terabyte and so on to 1000 units instead of 1024 (its a computer thing). At the terabyte level you are getting hundreds of gigs less space than the drive says it has on this.

[Old Trout]

One of the points made earlier is how important is all of this, how relevant are magazine reviews.

I think they are actually far more important for high end cars than normal priced cars.

Look at high end Porsche (GT cars) and Fezzas. Each new model is previewed one or two years before availability. Many are rare or limited editions. These two facts alone will ensure that most are sold on spec and on spec alone. These are not cars you can test drive.

Now, in the intervening period between deposit and arrival, reviews start to appear. At this point a bad review could cause some drop out of deposits. But more importantly, a bad review could really affect the premium on these cars in their early years. And the loss of early premium will lead to shorter term and potentially longer term depreciation. Something that manufactures like Ferrari care about and try and control very carefully.

Reviews could be the difference between a modern classic and a modern Edsel.

How many people test drove a 458, GT2 RS, GT3 RS etc before putting down their five figure deposit?

[havoc]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

How many people then are buying a badge and an image not a car they really want to drive?!?

Is it REALLY that essential to get in at the start of a non-LtdEdn* car? Are you really THAT sure it'll be the perfect car for you?


* If it was something like an F40/F50/CGT then I'll make allowances...

[Old Trout]

havoc said:

How many people then are buying a badge and an image not a car they really want to drive?!?

Is it REALLY that essential to get in at the start of a non-LtdEdn* car? Are you really THAT sure it'll be the perfect car for you?


* If it was something like an F40/F50/CGT then I'll make allowances...

My point us that you have no choice. Put your deposit down, or try your luck and buy second hand at a premium!!

[havoc]

Old Trout said:

My point us that you have no choice. Put your deposit down, or try your luck and buy second hand at a premium**!!

Really?

Have Ferrari and Porsche sold out ALL of their production runs of 458s and GT2s/3s before they enter production?

I sincerely doubt it...if they had that many pre-orders, they'd increase production rates. The issue is whether you put an order down now for one of the first cars* in 18mths time, or wait 18mths, drive one, then put an order down for a car that you know you like in another year/18mths.

...so it's a question of whether you have to have it first or not?



* And hope it doesn't catch fire!

** Speculators REALLY wind me up...people who've no interest in the commodity trying to make money out of those that do. :swearslikeagrizzlednco:

[Old Trout]

havoc said:

Really?

Have Ferrari and Porsche sold out ALL of their production runs of 458s and GT2s/3s before they enter production?

I sincerely doubt it...if they had that many pre-orders, they'd increase production rates. The issue is whether you put an order down now for one of the first cars* in 18mths time, or wait 18mths, drive one, then put an order down for a car that you know you like in another year/18mths.

...so it's a question of whether you have to have it first or not?



* And hope it doesn't catch fire!

** Speculators REALLY wind me up...people who've no interest in the commodity trying to make money out of those that do. :swearslikeagrizzlednco:

So how many GT2 RSs were available to order once cars started being delivered...

There were GT3 RSs but most were sold before the first delivery and most others came from cancelled orders (which is how I got mine).

How many GT3RS LE LOIs/Deposits are going to lead to very disappointed potential customers?


That is to miss my second point, which is perhaps more important - it is how the market is managed once cars start to arrive. A manufacturer that does this well will have happier customers with lower depreciation or better premiums.

[Old Trout]

BTW Harji - I can't find your specific quotes and cannot be bothered to look.

I think you might find that Porsche have a different view than you do on Motorsport success...

"Porsche is the most successful brand in motorsport, scoring a total of more than 28,000 victories. Porsche is currently the world's largest race car manufacturer. In 2006, Porsche built 195 race cars for various international motor sports events. In 2007, Porsche is expected to construct no fewer than 275 dedicated race cars (7 RS Spyder LMP2 prototypes, 37 GT2 spec 911 GT3-RSRs, and 231 911 GT3 Cup vehicles)."

A little bit out of date - but nothing has really changed since then. They just get on and win races.