Cheeky 12k bid.

Dasher, tell your neighbour to get his ass on here! We want to hear about this epic catastroph waiting to happen

Did someone mention beer ? Well, I'm here to collect, especially now I've been outted by my dear neighbour DasherDiablo (aka Sherlock !). So here goes....
I hereby confess, that I am the "mad man" who let a rush of blood to his heart rule any sane thoughts about buying a V12 Ferrari that could be the start of the next Financial Crisis in our household. To help reduce the "fear" I managed to persuade a friend that we should sell our mint, low mileage, 100% reliable M635Csi to help fund it.. and luckily I got his signature in blood before he saw the ad !! He's seen the car now and is still speaking to me, so far so good..
Well, I'm two weeks, but a mere 300 miles in to V12 ownership and.... it stops, starts, goes like the wind, and, to date, no drips, no leaks, no nasty noises and even the suspension light has gone out, then on, then out, then on, etc :-) But believe me, before handing over the readies I prevaricated and had many sleepless nights with cold sweats even after I had put down a deposit.. frankly I drove Mrs G mad with my "what have I done ?" moments! I was worried that my famous rose tinted "shed buying" specs were taking things just a bit too far this time, esp as my last purchase was a 1991 Audi V8 Quattro which cost 5% of this one. However, that has been an amazing buy, the great V8 noise through stainless pipes makes it worth the money all day every day, and after 10 months its been 100% reliable.. so a V12 Ferrari was an obvious next step ... wasn't it ??!!
Once I'd taken the specs off, I think what sold the car to me was the fact that although cosmetically the car has not been looked after too well, mechanically it certainly has. It has been main dealer looked after until late 2008, 3 years and only 6k ago. Since then it has been looked after by a guy who used to race 308s and has a small business looking after race cars and other exotica and it was he that was selling on behalf of his customer. It came with a fully stamped booked until Oct 2008 and invoices and bills for the past four years, and yes I did use Google to find the registered owner and make contact to verify this... he confirmed he had decided 5k main dealer bills were no longer palatable on a car doing just 2k a year. (BTW he has a 612 now, I might just offer him an option to buy at 10% of list in 17 years !!). IMHO the 456 is far better than the ad would suggest (well I did buy it so I would say that :-), especially from those very unflattering photos of a dirty, unwashed car in a dodgy yard, and long list of expensive sounding faults. It is obviously no show car, and there are things on the "to do list" already, e.g. slight blow from exhaust (anyone got a nice Larini system for sale ?), those Primewell front tyres have to go, wheels need refurb, aircon blows lukewarm, the usual 2mm gap at rear of the windows, the drivers door seal could do with replacing, and couple of scrapes could do with a bit of TLC. But for the price I'll live with these....
Part of the deal was that the car was given a light service and new independent MOT (which did involve fixing the door latch) and so, like Mr C. Harris suggested, we intend to drive as is for now (tyres to be done ASAP though !). Calamities allowing, we will save some cash and over next winter start to tackle some of the "list"...
What could go wrong ? Actually, don't answer that...
So if you see me / it around, don't hesitate to offer condolences, point me to the nearest psychiatrist/bank, throw loads sums of cash or a combination of all three.