355 A future Classic (2014)

355 A future Classic (2014)

Author
Discussion

APOLO1

5,256 posts

193 months

Sunday 3rd August 2014
quotequote all
the 355 with the optional handling pack, is one of the best handling cars I have ever owned/driven....

355spiderguy

1,476 posts

170 months

Sunday 3rd August 2014
quotequote all
APOLO1 said:
the 355 with the optional handling pack, is one of the best handling cars I have ever owned/driven....
+1

I sold my previous 355 spider to get my hands on one of the last of the line manual 355 spiders with the fiorano handling pack...

what an option! the steering and handling is fantastic; hard to believe the 355 could be so improved...

was really hard to come by though; they are a tad rare....have only seen one for sale in the last couple of years.

APOLO1

5,256 posts

193 months

Sunday 3rd August 2014
quotequote all
355spiderguy said:
APOLO1 said:
the 355 with the optional handling pack, is one of the best handling cars I have ever owned/driven....
+1

I sold my previous 355 spider to get my hands on one of the last of the line manual 355 spiders with the fiorano handling pack...

what an option! the steering and handling is fantastic; hard to believe the 355 could be so improved...

was really hard to come by though; they are a tad rare....have only seen one for sale in the last couple of years.
wish I could find one for sale, the F1 designer at the time had a hand in sign off on this car...did you know it also had more BHP....best steel brakes on any road car I have ever driven.....

355spiderguy

1,476 posts

170 months

Sunday 3rd August 2014
quotequote all
yeah, I had read somewhere they had the race series ecu fitted and had a couple of bhp more that added with the quicker rack steering, lower and uprated suspension and the uprated cross drilled discs and pads makes it a bit special....

here's a pic of mine..





Mario149

7,750 posts

177 months

Sunday 3rd August 2014
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Robert555 said:
BruceC
Interested to know your opinion. Regardless of miles traveled what you think the average running costs are for keeping the 355 in "out of the box " condition per annum. Enthusiastic owners will always find a bit of servicing to be done or leather to be repaired etc. It all adds up.
I'm not BruceC but I did have a 355 spider for nearly 3 years and 14k miles. If it's done regular miles for its age, so say currently on about 40k or so, about £2.5k/year at a cheap Indy averaged out over a few years if doing say 4k miles/year and using it properly. That includes servicing, maintenance and consumables, but excludes fuel, insurance and upgrades. A quick search of PH will yield a good 355 running cost thread from a year or so back if memory serves. With the greatest I respect to them, beware people who claim relatively small running costs (especially if they're not doing tiny mileage and/or haven't been through a few service cycles) as they've either been very lucky and/or have a lot of imminent stuff. With a bit of mechanical bad luck, cosmetic work, a major service and some bad timing for consumables, you could easily hit £7k on a trip to an Indy and not actually have fixed anything properly serious. Not saying it will happen, just that it's on the radar potentially.

Great cars though, def a bucket list ownership item IMHO.

F1Sean

207 posts

181 months

Saturday 9th August 2014
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Here's mine at the top of the Stelvio pass last year. Mine will never be worth a fortune with the mileage I do (7000 in 18 months!)
Why keep it in the garage? :-)

three five five

154 posts

113 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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priley said:
The 355's increase in value has essentially meant ownership for the last 6 years has cost nothing (assuming I sold it) which was definitely more luck than judgement on my behalf. It's such a lovely car though; engaging to drive and beautiful to behold. A keeper for sure. Here's a gratuitous pic after taking mine for its MOT this morning.



Edited by priley on Tuesday 29th July 13:46


Edited by priley on Tuesday 29th July 13:48
Hi priley

I'm a priley too (Paul Riley) and here is my 355...


smile


blueSL

611 posts

225 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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Mine's an early (May 95, pre air-bag, manual of course) GTB, rosso corsa/crema, which I bought at 2000 miles, second owner.

I unfortunately stuffed it into the M1 barrier in the wet a year later and after £23000+VAT of repairs, it does betray its history, mainly panel gaps. It drives perfectly well but is pretty much unsaleable which is just as well as it's not for sale!

I've recently started putting more miles on it, now done 21000 and a recent fantastic road trip put 15% of its lifetime miles on in two weeks. The car didn't miss a beat though the ground clearance is a problem on places like the Stelvio and there's some cosmetic stuff to do underneath.

Since I will never sell it, I have my own service schedule - minor every two years, major plus belts every 4. Exception items have been buttresses, air con pump, cats, wheel bolts (rusting), replace rusty sill plates with carbon, sticky-no-more refurb of centre console and other parts, Hill Engineering skid plates under the front. In all, servicing over the 19 years I've had the car has been around £30000.

On the to do list? Brakes faded badly on the Grossglockner, those under-car cosmetics - wheel arch liner, sill cover, clutch dome - leather needs some TLC, corrosion setting in on front window guides, could do with a new windscreen, aircon recirc flap broken and so on. Some of the stuff I do myself, more out of interest than to save money.

So, the car is definitely "user" but what a great car and companion for a trip criss-crossing between Austria, Switzerland and Italy.

Here's a picture of one very grubby car at the top of the Grossglockner...



And a bit cleaner...



Edited by blueSL on Friday 24th October 03:43

blueSL

611 posts

225 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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Incidentally, I agree about the earlier comment about the speedometer. The pickup used to fail after the damp got in so some earlier cars will have more miles than shown - mine has about 150, most of which was getting to the dealer to get it fixed.

The cars need to be used regularly. The reason I needed new cats was because of a long period in storage during a house refurbishment. One or more spark plugs failed on each side, neat unburned fuel into the cats which then overheated, seeing clouds of white smoke coming out the back is not for the faint-hearted.

One other thing I did was to buy a set of metric gauges (oil temp, pressure, water temp) from a car being broken up and I spent a happy afternoon replacing the gauges in PSI and Degrees F. Then, when I had the sticky-no-more stuff done, I switched that to Degrees C as well to complete the conversion from Dark Ages to New World.

priley

503 posts

187 months

Friday 24th October 2014
quotequote all
Hi Paul Riley(!) from earlier!

Where do you guys get the wrinkly centre consoles repaired? I believe Hill Engineering supply the replacements but I'm guessing it's quite a fiddly job?

three five five

154 posts

113 months

Friday 24th October 2014
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We (mrs 355 and I) did it with oven cleaner (!!!) and an earbud and small cloth. Took about two hours and looks a million bucks smile

I plan to put the process up on my car blog as many fellow owners ask. Total cost £1. I'll post up a link later with pix of the result - a few have asked 'where did you get it done' assuming it was done professionally wink

blueSL

611 posts

225 months

Friday 24th October 2014
quotequote all
What oven cleaner does is remove the rubberised surface leaving the raw plastic underneath. I preferred to send the parts to stickynomore in the US and they come back with a beautiful satin painted finish. Costs a whole lot more though...

I had it done to the centre console including the HVAC knobs, interior door levers, mirror triangles and the steering wheel box.

Centre console is easy to take out - start with the screw underneath the ashtray and it comes out in sections.

phib

4,464 posts

258 months

Saturday 25th October 2014
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The milage / owners is an interesting one, I thnk its hard to say all miles are incorrect (many are though !!) and criticise people wh dont use them very often.

I have had mine about 7 years I think and its probably done 2k in that time (1k first year), I love the looks of it and am more than happy poping to the garage to have a look, its been serviced by the same dealer every year on the same day.

Why havent I used it .... well I have always had 3 or 4 cars at any one point normally a daily hack, a 911 of some description, the ferrari, a caterham ish thing and a defender.

I get so little spare time that the daily usually does 30-40k a year the 911 5-10k the caterham 2k and the defender about 1k and the ferrari next to nothing, I still however get pleasure from owning it.

I think that one of the reasons I use mine less now is that the roads have got much worse !! and probably I have got older !!

Have pretty much thought about selling the 355 every year and had some good offers for it but never been able to part with it !!

Phib


blueSL

611 posts

225 months

Saturday 25th October 2014
quotequote all
Yes, if ever a car's a keeper, it's the 355. I used to do so few miles that I could almost remember every journey and nearly 50% of the miles were taking and retrieving it for service or MOT. What changed things for me was a planned two week trip to watch the Mille Miglia and then mess about in Northern Italy. Nothing like that to help you bond with a car. One of my friends collapsed and died of a heart attack last week so a timely reminder that you can't take it with you and are a long time dead. So, even if my car picks a few scars of use along the way, it's there to be enjoyed.

three five five

154 posts

113 months

Sunday 26th October 2014
quotequote all
priley said:
Hi Paul Riley(!) from earlier!

Where do you guys get the wrinkly centre consoles repaired? I believe Hill Engineering supply the replacements but I'm guessing it's quite a fiddly job?
Here's the link on my blog...


http://thirteenotwo.wordpress.com/ferrari-fettling...

smile

red_slr

17,124 posts

188 months

Sunday 26th October 2014
quotequote all
I have been looking for most of this year, got serious about 2 cars but a deal never went through on either for various reasons.

In that time prices, on average have gone up around £10k - even more in some cases.

I think by 2020 they will all be north of £100k, with red manual cars with low miles being perhaps as high as £120k.

Babw

886 posts

145 months

Sunday 26th October 2014
quotequote all
red_slr said:
I have been looking for most of this year, got serious about 2 cars but a deal never went through on either for various reasons.

In that time prices, on average have gone up around £10k - even more in some cases.

I think by 2020 they will all be north of £100k, with red manual cars with low miles being perhaps as high as £120k.
Same story here. Although in that time the 348 has really grown on me but they have gone up considerably as well. I have my doubts on whether the prices will keep rising for 5-6 years though, it just seem unsustainable.






Edited by Babw on Sunday 26th October 21:57

three five five

154 posts

113 months

Sunday 26th October 2014
quotequote all
red_slr said:
I have been looking for most of this year, got serious about 2 cars but a deal never went through on either for various reasons.

In that time prices, on average have gone up around £10k - even more in some cases.

I think by 2020 they will all be north of £100k, with red manual cars with low miles being perhaps as high as £120k.
I hope so ! smile

I bought mine a year ago - its easily worth another £10K if offered for sale. They have rocketed and are selling rather than just being advertised at daft money wink

jw01

84 posts

132 months

Monday 27th October 2014
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Went to the coffee morning at Lancasters in Colchester yesterday. Some serious lovely supercars there (every Lambo, Maserati, and some great Ferraris (including an F50). In that illustrious company the 355 still held its own on looks alone. For that reason I think the 355 will hold its value well and will sustain/increase in value over time - by how much is the question! Current rate of price rises are unsustainable IMO!

griffter

3,981 posts

254 months

Monday 27th October 2014
quotequote all
355s do seem to be being justifiably hyped and rising. But are 348s really rising? I was looking this time last year and they were available from £25k (cat d) to £50k. Some for sale then are still available now, but there seem to be a lot fewer on the market. I'm not sure they're actually more expensive though?