....possibly. Without boring you with details, I may have available about £100k (plus whatever I get for my 355, say £30k) to spend in Feb on a new (to me) car. I need advice on what to get as I've never even considered this level of the market before, which brings me onto my 1st (and most important) criteria:

1) The car needs to hold its value, sort of. Ignoring dealer margin which you get on any car, it doesn't have to appreciate and "earn" me money by any stretch of the imagination. If it holds its value (ignoring dealer margin again) that's great, and even if it loses a bit of value (say a couple of £k per year) similar to my 355 that's still fine. However, what I'm not going to do is buy say an F430 for £80k, then chop it in for £58k in 2 years, that is too much. As for servicing, I'm happy to pay £2-3k per year like I do currently, and a bit more if I'll save if the car holds its value more due to what it is.

Note that this first criteria is the most important a this is money on which I could be sorting a buy to let to generate income etc (i'll also be doing that already, but I could do it more if that makes sense), so this has to be much more of a head (rather than heart) purchase that normal.

2) The car needs to be special and a supercar. The max budget is likely to be £130k but obviously I don't have to spend that amount. Equally I realise I could "trade up" ( ) to a 360 for say £10k more, but that's not really what I'm aiming for.

3) Car will need to be able to take say 3k miles per year and still conform to criteria (1). I want to drive it, but equally I don't want to see catastrophic depreciation due to having the nerve to actually take it on the road and enjoy it.

That's all I can think of at the moment. All I can come up with at the mo are:

512
Challenge Stradale
550 (the "budget" option )
430 Scuderia at a pinch (but I'm not sure what depreciation running/costs are like on these)
Testarossa (another slightly more "budget" option, but maybe not special/rare enough)
Diablo (of some description, not really familiar with them)

So comments on the above based on my criteria (from people who've owned them if possible) as well as *any* other suggestions (open to left field ideas ) would be much appreciated I'm relying on you all to stop me doing the sensible thing and investing it

Struggling to think of anything else that would fit your criteria

I know this might come off a bit left field (being more of an Italian-supercar enthusiast myself), but have you thought about a Ford GT?
1) You won't see much depreciation and might even see appreciation. Prices have been flat since they were new.
2) Exotic and fairly rare
3) Fast

I'm from across the pond, so I don't know how difficult they are to get over in the UK

Will be moving south of the river from Fulham soon, so not too much of an issue, would largely depend on the car parking space I had I suspect!

Keep 'em coming! All good so far

I assume you don't want classics which would be the safest place so rules out XK jags etc

If money security rather than supercar your priority how about:


Morgan Aeromax - they come up for sale occasionally.

Alfa 8C ?

If Porcshe makes the mistake of going down the floppy paddle route for the new GT3 the RS4.0, GT2 and last GT3 RS should be reasonably safe

Depreciation?

For that money is has to be either a 6.0VT or maybe a 16M if they've dropped in price over the winter months!
Anything can happen in 7months though, likely even get a 458 for that then!

your 355 spider for £30k?

Is it still working?

I was in your position at the beginning of the year and considered and drove the CS, Scud and 512. I specifically wanted a Ferrari so didn't look at Lambos or other alternatives,

The 512 was lovely but i deided if I were going to get a BB it would have to be a 365 and then thought I'd rather get something more modern as my first Ferrari. Plus finding a decent BB is not straightforward.

Scud was great. Could see myself owning one at some point. But CS felt rawer and a bit more special. So bought one. It has been brilliant so far. Worming its way into my affections more than I had anticipated.

Try and drive the cars on your short list, that should help.

I assume 599 could also be on there, although I don't have any experience.

CS is an amazing car and seems to be ageing better and better. Seems to somehow stand independent from everything else before and since. Get one in blue