The Ferrari brand has long been associated with wealth and expendable incomes, but we spoke to Ferrari owners to find out what it really takes.
In terms of unattainable cars for the average Joe, Ferrari has always topped the list with its combination of heritage, social status, and price.
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The brand itself is fiercely protective of its image, which leads to a sense of exclusivity and Ferrari loyalty among its owners or future customers.
The average person, no matter how much money you have, can’t just walk in and buy something like an SF90. You must build a relationship with the dealer, starting your Ferrari ownership with something like a Roma, and then, after a few new cars, you may be allocated a top model.
Then there’s the price; new models start at around half a million dollars (plus on-road costs) in Australia and run upward of a million.
But there’s a whole other culture of used and classic Ferraris that breed an entirely different type of buyer. A culture built on passion and drive from genuinely working-class people who once dreamed of owning a prancing horse-badged car.
I headed out to the Australian Ferrari Festival at Sydney Motorsport Park, where the NSW/ACT Ferrari Owners Club had set up shop, to ask Ferrari owners exactly what it takes to have one of these amazing vehicles in your garage one day.
Antonio Avati – Ferrari 360 Modena
AA: I’ve got a Ferrari 360 Modena with the Challenge Stradale extras on it, and when it came out, I said, “That’s the car I want to get”.
I have owned it for about 15 years now, and I still get the same feeling when I get into it. The style, the shape, the sound, just everything. There’s something about Ferraris. I mean, even a five-year-old kid would just look and just straight away will immediately be attracted to it.
I can’t quite put my finger on it, but there’s just something about the Ferrari.
I’m a mechanic, so it’s easy to say you want a Ferrari, but to buy one and maintain it, you have to be able to not only afford it but also take care of it in a special way. I’ve been a mechanic for over 40 years, so it’s something where I knew I could maintain myself, but to actually even work on it is just a privilege for me.
[I’m not a Ferrari specialist] but it’s all relevant when it comes to mechanical, having owned Fiats and Alfa Romeos before.
Fouad Attar – Ferrari 360 Modena
FA: My car is a Ferrari 360 Modena. I’ve had it for about seven years now and it’s the last of the five valves on the V8, so it has a very distinct sound.
It’s always been a dream car. It was the poster car, and it was just a matter of finding the right moment. The reality is in life, there is never a right moment, you just have to follow your passion and make that decision. It’s been one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life.
People generally ask, what does a Ferrari cost? And people will jump to say it costs X, Y, or Z in money. The Ferrari cost me 20 years – 20 years of having a dream, of having that passion, of having the drive when the car wasn’t in the garage, but it was always on the phone, always on the screen and I was always at the events.
It took about 20 years of constantly dreaming and constantly saving and making that a priority in life.
The Ferrari cost me 20 years – 20 years of having a dream, of having that passion, of having the drive when the car wasn’t in the garage
People know there are two things that buy cars: passion and stupidity, and I say it’s a combination of both. There’s never a rational decision as to why you would spend money on, what I would call, a modern classic, except the fact that there’s passion there.
There’s a big misconception about owning exotic cars. As long as you look after it and you have people who do look after it, you won’t have a problem. You have to respect the car, you can’t just leave it in a garage. You need to drive it, and you need to be attentive to it. And your passion is pretty much your compass.
If you feel something is going wrong, you attend to it nice and early; you don’t neglect it. That applies to all cars, but it’s been a fantastic ownership experience.
Frank Farina – Ferrari 550 Maranello
FF: I’m the New South Wales Ferrari Club president. What I’ve got here today is a 1999 Ferrari 550 Maranello that I’ve owned for 15 years.
This was the iconic V12, still featuring an open-gate manual, and it is one of the last of its kind as it was the last production manual in a V12. I just enjoy the idea of being able to drive a car rather than have the automatics with the flappy paddles.
It took me until I was 40 to buy my first one and I’ve kept the passion. It’s a passion that every one of these guys have, which is the enthusiasm from our members.
We’ve tried to analyse the demographics and attitudes of our members, and where they are in business, 99 per cent of our members are small business people who have worked hard and had enough money to buy the passion in the car.
That’s where I’ve come from. It’s through hard work that many of us have started out as tradesmen or small business owners and grown our businesses to a point where we can afford to buy something like this.
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