Picture this, a familiar scenario: As a kid you were met with a beautiful Rosso colored Ferrari at some point, be it in person or in posters. "That'll be mine one day," you thought. And ambitious as you were, you positioned yourself and labored entirely too hard toward your passion of owning one. Then with a bit of dedication and luck, you might have eventually found yourself being handed the keys and title to one of your childhood dream cars. "This is it, I've made it," you think. A beautiful red Ferrari finally finds residence in your garage.
Over time, you realize the incredible costs of owning one of these cars and its propensity to depreciate if proper care is not provided. As a result, you decide to tend to your dream car carefully by spending generous amounts of time detailing the car, having it maintained immaculately at only certified Ferrari service centers and going for short Sunday drives where tire wear would be kept at a minimum.
Yet, the childhood dream of owning a Ferrari rarely involves driving one leisurely, under the restraint of highway guidelines and the etiquette of luxury car owners. You were 9 years old, and dreaming of owning a Ferrari likely involved being a bit ridiculous in one.
A friend of mine, who I'll refer to as Mr. K, recently came into realizing the dream of owning a Ferrari. This one is known as the 599 GTB Fiorano, a previous generation GT car Ferrari made as a successor to the timeless 550/575 Maranellos. It's a beautiful tourer and one that implements a more traditional drive setup: A V12 in the front and power to the rear.
I love Ferrari's cars, I really do, but there seems to be a certain stigma attached to these cars that keeps them grossly unappealing. It may be the owners or it may just be the company that makes them, an entity that keeps a watchful eye of what happens in their roadcar program. Ferrari is keen to uphold an image that some of its fans will find contradictory to the character of its vehicles. Here's one hint, having some good old fun is not part of that image.
Mr. K lives in a different part of the country than I do but that wasn't about to keep me from being excited when I was informed of his new acquisition. The thing is, Mr. K is a car nut and carries with him a history of leadfootedness, a symptom of relapsing childhood car enthusiasm that I find myself suffering from in bouts when behind the wheel of a rear drive car.
As one would imagine, things get interesting when you take a sports car with a reputation for being preserved for its value and hand it to a man who suffers from a condition in the right foot. Months back, I had asked Mr. K if he would have the inclination to get feisty behind the wheel in the event I'd visit with a camera.
To my delight, inclination was an understatement.
I've done things as a young adult I'm not particularly proud of in the years past, but cannot say I regret either. One of them might have involved a Ford Mustang that was not mine and an empty high school parking lot. What I discovered however was that at the end, no one was hurt and the only real cost involved some rear tires being rendered useless. My behavior was not entirely upstanding, but then again, for the first time in years I had fun in ways I hadn't since being a kid.
This reminded me of that time.
I was actually concerned for what Mr. K would think of the "evidence" I had captured. After all, we were behaving in ways that both law enforcement and other Ferrari owners would find to be disobedient. So I asked and was given the response of:
"Don't post the pics anywhere please. It is important not to muddy the history of this car, the depreciation of an abused car is SO great! SO great I tell you!!!! OMG I can't stand the thought of it!!!
Fuck that...Do anything you like with the pics."
They say people don't grow up and that the toys just get more expensive. I say provided that one has the nerve to free themselves from the constraints of what is commonly defined as adulthood, they might just be on to something.
Video: Ferrari 599 GTB doing donuts