Going 360 Degrees
Hi Friends!
I’ll be the first to admit, I’m wrong pretty regularly. What I won’t admit however, is that this is a bad thing. Anytime you’re wrong about something, it offers an opportunity to learn, correct and become better as a result. Sometimes, it’s not really that cut and dry, you know you’re wrong, everybody tells you that you’re wrong, but you continue to fight it for reasons that are largely inexplicable to even yourself.
If you’ve been following along for long enough, you have undoubtedly see me mention at least a couple of my bottom five Ferraris. Ferrari’s history has largely been impeccable, but there’s some stinkers dropped in for sure too. There’s been a couple of late entries, but for the most part, this list for me has remained pretty consistent for at least the last few decades or so. The steady second place for probably as long as I’ve had enough knowledge to put a list like this together, has been the Ferrari 360 Modena.
I think it’s hard to deny that the 360 is an attractive car. They definitely sound good too. My first exposure to these was virtually daily, as they were a fixture up and down Scottsdale Road, pretty much since the minute they dropped. I was really, really into Corvettes at the time and was sort of trying to pretend that I was the guy that didn’t care about anything that wasn’t American, but they were undeniably beautiful cars and they definitely commanded attention everywhere they went. Every time one drove by, my eyes always followed.
Fast forward a decade or so and I had my first real one-on-one interaction with one. I remember immediately being disappointed as I sat in the driver seat and ran my hands across the materials that surrounded me. Everything seemed substandard. I kept thinking to myself that if I had paid $150,000 for one of these brand new, I probably would have been really pissed, but that wasn’t even the worst of it. I don’t know if it was the foam in the seats, the glue that they used or what, but the smell inside of that car immediately made me feel ill. The first time I drove a 360, I was coming directly out of a 575 and the difference was night and day. Absolutely no off-putting smells in the 575. Then I put the car in drive and took off. Nothing stood out to me there either. I’ll admit, I didn’t push the car very hard, but I felt like I had been advertised to dishonestly for all these years as a result.
These feelings didn’t really change as I drove more and more examples (neither did the smell). Obviously, the six-speed variant is much more engaging and much more fun, but I just didn’t really understand why somebody would want one of these, especially considering the 430 exists and it is so much better on basically every level (which is something I still believe).
A couple of years ago, my disdain did start to decrease slightly. When I saw them around I wasn’t as much thinking about my direct experience with these cars, but it was sort of rewinding to the way that I felt before I started having semi-regular interactions with them. I kept thinking to myself, I still definitely don’t want one, but you know, these have really started to age really well.
Recently, I got an email from a client informing me that he had purchased one. Not a particularly great spec, probably higher mileage than I would be comfortable with and clearly driven carelessly, but the minute that I opened the door and that smell hit me again, it wasn’t disgust that filled my nostrils. It almost instantly took me back in time and it was great. As I hit the fob, wrapped my fingers around the steering wheel, popped the paddles back and forth a couple of times and twisted the ignition, I didn’t feel let down, I thought to myself, these are really great classic cars.
I think the reality here, is some cars just aren’t great in period. This has been demonstrated routinely throughout the years with things like Hemi cars, Toyota Supra, Lexus LFA, Porsche Carrera GT, etc. Nobody wanted these cars when they first hit showrooms. From the perspective of collectors and enthusiasts though, it’s an entirely different story. Some cars just work better as old cars than they do as new cars and you just never know which cars those are going to turn out to be.
The Ferrari 360 is a case in point example and as a result, I’ll definitely admit I was wrong and 25 years later, everything makes finally makes sense.
If you want my top five worst Ferraris list (circa like 2024, so not updated and the 360 will still be on it), feel free to send me an email and we can argue about it 🙂
That’s it for this week……
Darin Roberge
