Ferrari's Biggest Mistake? Is the 348 TS Truly Terrible? First Drive Impressions

[Applause] [Music] hello everybody this week i am celebrating the fabulous mid-engine ferrari v8 now we aren't quite starting at the beginning of this story and it won't be entirely comprehensive but i have got a number of cars lined up for you to enjoy and i am very pleased to say that we are starting with one i have been trying to get my mitts on for quite some time a three four eight courtesy of its very good owner tony and the lovely people of otto fitzina who've been preparing the car for him and therefore for me the 34a is pretty much the missing link in terms of the ferrari v8 lineage you see everybody pretty much loves the 308 the 328 is also very well regarded the 355 is held by many in extraordinarily high esteem including myself a 360 certainly has grown on me and is a very important car for the mark the 430 a development of that and then the 458 of course seems to be the 355 reincarnated because absolutely everybody loves the thing now with the fa tributeo in the showrooms as possibly the final purely combustion engine powered mid-engine ferrari v8 i thought it was a great time to look back at their catalogue and see what the older cars were quite like now 348 is derided for a large number of reasons first off i think when it came out it was a bit of an awkward looker and you could still say that now it was released at the tail end of the 1980s and it seemed to be a car that looked perhaps a little bit more backwards rather than forwards into the 1990s like its rival the honda nsx those side strikes are straight out of the testross playbook and many early cars had a two-tone paint scheme with red body work and a black bottom something ferrari been doing way back to the 512 a bb [Applause] [Music] [Applause] power came from an enlarged version of the 328 v8 here at 3.4 liters and making around 300 horsepower now it was mated to a 5-speed gearbox which also gave this particular car part of its name this is the 348 ts ts standing for transversal spider the transverse bit not being the engine but in fact that box it is a dog leg five speed as well meaning that to go into first you go left and down unlike the three five five and 360. it's a more straightforward four valve per cylinder head and it doesn't rev anywhere near as high as that much loved car either going here to about seven and a half thousand versus the nearly nine are some of the later cars it's also missing some techno geekery in the form of the adjustable suspension which here instead is passive and i've got to say actually rather nice i've genuinely never been a fan of the looks of the 348 you see when it comes to a ferrari that pretty much is enough to ride the car off if it doesn't look good what's the point and for a very long time the 348 was pretty much the way to get into ferrari ownership for not a lot of money you didn't want to slum it with a mondial or something like that this was pretty much the entry point into the mid-engined v8 cars ah but now prices are starting to creep up for a very long time i've said that simply by association with the 355 people can't afford one of those so they go looking for the next best thing you see that happen all the time i mean look at the porsche world people go nuts for impact bumper cars now simply because they can't afford an early one or a 964. and i always believe that the evangelical types who said the 348 was a hidden gem were in fact nutters or perhaps just slightly bitter at the fact they couldn't afford a three five five however until today i have never been able to actually say whether the 348 really deserved the ire that it received so thank you tony for this opportunity to sit in it's a very curious car it is perhaps as you might expect halfway between a three to eight and a three five five the general shape of this dash is pure 355 as is the driving position this car also has 355 seats in it because they are apparently a very worthwhile upgrade the regular items being just far too small and narrow for most normal non-italian sized people three five five seats as it happens are very nice indeed so i'm not gonna complain about that at all the gear lever falls nicely to hand and as long as you can remember the layout it is a very nice thing to use the feel is actually pretty solid the throw is heavy but short and the lever falls nicely into place the entire car does feel pretty well screwed together it must be said and it's not really rattling or indeed even wobbling all that much despite the fact it is a spider so torsional rigidity not really its strong point this car's got over 62 000 miles on the odometer and i have to say it appears to have worn those rather well does sound a little bit like the 355 although not quite as sharp and as glorious thanks to the different valve train layout that being said it's got reasonable punch low down and i'm told these actually feel quite a bit more spritely than you think they might suspension is actually really well judged it's a pretty comfortable car and rides really nicely a bit better than the last nsx that i drove although i have to point out we found out that was running on yokohama 808rs the exact same tire which ruined my integrali review [Music] now one thing the 348 famously does not have power steering this is its trump card you see but not right now it's heavy really heavy [Music] once you're at more than about jogging pace it's absolutely fine of course but anything below that is rather a chore now if there's one thing that people seem to universally agree on that 348 has over the 355 it is this steering i have to say even at these more modest speeds they may be onto something pedal placement is i'm pretty sure identical to the 355 which is to say that the throttle and brake are fairly close together although the clutch is a reasonable way over to the side amongst the many things that autofacing have recently fixed on this car include the throttle pedal itself the cable can snag and get a bit sticky because it takes a very convoluted route in right-hand drive cars i've been quite lucky with the weather today as you can see it has been raining out and isn't particularly glorious but this is a really nice car to be in it's actually very comfortable it seems much more refined than i thought it might be although headroom is at a premium now this should feel exactly the same as the 355 in here but somehow it doesn't it just feels a little bit more cramped and i've actually got the seat nearly all the way back the gearbox isn't quite as slick as 355. i have to say that much but the steering really is quite wonderful it does give you a bit more feel a bit more feedback a bit more texture than the later car although i've never been a fan of the looks of it at these speeds if you want a better 355 experience at less money this does seem to deliver quite a bit of it but what's it like when you start to press on how good really is it let's find out [Music] oh now it's not especially rapid i would say it feels somewhat slower than the honda nsx of the same time which isn't actually that much lighter given what people say about them the ferrari was built using much more old-fashioned construction very little aluminium in this car however power is decent smooth pretty linear very progressive and the noise is wonderful [Music] well you can feel the car bob and weave about a little bit this is a somewhat challenging road oh this is a good car the steering genuinely is very good not the best ever it's not as good as say the best 911s i've driven but it's really proper one of the better ferrari systems i've had the pleasure of using the brakes in this car a little bit wobbly there is no traction control the only safety aid of any sort in this car is abs that's about it [Applause] [Music] in this darker shade which incidentally ferrari simply called nero i think it looks mean it takes on a whole different feel that's really quite a cool car for some reason i can imagine something like this right at home in the streets of tokyo cruising through at night that sort of thing that sort of experience and you really do have to want to drive a car like this it isn't as easy as a 355 to pilot or a 360 or of course anything after that the gearbox is heavier the steering is much heavier you've got to really keep an eye you've got to know what you're doing in conditions like this you've got to be very cautious with your application of the throttle the brake and everything really but if you're in the mood for it it is a really fun car [Applause] [Music] as an ownership proposition i happen to think that an nsx probably is much easier and better to live with there are many parts for these that are simply unavailable now and unlikely to ever be made again certain things cost way more than they should basic pieces of trim all that sort of stuff they are unreasonably expensive wing mirrors are a fortune the rear glass all this sort of stuff it doesn't have to be expensive to run a 348 but it could be in that regard really not that much different to most other ferraris of the period the main thing to take away from that is if somebody's selling you a car saying oh it just needs a couple of bits done to it just check that those bits are as easy to do or to find as people say because often they might not be the 348 is in absolutely no danger of knocking my favorite off its top spot which is the 355 by the way however i've got to say today even in this unpleasant weather three four eight that'll do pig that'll do [Music] you

Channel: JayEmm on Cars

Views: 165,549

Keywords: Diary, VLOG, Car, Sound, Test, video, Review, Comparison, JayEmm on Cars, Ferrari 348, Ferrari 348 Review, Ferrari F348, Ferrari 348 TS, Ferrari 348 TB, Ferrari 348 vs 355, Cheapest Ferrari, Worst Ferrari, Ferrara 348 GTS

Id: uf99r-oKp5E

Length: 13min 15sec (795 seconds)

Published: Tue Dec 22 2020