Here's Why the Ferrari F355 Is (Almost) My Favorite Ferrari

this is the ferrari f355 and it's my all-time favorite ferrari ever made almost now i'll get to the almost part in a couple of minutes but for now let me tell you what makes this thing so great i borrowed this f355 from the legend car company in the new york area which has an incredible inventory of awesome cars and they offered me a lot of choices to film a video with and i chose this 355 because it is the perfect example of its kind here's what i mean the 355 was sold from 1995 to 1999 and it was offered in three body styles there was the convertible spider which i never liked because it lost the car's lines with the top down and especially with the top up there was also a targa model the gts which was an odd in-between compromise between a convertible and a coupe and then there was this the f-355 berlinetta the coop version which i believe is the most beautiful regular production road car ferrari has ever built just look at this thing there's no bad line on this car no awkward angle it came at a time when ferrari was trying to leave behind the now dated wedge shape of the 1980s and before they went with the rounder less aggressive look of the 2000s for a brief few years right in the middle there they got things just perfect this one has the perfect colors too red over tan or as they say in the ferrari community resale red over tan because these are the best colors for resale value the 355 had some odd color choices but this this is perfect it's beautiful another reason why this car is so great the transmission just look at this beautiful gated shifter the newer cars with paddles might be faster but nothing will ever take the place of shifting gears in a bright red ferrari and this f355 is in 1997 which was the last year that the manual transmission was mandatory beginning in 98 ferrari introduced the f1 style automatic paddle gearbox which in this car was terrible jerky slow awful lurchy it was a sign of things to come so this is the most beautiful ferrari in the most beautiful body style in the perfect colors with the correct transmission and it doesn't stop there this car also has a few interesting quirks that make a ferrari a ferrari and i'm going to show them to you and then i'm going to get behind the wheel and take it out on the road which should further prove to you why this is my favorite ferrari and then i'm going to tell you about that almost now one of the most obvious quirks comes right away when you're trying to get inside because how do you enter a car with no visible door handle we see ferrari trying to make this thing as beautiful and as perfect as possible actually hid the door handle inside the 90s style side strike interestingly they didn't decide to hide the keyhole instead they just stuck it on the door as plain as possible for everyone to see also unusual are the interior door handles can you spot them anywhere on this door nope that's because ferrari integrated them into this little handle you pull them and then you get out now once you get into the 355 you'll notice two things simultaneously that would be minimalism and maximalism allow me to explain the basic interior design is pretty minimalist there's no fancy screens or modern gadgets this car clearly comes from an entirely different era even the gauges are just simple gauges not a new screen with all sorts of readouts also for simplicity's sake the seats aren't even power they're manually adjusted this is clearly a ferrari from a completely different time period as for maximalism well instead of modern gadgets and gizmos ferrari did what they thought their customers would appreciate they put leather everywhere in this thing obviously the seats are leather and the dashboard is this beautiful hand-stitched leather and the door panels are leather too but it doesn't even come close to stopping there the parking brake boot is stitched leather and so is this little tray beneath the parking brake the center tunnel is completely finished in leather except for the plastic parts that just can't be they even put leather back here behind the seats in a place that no human being would ever possibly look because no human being could ever get back there or put anything back there and speaking of putting things back there even this little storage cubby in between the seats is leather the sun visor is of course finished in leather and when you turn it over you'll find a surprisingly nice little leather pouch finally this dainty little armrest on the door is leather and so is this door pocket speaking of the doors another interesting quirk is locking and unlocking them like most modern cars the 355 has keyless entry and you press a little button to lock and a little button to unlock that's fairly normal but the funny part is the sound that it makes when you lock and unlock the doors if there was ever any doubt that this car came from the 1990s that that would be erased the moment you went to unlock the doors oh and speaking of the 1990s remember these yeah you do another interesting feature of the car is that the center doesn't include the climate controls but rather a few gauges including oil temperature for the climate controls you have to go down to the middle where they're quite simple to use and they also include my favorite button included on a lot of italian cars at this time one that just says stop that doesn't really do with the car but rather the climate controls themselves instead of an off button it's just stop another interesting feature of this car is that it has a sport mode one of the earliest possible sport modes i'm aware of it's a little toggle switch located in the center console push it and it firms up the suspension for a sportier ride of course i'm still in the dark about why an exotic ferrari needs a sport mode isn't the whole thing a sport mode another hilarious quirk about this car it really hates it when you open the door with the key in the ignition now a lot of cars beep at you if you do this but this thing that sound will never turn off unless you turn off the car and pull the key out of the ignition it doesn't go away after 10 seconds it doesn't bing bing it just so this is a beautiful car in the best body style the best colors with the best transmission and with a few little quirks that you really need an italian car this is a true ferrari and i haven't even gotten to the best part driving it but first a little more information while the latest ferrari has 48 trillion horsepower and does 0-60 microscopically faster than the one that came before it the f355 3.5 liter v8 only made 375 horsepower and it did 0-60 in around 5 seconds it's more of a sports car than an exotic supercar so how does that translate to the road all right time to take the 355 out on the road now it's been way too long so i've driven one of these i love this car man the mirrors are small this car comes from a different era of exotic cars today exotic cars they try to make them so usable and drivable this thing they were just like make it fun and throw some mirrors on them now you feel very low to the ground in this car very much lower to the ground than you feel in a normal uh exotic of today's era it's just because there's not as much stuff around you there's not as much crash protection there's not as much new technology gizmos and features oh my god that sound this car makes one of the most beautiful sounds of any car one of the main reasons i love the 355 so much is simply this it isn't overpowered it's not too much to handle it's a car that you can bomb down back roads with and just have a blast this car is not slow that's an interesting thing uh but it's not incredibly fast it's just got it's in that perfect band that you wish all cars could be in i always thought that was stupid who wants to work for power but i've learned later that actually that kind of is part of the fun of really driving a driver's car [Music] this car has so much more of a go-kart feel than a modern ferrari it even has more of a go-kart feel than the 360 which came next one of the interesting things about the 355 is unlike the 512 tr the testerosa the bigger ferraris the clutch is fairly easy to operate anybody can drive this car hard turn here it just handles it though and you know what it's going to do it's very predictable oh that sound handling is certainly not as tight as a modern ferrari but it's very predictable it's just a little bit more vague it was very clear they were working with different materials at this time they didn't know everything that they know today they couldn't do everything that they can do today the ride is rough the car tramlines this definitely drives like an old-school exotic car ferrari made the switch from old school to modern exotic when this car left and the 360 showed up but more and more people are having an appreciation for these older exotics and that includes me i love this gated shifter there is nothing more exciting than a gated shifter i wish everybody did it nobody wants to do it man that gear change oh that clink between the gears once you get the gated shifter you get it and it feels so good to slot that gear into that gate it's just the most perfect feeling you'll ever have now for people who want to drive a really fast car they want to match the throttle at the at the stop light and be faster than everybody else could possibly be on the road this ain't the car this is the car for people like me who like to go on sunday morning cruises on some great back roads and really use the whole engine and really be able to downshift a gear and bring it out and hear it and feel it that is what this car is all about and it may have been the last ferrari that was really liked this f355 is everything i've ever wanted in a sports car it's beautiful perfect body style has the right transmission it's quirky and cool and it's amazing on the road without being unusably fast it is the perfect car or is it you see the ferrari f355 has one distinct achilles heel and that's back here yes this engine produces the perfect amount of horsepower and a glorious sound but it has some problems now you've probably heard that ferraris are expensive to own and temperamental and hard to deal with but those stories are all exaggerated except in this car for example this car requires every three years a belt service to have the belts in the engine replace for that service the engine has to come completely out of the car this car is 20 years old so the engine has probably been removed six times that service cost ten thousand dollars the exhaust headers in this car are known to fail that's five thousand dollars to replace if you catch it in time if not you're looking at a full engine rebuild 25 000 and the valve guides in this car have a virtually 100 failure rate and replacing them can cost up to ten thousand dollars and i haven't even covered all the regular maintenance costs that are typically more expensive than a normal car with any ferrari now i've written about these problems with the f355 before and they've caused f355 owners to hate me but the simple truth is this no ferrari provides a more true italian automotive experience than the f355 it's faster and more exciting than all of the regular production ferrari models that came before it but it's more mechanically complex it's more beautiful and more exotic than all of the regular production 4a models that came after it but it's more temperamental and less reliable the truth is that the f355 is the quintessential ferrari experience and it's also my favorite ferrari i just wish i could afford to own it almost [Music]

Channel: Doug DeMuro

Views: 2,464,492

Keywords: ferrari, f355, ferrari f355, ferrari 355, f355 spider, f355 berlinetta, ferrari 360, 355, ferrari 348, ferrari costs, cheap ferrari, best ferrari, worst ferrari

Id: Fs7uOea9d1A

Length: 12min 38sec (758 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 09 2017