The Ferrari 355: Five Reasons It's My Perfect Supercar, and Why I Haven't Bought One

[Music] [Music] [Music] eight cylinders natural aspiration five valves each forged pistons titanium con rods adaptive dampers and an active exhaust a spec list like that will make a petrol head's heart flutter even in 2023 and Ferrari gave you all of this back in 1994. today I am once again driving the mighty Ferrari f355 although as this is one with the F1 gearbox it's just the three five five I was planning on doing a bit of a buyer's guide for one of these but then I found out that a few months ago collecting cars in association with microwaves did a fantastic one and to be honest I don't think I could beat him so if you're after a Ferrari f355 buyer's guide check that out it's really good follow the link up here or down in the description however jm's Guide to Life says that if someone offers you a go in their Ferrari and it's your dream go you never I turn it down so instead of a buyer's guide today I'm presenting you something a little bit different it's five reasons why I believe this once dubbed the greatest car in the world ever by Saint Jennifer Clarkson herself could actually be a little bit undervalued and possibly underappreciated and I'm also going to be giving you a few reasons why you might not want to buy one and also why I haven't bought one despite the fact that I take every single opportunity I'm given to bang on about how great they are enjoy [Music] thank you [Music] so to recap I'm sure we all know but the f355 was introduced in 1994 the successor to the generally unloved 348 and Ferrari's repost to the Honda NSX this really was one of the first Parts in Luca demotted semelo's attempt to revive the fortunes of the brand on both Road and track he later acquired the likes of Michael Schumacher Ross Braun and did a hell of a number on the F1 cars but that success took a little bit longer on the road they didn't have to wait all that long because this when it launched was deemed one of the best cars ever made and in the decades since not much really has happened to dull the appeal of the f355 so then a few reasons why you really really do want this car and let's start with the most basic and really most important when you're talking about any Ferrari or any Supercar it looks and pounds fan stick foreign [Music] no it's not the quickest thing and I'll get on to that in a little bit 380 horsepower just over 270 pound foot of torque not impressive numbers even back then they weren't huge the 550 which came a couple of years later had a Powerhouse of an engine that even now is still impressive this though you keep thinking it must be getting on song soon and it never quite does however the process of trying to find that power is so enjoyable you really don't worry all that much there is a persistent rumor that the very earliest of the three firefighters are the 2.7 motronic system are actually a little healthier and quicker in all honesty neither of them are spectacularly fast by today's standards so really don't go buying one of those just because you think it's going to be marginally better it's not really however since I've become a grown-up the car's relative lack of pace just hasn't bothered me and as it becomes increasingly classic that's something that you just don't care about if you want a fast car just buy a newer one man for the money of course you can get something a lot quicker than this heck 20 30 grand is going to get you something that will just eat this alive but it's not going to sound as good this has the standard exhaust and even so I think it's absolutely glorious when we were doing the drive buys today this guy's kind owner Michael I told him just take it easy enjoy himself for those we have the roof on in case you were thinking we did it with a different car but no same vehicle I've now taken the roof down because why not it has warmed up slightly and I'm gonna try and enjoy it in any case even not giving it the big one the car still sounds absolutely fabulous courtesy of this very tricky exhaust which for the time was a brand new thing nobody had done a valved exhaust on a road car before as far as I'm aware and uh the setup here is particularly cheeky and Italian because when that valve opens it bypasses one of the cats car essentially decats itself brilliant [Applause] I know you can stick capristos and things like that on them but honestly for me just don't care and in terms of looks while the 360 has now really grown on me and I think aged marvelously this is far more delicate far more spelled it's a tiny car if you place the two side by side this is something like 200 mil shorter it's dramatically shorter than the 360 and from in here it feels like a a size or two bigger than an Elise the Bonnet doesn't have the Glorious sculpting of some of the later cars but visibility is superb it's wondrous and that leads me on to point number two these are really practical usable cars okay not in every sense of the word there are still some ways they were very very old school Ferraris the overhang at the front is rather dramatic and the whole thing is fairly low meaning speed humps can be a little bit disconcerting and multi-story car parts don't even think about it just just don't do it but boot space is excellent for a Supercar ride Comfort is superb thanks to the Adaptive dampers and common parts are cheap discs and pads are a fraction of the modern day equivalent and still easy to get visibility is superb thanks to the huge amount of glass and the sizing of the car means it is easy to both drive and park even where space is tight the controls are light and for easy to the hand the pedals are close together and some are offset particularly in right hand drive cars and the steering wheel doesn't have much adjustment but for the most part it's no more daunting to drive than an M3 or an MX-5 on a road where an Aventador would be terrifying the 355 is a sheer Delight foreign [Applause] but the dampers are gorgeous beautifully set up also adaptive the tech I think actually is pinched from the Corvette they've got a little sport mode down here so you press that button and the car does firm up quite a bit and though this GTS the target top variant uh isn't the stiffest thing in the world so to be honest for the most part I don't think it's worth doing that if you've got immaculately smooth roads and you really want to have fun do it rest of the time though yeah don't bother that though then leads me on to point number three which is that the 355 offers you perhaps more configuration than nearly any other Ferrari before or since you have a choice of three different body styles the coupe the Berlinetta which was launched in 1994 and then a year later that was joined by this the GTS the Targa Top the last of its breed although you could technically count the extraordinarily rare 360 sunroof as a spiritual successor but considering the fact essentially nobody bought one of those this really is the last align for the old school Ferrari Targa panel and it's a great thing because it's easy to use you just click clip put the seats forward and then twist the roof around and drop it in the back and it stows behind you so unlike some old Porsches you can take the roof with you which in Britain is essential it also means that with the roof in place the car retains it's coupe-like side profile that is important because that's a real big part of the car for me these were then joined by the spider the folding soft top which is a sort of weird combination of half electric half manual thing you unclip push it back a little bit and then the electrics will take over and drop the roof I'll be honest I've never really been a fan of the 355 spider it just doesn't look right to my eyes the later 360 roof up is still a bit odd but roof down looks fabulous however the 355 because the roof just sort of tucks back here never really goes away and the tonneau cover can be put on but that's a faff and a pain I just I just don't really like it so much however then on top of that you had a choice of different gearboxes for the first few years the car was available exclusively with the fabulous Ferrari six-speed gated shifter and an absolute Joy it is very easy to use a real delight and it does for me add a little bit of mechanical interaction to the car and there's another thing that can make you totally ignore how not fast it actually is but then in 1997 we saw another world first this the F1 box essentially a manual gearbox but with the clutch and gear shifting work done by a series of robots and computers very very Advanced for the time though today these are examples that really aren't all that desirable however though I certainly would have a manual myself I do think the F1 box gets a little bit of an unfair wrap sure you have to drive around it and in a lot of cars I would say that is a real downside in an M3 for example that's a sort of daily drivable car are meant to be daily drivable so the gearboxes and those not being so good was unforgivable in a Ferrari though I think you're much more willing to be a part of the Driving Experience so having something that needs you to interact with it I think really does add to the drama the appeal and the excitement the upshifts in these even at full Pelt absolute hell for leather will never be all that quick but the downshift you can actually improve yourself the one thing you see about these gearbox is that nearly everybody ignores is that with basically all of them up to and including the 430 scooteria you can still heal and toe so when you downshift give the car a little bit of help and that makes a big difference let me show you so going along now I'm going to do fourth to Third and third second and if I don't help the car the shift is like that slow ponderous but smooth enough third to Second much better much more exciting and how do you do it well just as if you're in a manual brakes shift down and at the same time give it a blip and the car will catch the clutch at the right moment it speeds up the whole process and just gets you a little bit closer to the action I really really like that foreign but then let's do a quick bit of discussion as to why people aren't buying these cars in their droves and why they aren't worth more than they currently are it's pretty simple to be honest because I think it all boils down to one simple thing the 355 has gained a reputation for being a fairly fragile and very very expensive to maintain car and I'm sure there are plenty of people who'll be put off by the barkaways video that I talked about earlier in which they discussed the fact that certain items like Wing mirrors and handbrake components are now no longer available you either have to remake them yourself or try and troll eBay and like to find a secondhand one which when you're talking about something as rare as this can be difficult the 355 was actually a record-breaking car for the firm in terms of sales when it launched over 10 000 made in fact just over 11 000 I think were delivered but of course compared with say any 911 of the day Jaguars and the like it's still a very rare car particularly once you start boiling it down long-ter individual specifications and regions and you say well I want to right hand drive manual Berlinetta all of a sudden you find that there may be only a couple of hundred to choose from Full Stop I am never ever going to try and pretend that an old Ferrari like this is going to be cheap to maintain because simply put it isn't all of these old supercars have the potential to open your wallet and I would generally say to anybody buying one of these cars that um having a sort of five or preferably ten thousand pound slush fund would be very very helpful generally speaking I'd say budget around three thousand pound a year to run one of these and hopefully you should be okay Michael has had this car for 16 years and in that time he's budgeted three thousand pounds every year and thus far he's managed to keep it going for that sum thank you note to the bloke in the Mercedes there who was following me I'm really really sorry I'd love to have stopped and talked to you but all of the cameras are running and they're on a time limit so when you watch the video back uh sorry I couldn't stop for longer but uh thank you incidentally if ever anyone is out there and they see me out and about filming or whatever you are always very welcome to come and say hi I might not have the time as I didn't there but um I really do appreciate it it means a huge amount to me and uh Strokes the old ego I have to say that foreign 16 years and about 25 000 miles it's currently just shy of 50 on the odometer which is fabulous to see has only failed to proceed twice once it was a relay in the gearbox which wound up being about 70 pounds to fix and the other time he had an issue with the immobilizer I had to call the A out and it turned out he was just too close to her mobile phone Mast which can actually happen in a lot of other cars including modern ones considering the reputation these cars have I think that is pretty good now they do have some potential big issues but with 355s I would actually say the big thing to look out for is cars that haven't been used and driven ones that have been parked up for years and years and years because issues can develop even when they don't go anywhere and if you're paying a premium for a low mile example do make sure it's had everything done that could be done because when you come to put your down you want to know that you can do it with confidence that the belts aren't going to fly off the belt service really I think is possibly single-handedly responsible for this car's you know sort of depressed prices on occasion there are rumors still abounding that it's you know ten thousand dollars to do a belt change in one of these and if you've paid ten thousand dollars to do a belt change on a 355 you have been ripped off sometimes I like to think Americans enjoy that they feel if they haven't been charged ten thousand dollars that the job hasn't been done properly but the fact is a Ferrari main dealer will do a major service including the belts for less than three thousand pounds and independents can do it for less than two thousand pounds and that's doing it properly taking the whole engine and subframe out which to me is the way that it should be done I know other people say they can do it by taking the fuel tanks out and essentially doing it blind but um I've driven cars that have suffered because the timing's been put out when it's not been done quite right and honestly if you're thinking of saving a few hundred quid here or there on a car like this no it isn't the car for you sorry and while I'm certainly like I said never going to try and convince people that these are cheap car to maintain and if you think it's going to be too expensive yeah don't buy one but please please don't say oh you know what actually I'm not gonna buy three five five they're too expensive to maintain I'm gonna go behind 964 or a 993 or certainly a 993 turbo instead because trust me I know enough people with those who've told me that they can just as easily throw you a bill as big as a Ferrari anytime they like and with the prices of those going up and up and up so does the labor rate for some strange reason and parts prices too there's absolutely no reason if you think you can run a 993 turbo you couldn't run one of these and they're a lot more special they're a lot rarer and what's absolutely Daft and this is point number four by the way is that there are so so many cars out there which back in day were cheaper more common or I suppose if you want to be cruel at lesser than this though I think that's a harsh horrible thing to say about any car including likes of say a 993 a turbo would have been about the same money as these so Berlinetta was 92 Grand a spider was 98 and I think this GTS would have been about 94 back inside of 96.97. this one is a 98 car so it has the later airbag wheel got the F1 which was introduced in 97 and the later motronic but even so still a 355. it's still beautiful it still sounds amazing and yeah they have rubbish steering by the way they they just do it's just not as good as it should be but you can fix it if you can find some unobtaining parts and honestly with the roof down in particular it just enhances the whole experience and makes you worried a little bit less about going quick but though these aren't exactly cheap cars entry level for a 355 is about 70 grand up to 170 but honestly I think anything over 110 120 has to be a really really special example to Warrant the price and very few of them I've seen have actually been that my dream f355 I'll talk about in another video because I know where it is and I know who's got it and I think I've managed to convince them to let me have a go at it for a video so uh I'll talk about that then however 80 to 90 gram will get you easily a manual example in just about whatever body shape it is that you want particularly if you're willing to be flexible with the airbag and whether it has one or not then um yeah 80 gram will get you a good 355. 80 grand will not get you a 993 turbo you need to spend basically double that and it'll be a car with miles on 80 odd grand these days I just about get you into a sort of decent NSX particularly again if you want a coupe and manual and we knew they were 70 grand and uh in fact 80 or 90 grand is what people now seem to be happy paying for a regular 993 Carrera which was a much cheaper car humorously though uh the F50 was still technically available at the same time as this and they were 330 Grand and now there are about 3 million and perhaps even dafta beyond the likes of Ferrari Porsche and Lamborghini 100 Grand apparently will not even get you many afford these days including cars which 20 years ago you basically couldn't have given away the car market has gone absolutely Daft yep for some reason stuff like this is just not really gone up in the same way maybe it's because the 355 can have had its day a while ago and a lot of the younger audience will now be more into stuff like the 360 the F430 I'd love to actually do a little bit of a social experiment quickly if we can uh tell me what was the childhood Ferrari for you you know whenever you were growing up what was the bedroom wall poster Ferrari or if it wasn't a Ferrari uh please tell me and um I'm talking about cars here not the lady playing tennis scratching her bum now of course if you are thinking about buying a 355 I would say an inspection is absolutely essential these are one of those cars where they've reached a certain age now that honestly you're sort of normal regular servicing and maintenance costs shouldn't be something you actually have to think about instead it's going to be what's wrong with the car when you're driving F1 box cars by the way and it's valid for Ferraris Lambos and anything else with one try not to be too gentle at Junctions come to a stop firmly and authoritatively and then when you pull away give it a fair bit of throttle it'll engage the clutch quicker and it will last longer one of the other good things with these cars is that as they have gotten older and things have maybe become a little bit difficult or more expensive to fix sometimes Solutions are presented themselves which actually cost a lot less money and are much easier to do you know DIY Homebrew stuff the likes of rata roster and other people on YouTube are absolutely brilliant for helping keep these cars going and if you're clever you can know which parts were shared between various different marks so you don't buy it from Ferrari buy it from fit you save yourself a load of money and all that so um so if you do it right and buy a decent example to start with these shouldn't be horrific cars to maintain but remember don't ever expect them to be cheap fuel economy just in case you are wondering that's really not good it isn't for any Ferraris these uh let's call it 18 and that's probably near enough however the simple fact and this is point number five remains that these are just brilliant cars look fantastic sound fantastic they're quick enough that you can have fun you can enjoy them you can lean on them you can talk to them interact with them particularly with the six-speed manual but even here with the F1 box people will treat you a lot better as well I know a lot of people have been put off by either Ferrari owners or the concept of Ferrari owners or the issues they might get by driving a Ferrari out and about I can assure you if you buy something like a 355 you're almost certain not to get that get yourself an f8 spider in A nice bright color and drive it about the place and rev it up in the middle of town yeah people will think you're a bug because you're a bug but these are Classics I've never had any grief when out and about driving an old Ferrari and the older the Ferrari gets the better the reception people now just see them as a nice glorious old card and generally speaking I don't have any grief whatsoever thank you and though I'm sure some would say I'm just making excuses now and I will accept that criticism the fact that this isn't the fastest means that you're gonna feel a little bit happier a little bit comfier taking it to that red line the F12 goes to the red line about once a month if it's lucky this though you do it every single time you took it out because it's just glorious oh the noise is bouncing off those cars and that van as I went past wondrous lift up when you shift as well at low speeds that'll smooth it out so then why haven't I bought one it's evident now that I could afford basically any f355 that I wanted there are a few reasons that I haven't first off I was worried for a long time that maybe the ownership experience would ruin the Majesty it'd be like a Meet Your Heroes kind of thing maybe I'd buy a bad example and it would cost me loads of money I just get annoyed in I'd fall out of love with it I'm less worried about that now I'll be honest but if I'm gonna get a 355 I want it to be the right one and I'll be honest I've been kind of struggling for a long time to work out what the right one is [Music] I say that they're slow but then you do that and you look down you go or maybe it's not oh that's just so good though [Applause] foreign there's no traction control in this there's abs and that's a bad idea so you do have to have faith in the car now happily Michael has got nice fresh tires on this that is probably the biggest Hazard of buying an old unused low mileage one people just don't put fresh tires on I don't know why it's a Ferrari on a blind spot anyway I spent a long time trying to work out what the right 355 is and when the moment has come for me to buy a car in this kind of price bracket the right 355 simply hasn't been there and I spotted what was the perfect car a while ago and I simply wasn't in the position to get it it also went for what I thought was too much money but looking back on it now probably would have paid as well [Music] I'm gonna hopefully show to you fairly soon but the 355 is still on the to-do list and the simple fact is that I really really really really do want one and also if the right Ferrari were to appear and it was available the fact is I'd probably have to lose one of the others No in fact I'd certainly at the moment have to lose one of the others in order to be able to afford it and I love the 550. that's a big part of my story that's my first Ferrari that's a special special car the animals I spent a fortune on it the 430 Scuderia provides Thrills and excitement in a very different manner to this and then the F12 is just a wondrous piece of art I love it especially in its own way and I'm not sure I could part with any of those it's like seeing you know a really really cute little kitten as I was saying like yeah but you've got a part X your cat for that you might know but I love freckles he's adorable he's annihilated my chairs but I love him anyway and that's how I feel about mine I suppose the other issue that the 355 is currently facing is that it is in that sort of genuinely awkward phase where it may now be considered simply an old car I know to many it's already a classic but to some perhaps it isn't it isn't viewed the same way as say a 308 but it's far more common car than those and if you're interested in performance well a 360 you can have for even less money and it will be generally speaking fast uh better or easier to live with and all that though um I have to say if you're buying a 360 and you're thinking that they're going to be cheaper to run than one of these if absolutely nothing were to break on it then yeah it would cost less than this but you're talking about a marginal saving even the Cambell you're saving what a thousand pounds every three years it's not really enough I think to make the decision on its own and the truth is that everybody I know that's had a 360 has had just as many things go wrong with it as anyone I know it's had a three five five so pays your money it takes your choice then of course the F430 is sort of love to write in with them you can get all of these at sub a hundred thousand pounds and if you want an even faster that's much faster than a 360. so it's only really once you start talking about four five eights the prices jump up again and um I think again most people would prefer to have a 458 over one of these but for me the 355 will always be a very very special goal I lost massively after a Diablo and I've driven one and I loved it to pieces and if you've got one that I can drive I would love to have a go in the Audi I've already did any Lamborghini or anything like that that it'll come I'd like really to try some of the rare ones as well yeah the euraco the silhouette the alpha hard to find there now in any case I'm not talking about Lamborghinis today I'm talking about a Ferrari and so there we have it that is just a few reasons why I feel like the 355 could actually be called a somewhat underrated car to me it's definitely one that is still on the to-do list luckily for me I get lovely people like Michael coming out all the time and letting me drive there so uh I can get my fix one way or another so a huge thank you to him for bringing the car out and as ever to you for watching don't forget to hit the like button comment down below subscribe if you haven't already and I'll see you for the next one bye-bye [Music] [Applause] thank you [Applause] [Music]

Channel: JayEmm on Cars

Views: 122,138

Keywords: Diary, VLOG, Car, Sound, Test, video, Review, Comparison, JayEmm on Cars

Id: S3CJfH1OVsc

Length: 28min 35sec (1715 seconds)

Published: Sat May 20 2023