Taking the Pista

In your recent article on Tom Hartley (15 April), his assertion that Ferrari “have started taking the piss out of customers” struck a chord with me.

As a relatively faithful Ferrari customer over the past 20 years, having owned all their eight-cylinder models (excluding the F40) from the 355 to the 488, most in coupé and spider form, I was flattered to be offered a place on the list for the 488 Pista, being under the delusion that I must have risen through the ranks to probably the lowest rung of the Ferrari ‘special’ customer ladder.

I didn’t feel so special a year or so later, however, when, a week after being told on inquiry my Pista was four months away, I was told it was coming next week and I needed to find £270k to pay for it (£20k deposit already paid). They offered £165k for my 488 Spider, which was just over a year old with fewer than 4000 miles done and had cost £235k. “You must be joking,” I said, but they weren’t.

I remembered the days when owning a Ferrari cost £10k per year all in, and there was no way I was going to accept £70k depreciation, but luckily a petrolhead mate offered to take the Pista off my hands. So, I told my dealer he would be settling the balance of the payment prior to delivery and I wanted the V5 in his name so he’d be the first owner. No way: I was told if I didn’t personally take delivery of the car, it would be taken away and passed on to the next person on the list. “You must be joking,” I said, but again they weren’t.

Anyway, the long and short of it is that I now drive a Mclaren 600LT, which, in my humble view, is a better car to drive than the 488 anyway – although, as Tom Hartley attests, not particularly well screwed together. It seems to me that Ferrari’s boots, like their cars’, are small and they have become much too big for them.

Cliff Saunders

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