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I’m not sure when it happened but one day after years of making beautiful cars Ferrari suddenly became the province of the gold chain, Members Only jacket, Polo wearing crowd. I think it may have been the day that Magnum P.I. first burned grass and rubber in Hawaii in his 308. Over the years I think it evolved and Robin Masters replaced it with a 328 Quattrovalvole near the end of the shows run. But that seemed to be enough mass market exposure and Ferrari went from being cool to an embarassing thing that one doesn’t want to be seen in…or near. Since then Ferrari has done a beautiful job of fighting out of that hole by making ever more amazing cars and raising the prices to astronomic levels. And it’s helped. But Porsche has helped more.

I always wanted a Porsche. Since I was old enough to read I studied every car magazine, memorizing the specs. I could rattle off the 0-60 numbers of anything with wheels. And I’d read these magazines in the back seats of my Dad’s seemingly endless Volvo wagon’s; always colored the same as some form of human effluent. I can’t imagine how he could go down to a dealership loaded with blue cars and red cars and black cars and come home with some new shade of brown. The 70s were a dark period.

The Porsche Turbo was the coolest thing ever. So much power that many magazines said it wasn’t safe to drive. That sounded perfect for me. But then over the years Porsches became the province of the gold chain set. One day I realized I no longer wanted one. They had become the new Corvette.

And now Ferrari is releasing their new car and I have to say it’s beautiful beyond words. I covet one again.

Ferrari 458 Italia

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