Ferrari F355 Spider Convertible on 2040-cars

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Crashing a Ferrari was the best life lesson I've ever had

I screamed out a string of expletives as the gleaming Rosso Corsa-bodied F430 spun sideways through the curve, locking up the brakes, and sending the $240,000 Italian masterpiece sliding into the forest, coming to an abrupt and grinding halt, narrowly missing the tree line and avoiding my untimely death. As the proverbial dust had settled, I knew that I had been through one of the most harrowing experiences of my life and I was alive to tell the story. I knew for sure I would never live this down, not financially and definitely not socially ... or so I thought. Big mistakes often have a polarizing effect where on-one-hand we don't have a real way to know the scope of the damage and this results in fear of the unknown, but on the other hand we usually know we're okay and this results in strange internal calmness. For me this experience led to a major life lesson, an amazing story to tell, and a level of humility that served to be instrumental in all of my future endeavors. Throughout my entire childhood I had built up an obsession with Ferrari. I grew up with a poster of a yellow F355 Spyder above my bed, and like many kids I admired fast, ridiculous, and unattainable cars. Fast forward to adulthood, I found an opportunity that coincided with my love for these cars and a chance to drive one from the lauded brand as a birthday present to myself. A local exotic car rental business had a package that allowed you to test drive six exotic cars from various manufacturers, each more colorful and ostentatious than the last. I knew this was my chance to come up close and personal with the cars of my dreams. That is, until the whole experience went awry. On the day of my dream car tour, I drove myself and a friend to the New Jersey headquarters of the rental company. Greeted by nearly two dozen of the finest exotic vehicles available for purchase, doors open, the visual experience alone proved to be astounding. In addition to completing a slew of legal paperwork, we were all required to watch an introductory safety briefing, complete with photos of various past mishaps on the tour. The instructor stressed the importance of safety and actions we should take care to avoid. Our carefully planned route along the winding hills of Harriman State Park were detailed prior to departure. Each of the six drivers for that day would take their allotted turns at commanding two-Lamborghinis, two-Bentleys, one-Maserati and one-Ferrari.

2015 Ferrari LaFerrari [w/video]

What a year it's been for enthusiasts who love high-performance, higher-dollar automobiles. The past twelve months or so have been consumed with the three horsemonsters of today's hybrid hypercar enlightenment: the Porsche 918 Spyder, the McLaren P1 and the Ferrari LaFerrari. Getting into just two of the three would be better than a lump of coal in one's stocking come holiday time, but for me, it'd still leave things feeling sadly incomplete, gnawing from within 'til the end of days.
Getting the call from Maranello, therefore, was even more fortunate and satisfying. The 918 Spyder - the only seriously green hybrid of the trio - shook me up with its sophisticated menu of technologies. The McLaren P1 remains more of a true hypercar than the Porsche, what with its e-motor designed to boost the lightweight beast to supernatural speeds above any terrestrial concerns like fuel efficiency. And now it's time for the Italian with the funny name, LaFerrari. No mistake about it: I've been waiting all year for this car a little more than I've been waiting for the other two.
This run of hypercars built up over the year like a famous three-part opera: The enthralling start of the drama sitting in the Porsche 918, tear-assing the heavier green dart around a track in Spain; then on to the UK with the lightness and quick heart of the biturbo V8 in McLaren's track-inspired P1, and it was all to be topped-off at Fiorano with the LaFerrari, fit for a Wagnerian finish.

This rare vintage Ferrari is not like the others

This particular Ferrari profiled by Petrolicious is attached to many of the vital names we've come to associate with the brand, like Dino, Scaglietti, Ascari, and Formula 1. What it doesn't have is the kind of engine we've come to associate with Maranello: at the front of that delicious bodywork is a 2.0-liter four-cylinder with 172 horsepower. The car is a 1955 Ferrari 500 Mondial Series II Scaglietti-bodied spider, its engine derived from the 2.0-liter engine used in the Ferrari 500 race car that Alberto Ascari used to win the F1 World Championship in 1952 and 1953. We can only wonder if any of today's cars will provide the same joy at being a barn find as this one did for its affable owner, retired US Navy Admiral Robert Phillips. He discovered it in the back of a dealership in 1960 - it had been sitting unused in Ohio and California for years - and almost walked away from it. He only bought it when he realized it had a four-pot engine. He paid two-thirds of his yearly salary at the time for it, the handsome sum of $2,225. In today's money that's about $18,000. Phillips says there are only three left with the original engines, so odds are that his car's value is exponentially more than the inflation-adjusted purchase price. One of them is going on the block with RM Auctions next month which looks a lot like this one, and they've listed it as "Price on Request." Phillips is our kind of owner, though - one who believes his car is meant to be driven, and who wants to pass it on to another driver when the time comes. His vehicle has quite the history, too, making its way to the Americas thanks to a call from the president of Venezuela to Enzo Ferrari. Check out the video for its beautiful story. Related Video: