Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

Comment by jajko | Hacker News Reader

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Same goes ie for Ferrari. For those that don't know - you can buy 'cheap' V8 ie Californias, 458, 488, F8 etc, pretty much just like anything - you pay and get into queue, and once its your time, you get what you've selected with sales rep.

Not so much the better V12 / hypercars which they do in carefully limited amounts. You have to be previous owner of series of lesser ones. You have to be their customer for quite some time, with flawless trail as a stellar customer. You have to have very good relationship with their company (so like Justin Bieber got his car painted on some color that they didn't approve and Ferrari banned him for life). Unique extremely limited series are all this but 10x or 100x, since all know this is darn good investment right out of gate, if you don't screw up maintenance (and at those price levels nobody sane does that). Those are basically not driven, each km would be ridiculously costly in total costs and depreciation.

You can skip most of this if you buy second hand, for adequate inflated prices. This won't work for Bieber style of situation of course.

Ferrari broke their model this cycle. Their high end customers have put up with this for decades since the hypercars always gain value. Most people let them gather dust for a while, then sell them for a tidy profit once the Ferrari quiet embargo on aftermarket sales goes away.

This time they got really greedy and tried to insert a limited production mid-engine model into the middle, under the La Ferrari hypercar but above the 'base' mid engine car they have been making forever. The problem is that SF90 isn't special enough. It's the same basic technology as the much cheaper 296 (which is plenty fast and special) and no SF90 has re-sold for above or even that close to MSRP. All the special customers have taken a bath on SF90 and I hear are pretty annoyed with Ferrari.

They also tried to toss in the SP line of cars, further diluting the special, limited nature of the hypercars.

The SF90 resale values seem to also be impacted by issues with the battery and charging system. I remember reading quite a few stories about electrical gremlins on FerrariChat. Even if the issues are worked out by later updates (which they may or may not be), that kind of bad reputation can have a big impact on depreciation.

Fascinating, thank you. What staggers me is how the very well-off people who can afford the Ferraris put up with this nonsense. In my book the whole point of being rich is the increased freedom which surely includes not complying to idiotic requirements (and I don't mean the social and legal norms here).

I guess an urge for status signalling is very hard to resist.

It's probably because of this "nonsense" that people see these cars as exclusive and therefore worthy of putting up with the nonsense...

Having dipped my toes in the Ferrari world, there are three very different groups of Ferrari buyers- Status people, car people, and super rich people. The status people play the silly game with the dealers. The car people buy used from the status people after the new model isn't flashy any longer. The super rich people buy original era cars (before Fiat bought out the company in the 1970's) and use them as investments.

Well, the main reason that you'd buy a Ferrari in the first place is status signalling, so if it's extra-difficult to get, that makes it _better_ at status signalling. Kind of a variant of a Veblen good; the presence of whatever the special model is in their driveway indicates that the person has completed the rich-person equivalent of throwing a ring into Mount Doom, so is impressive to people who are impressed by that sort of thing.

Well, I've driven one basic (458) on a track circuit and let me tell you... If TCO would be below 1% of my net worth, I would buy it in an instant. It literally puts a smile on your face. And its a marvel in engineering compared to cars for regular Joes.

But completely useless in regular traffic, in fact much much worse than normal cars. And all kinds of idiots want to semi-constantly race you. So sort of great deal on the paper, actual reality not so much.

Same, I drove a factory-fresh F140 v12 GTC4Lusso straight off the line in Maranello while they were still being produced, and having background in German-built cars, it’s light years of difference. If I could have bought that same day I 100% would have. They’re that good.

They are amazing cars, but damned if they don't look like a hatchback Corvette

I see it as the Corvette looking like (copying) the Ferrari. I've got a friend who drives one of those 'high-end' wishes-it-was-a-Ferrari Corvettes. Every time she drives up I say "shoulda bought a real car", and I get a dirty look.

Not a ferrari, but I had a Mercedes AMG for a few years and it was exactly like that too - put a stupid grin on my face on the track or on the autobahn(5am drive at solid 160mph for like 30 minutes near berlin will always remain my favourite driving experience), but day to day it was awful - loud, uncomfortable, ruinous on fuel, and people wanted to race you constantly, every now and then people wanted to take pictures as well etc - which I imagine with a Ferrari it's even worse. Nowadays I settled for a completely inconspicious family car that no one would even look at twice, but which still has enough power to go fast if I want to. But owning "flashy" cars is definitely not for me anymore.

I confess to having a soft spot for sleeper cars. Dont know what the equivalent term would be in Germany. But anything that looks convincingly like a family car but can do 0-100kph in a flash would qualify.

Example: Volvo V60 Polestar wagon, or the legendary Ford Taurus SHO

Im sorry to say that in my corner of the US, an AMG Benz screams man-child rather than car enthusiast, because they tend to be driven by idiots. Ditto any BMW M.

My current car is actually an XC60 T8 :-) It's a bit of a barge, but the 400bhp is "enough" to go fast should you want to.

>>Im sorry to say that in my corner of the US, an AMG Benz screams man-child rather than car enthusiast

That's fine, everywhere is different.

The EX30 does 0-100kmph in 3.5 seconds.

I guess an urge for status signalling is very hard to resist.

Buyers who just want an exotic don't have to jump through Ferrari's hoops. There's the used market. Or, it's relatively easy to buy a new McLaren, Lotus, etc.

> In my book the whole point of being rich is the increased freedom which surely includes not complying to idiotic requirements...

That's precisely why there are people flipping Porsche and Hermes Birkin bags for a living.

There are certain rich people who have absolutely zero patience and won't deal with that car configuration/salespeople/six months of wait bullshit.

So what do they do? They buy the car now, the day they see it brand new but second hand, at a price above MSRP.

I think the parent's point is why would a rich person care about these items at all. If I were rich, I would hire my own artisan to make me a bag. Kind of like a bespoke suit.

Yeah I'm not rich but most of my clothes are made by a third generation tailor. Sometimes if I see a style I like at a retail shop I buy it and bring it to them to duplicate. You get to completely customize everything and having control of the fabric and literally everything is so nice. It kinda makes me wonder why there's so many retail stores selling clothes when above a certain income it's just better to get almost everything bespoke.

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