Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by KennyBlanken | Hacker News Reader

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You have that backwards, at least in terms of production road cars.

You know what you will never see? A Ferrari performance-tested against another car by a TV program or newspaper or magazine publisher. They prohibit journalists from doing head-to-head comparison testing against other brands because they didn't perform that well compared to, well, everything else.

Top Gear finally got so sick of their bullshit that they very famously went public, describing all the things Ferrari would do when they delivered a car for review. This including spending days testing the car around the Top Gear test track themselves, pouring over data, adjusting everything on the car specifically for their test track. Something no other car company did, and something they would never do for an owner of a street car. I believe they also put on special, non-stock tires, but I could be wrong.

They did it because Top Gear was the one outlet they couldn't say no to such a test. So they cheated. The one time Ferrari was forced to actually submit to a performance test, they cheated.

The result? Ferrari not only stopped providing Top Gear with cars, they forbade customers from loaning or renting a car to Top Gear for test or review. Anyone found to have provided a vehicle to Top Gear would lose the right to purchase a new Ferrari for life.

Ferrari also banned Chris Harris, another famous British motoring journalist, after he also revealed that Ferrari were equipping and tuning their press cars differently than customer cars.

Ferrari also refuses to test or publish lap times at the Nurburgring:

https://www.thedrive.com/news/8147/ferrari-reminds-us-it-doe...

Yes, 'ring times can be a bit silly, but like racing, they're a statement of what the manufacturer is capable of. Ferrari refuses to play games, and oh hey, what do you know: the fastest ferrari timed around the course is slower than a whole slew of Porsches: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N%C3%BCrburgring_Nords...

Chris Harris drifting Ferraris in slow motion is some of the best car content on Youtube. Terrible to hear they banned him, but unsurprising. I also watched a segment where someone interviewed Jay Leno about why he doesn't own a Ferrari and he went on a rant about their snobbish behaviour, but it sounded like he was still upset after trying to buy one in the 80s/90s. Terrible customer service/arrogance, when you burn popular "car culture ambassadors" like these.

I fell in love with Lamborghinis when I was young (late Countach/early Diablo era) so I've always preferred their style, but now with their extended period of German ownership they are quite credible performance cars as well (Audi Le Mans/GT influence, perhaps?).

> the fastest ferrari timed around the course is slower than a whole slew of Porsches

I've driven quite a few Porsches and Ferraris, from 1970's models through modern ones and I'll almost always agree the Porsche is the better car. Usually faster, drives better, handles better, easier to work on, and easier to get parts for. But... it's usually the Ferrari that I want to take home. I've owned and enjoyed a few different Porsches, but my favorite car I've ever owned was a '95 Ferrari F355 Spider that would get its butt kicked by a Porsche 993 Turbo of the same era.

I've driven an F355 and owned a couple of 308s. The 981S made me lose interest in all of them. It has almost all of the positive qualities of both lines.

Expensive hobby where I live!

Only relatively speaking. My low-end two-seat Porsche has saved me three or four times its price in more expensive cars.

These days, automotive engineering is the art and science of using math to cope with regulation. Nobody does it like the Germans... legally or otherwise.

The Cayman is the best car I've ever driven from a handling perspective. But I ended up getting a 4 seater because of the kids.

Jay Leno famously has similar opinions of Ferarri as a vendor.

A Porsche is better in every aspect except it's not a Ferrari.

Since the f430 or maybe the 458 all Ferraris are reliable and use tons of parts shared with other car brands. Brakes, fuel systems, gearboxes (from 458) and more. Electronics are all robust and follow the same design philosophy as for example Porsche. Yes broken carbon ceramic disc or gearbox issues can cost you a lot. But it happens with any other brand as well.

Anyone found to have provided a vehicle to Top Gear would lose the right to purchase a new Ferrari for life.

How does it work in practice? Is that legal in every country they operate? What prevents someone paying a middle man to buy a Ferrari then sell it to them?

Nothing but being able to purchase a Ferrari directly is somewhat of an earned "privilege".

Money isn't enough if you want to purchase something like the new SF90 Stradale brand new, you essentially need to be offered the opportunity to buy one by Ferrari Corporate. Oh and you gain that by buying quite a number of used Ferraris and less desirable new Ferraris via your dealership until someone "notices" your "love of the brand".

If this sounds like gatekeepy bullshit, it is.

I have also heard they are unreliable as fuck from multiple people.

I also heard that warning about Alfa Romeos. I drove mine 124K miles over 11 years with normal maintenance (all easily DIY) and only one failure in that time (a Bosch distributor broke internally, so nothing Alfa-specific).

If a long-term owner told you that, by all means consider it; if a non-owner (including a mechanic) tells you second/third-hand horror stories, I’d be pretty inclined to ignore them.

I almost bought an alfa romeo once, but I was too young and didn't think I'd be able to be a garage mechanic at all. I vividly recall the guy had so many parts thrown in for free, he just got too old to lie underneath his car. It's a purchase I still regret to have passed on.

I agree on non-owners, but an experienced independent mechanic who knows the marque is probably your best bet for reliability information. Non-owners usually don't know anything, and you'll always have lucky and unlucky owners, but the specialty mechanics see the cars day in and day out and know their issues.

But the specialty mechanic has an incentive to lie, if he thinks you're going to bring the car to him for service. ;)

I've owned two Alfas (one of which I still have). The reputation for poor reliability is very well deserved in my experience, and we are very well known by the local mechanics. It varied a bit by model - but overall I think it's a fair assessment.

Like so many things these reputations form for good reasons - you may get lucky and have no particular problems with an individual example but that doesn't mean the reputation isn't deserved.

Modern Ferraris are actually pretty reliable as supercars go. A few years ago Ferrari started included free maintenance for any new Ferrari for 7 years, so most owners are only really paying for tires and gas.

Not to say the cars are perfect, but most owners end up with relatively hassle-free ownership experiences these days.

There was an interview with Gordon Murray, where he was comparison testing supercars of the era while designing the McLaren F1...his comment on the Ferarri F40 (I think) was "well, we realized we couldn't build one in our shop if we tried, because we didn't have anyone that would weld that badly..."

It depends greatly on the model AND on the country it was made for (the ones made for export were much better than "italian local market" ones).

As (by now historical) anecdata I owned an Alfetta (2000, gasoline, "America") for several years (used 50% with my father) we made 250,000 km with the original engine, then we put an used (from a wreckage) one with alredy 66,000 km and drove it for another 100,000 km or so when we had an issue with the gearbox/transmission and the car was overall too old to be worth the repair, but the body was in very good condition (car was around 15 years old).

Later I drove for a few years a 75 (bought used with already 90,000 km, "italian") and while I had no particular issues (engine and mechanics in general) up to the 150,000/200,000 km, the body had lots of issues with rust/corrosion after 6-7 years.

I would not call any of them "unreliable", they needed some little maintenance, but I would say no more than other make/models of those years (those were the '80's and early '90's).

Later Alfa Romeo became essentially "FIAT with another name" and reliability was essentially the same as the FIATs (rather poor, but not as bad as they are sometimes depicted).

Do you know which Top Gear episode did this?

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