Japan - 200km in 5 years Ferrari 488 ownership - investment or driver’s enjoyment⁉️

[Tokion]

Happily walking along the pavement in my neighborhood, I spotted a flatbed truck ready to take onboard a white, perfect condition Ferrari 488. I approached an older gentleman next to the Ferrari and commented «nice car, I am personally a Lotus Emira owner». The gentleman told me that he was in the prosess of selling his 488, and that he had owned it for 5 years, and driven it 200 km in his ownership. I got his permission to take a few photos, bid farewell and walked on.

However it made me think about how much better it is for us Lotus Emira owners who bought our cars to drive them as much as possible without worrying about how much they (probably will) depreciate. We are definetely not buying them for investment purposes. Nor are we keeping them pristine with low mileage in order to earn money the day we pass them on.

I looked the 488 up on popular Japan used car platform «GOO» where several examples of these roughly 20 year old cars were listed for around 30 million yen. All of them probably driven very little by their owners.

Makes me even happier to be a Lotus Emira owner collecting miles (kilometers) as I drive along with a silly grin on my face.

PS. I do think the Ferrari 488 is among the most beautiful sportscars ever made, and especially from the Ferrari brand. So it is a pity that most of them seem to hardly get driven?

 

[whupwhup]

It is a shame. I owned a 488 Spider and drove it about 8K km per year ( with 5 months being stored for winter) I drove it all over the place, rallies, track days and it never let me down. The Ferrari service manager in spring time for oil change would ask “Any issues?” I said nope. Then he would look at the km drive since last oil change and say “that’s because you’re driving it!” Like any car they need to be driven. Only downside with Ferrari unlike say Porsche. Their depreciation is very sensitive to km driven. Most Ferraris are not driven much per year. It’s a personal choice for each and I respect that. But I like to drive any car I own as much as possible.