Date: Tue, 25 May 2004 10:54:38 -0400
From: Steve An <stevean@domain.elided>
Subject: [alfa] Supercars and Dinos
Ciao Tutti.
Just catching up on email.
George Graves responded to a query about unloved Ferrari (there is
such a
thing, evidently!)
At 06:29 PM 5/20/2004, you wrote:
was meant to be driven fast, not slow. The 308GT4 is one of the best
handling cars Ferrari ever built. It is light, small, real tossable -
sort of like a 2 + 2 Fiat X1/9 with balls. What put me off was the
maintenance costs. New cam belts every 15,000 miles at a cost of about
$3000 to change them (engine has to come out) is oft-putting in the
And he later said:
At 07:19 PM 5/24/2004, you wrote:
On the other hand if one simply must have a real exotic on the cheap,
might I suggest a Lamborghini Espada? A front-engined, RWD, 365 HP
(later models) DOHC V-12 is nothing to sneeze at. Makes wonderful
Not having owned either of these cars nor having had to pay to maintain
them won't stop me from questioning the wisdom and logic of George's
conclusions :-)
Well, there really are no conclusions. My two statements, which you
quote, taken out of context, which they are, certainly might look as if
I'm arguing at cross purposes, but I'm not. The first statement about
the 308 GT4 was about a car that I was seriously considering buying and
my reasons for passing on the purchase (although I have been corrected
about the engine needing to be removed to replace the cam belts.
Apparently I was the victim of some wrong information there). The
second statement about the Espada was in response to ANOTHER discussion
altogether having to do with Italian exoticars that were somewhat
affordable. Someone mentioned the Maserati Merak and I figured that as
long as folks were speculating along these lines, they might as well
toss the Espada onto the pile, since it's currently one of the cheapest
exotics on the market these days. I wasn't recommending anything, just
mentioning it in the context of that discussion as being cheap to buy.