This article was first published (in unedited form) on the Ferrari enthusiasts' website www.fcars.co.uk

So how did I get to drive a Ferrari?

There is no single answer. Having found myself with a large amount of cash from my redundancy (best thing that ever happened to me) I bought a BMW M5 in January 2005. I had been toying with the idea of buying a Maserati (first the 3200 then the 4200) for the last couple of years but in the end, preferred the practicality and comfort of the big Beemer. But after a few month of tweaking and upgrading various bit I realised I was still driving a big saloon with an even bigger engine but not much fun…

And then a fellow Fcars forum member, RogerB, changed his M5 to a 550 and wrote about his first Ferrari days on the M5 forum…hmmm! That sounded nice!

Before I knew it, I was at HR Owen test driving a TDF Blue one with Sabia interior and the Fiorano handling pack. I nearly bought that car, but ended up buying a similar one from a northern dealer.

The main difference between the car I ended up buying and the HR Owen one is that mine had the 19" wheels, 7,000 less miles on the clock but no FHP. The deal sweetener was the inclusion of a 6 piece Ferrari luggage set - something that has proved reasonably useful but could have never justified the full price.

My first week with the car was mainly on the road - I took the car on the day I bought it and drove through half of Europe to Vienna to a friend's wedding! I must say that after all the excitement of choosing and buying the car, the first few weeks of Ferrari ownership were somewhat surreal.

So my first few impressions:-

This car is the ultimate GT car. It feels more stable going 180mph on the autobahn then the M5 ever felt at a 150mph. Add to that the phenomenal acceleration and you actually have a fair chance of being able to push into such hyperspeeds, at least when the autobahn is not too busy.

I have not measured the fuel consumption but it seems to have had a 300 mile range on that trip - not bad considering that most of it was driven between 120mph - 180mph. Given the 105 litre petrol tank I think it comes to something like 12mpg.

Contrary to John, I find the cabin accommodating enough. OK, there is no cup / bottle holder so this is something I intend to make some day and place on the transmission tunnel. Having the F1 gear frees up some space where the stick would otherwise be - perfect for a mobile phone and sunglasses. Personally, I find the door pockets useful - never had anything moving there. Also, being 5'6" means I have plenty of space behind my seat for lots of odd bits such as an ice scraper. As for the parcel shelf, It has two belts that prevent things placed there from becoming airborne.

The Maranello is definitely better at playing the GT than the sports car. It does a decent job as the latter but it is not an Exige; not with a 1,730 kg kerb weight and 12 cylinders stuck up front, albeit behind the front axle.

The engine is an otherworldly beast with gargantuan amounts of torque and power. Great in the dry but it should be respected and suspected in the wet. I only drive in Sport mode since without it the F1 gearchange is way too slow and I like hard sprung cars, but it does allow the 575 to slide quite a lot. On slippery roads pressing the throttle too early out of a turn or even too hard in a straight line can result in lots of 'fun' - and some very fast heartbeats.

My initial feeling was that this car was not as planted and sharp as the Fiorano equipped one at HR Owen but the differences were subtle at best and as I did not drive them on the same roads they could have well been imagined.

Driving with the F1 'box was another thing to get used to. In fact, I started my search looking for a manual 575 but these are as rare as hen's teeth. Having spoken with a few that drove or own manual 550s (Roger again) they all commented on the heaviness of the clutch… and I realised that selling a manual 575 when the time comes would be as difficult as finding one so F1 it was. Having driven with it, it is absolutely fantastic. Sure, there is the odd jerk or the odd fraction of a second hesitation every now and then. But overall, I enjoy the ease of downshifting allowing me to concentrate on steering when driving vigorously.

To be honest, the car did not show any of the 'Americanised' softness the early models have been blamed of by the press. But it was still rolling, squatting and diving a little too much to my taste. And, it was way too quiet with only an annoying induction note from the engine.

An appointment with official Tubi Style exhaust system importers, Scuderia Systems, (www.scuderiasystems.com) was promptly booked and the Big Blue F was about to receive its first upgrade. The car was brought back a week later by Manu - I could hear it a good few minutes before I could actually see it - a very good sign.

Scuderia also sub-contracted Verdi Performance Cars (see their advertisment to the right), to lower the car and tweak some of the suspension settings (toe and camber). If nothing else, lowering the car made it look so much better and more aggressive. It also reduced some of the rolling, diving and squatting and made it sharper.

The car was sold to me as having sat nav. It was only the next day, already in France and frustratingly trying to understand how to work out the navigation that I called the dealer Peter Brook. What do you know… the original sat nav was out of order and was sent to Ferrari… and instead, a standard head unit was fitted. Until today I have not seen the original unit… not that I care that much. The standard Becker navigation unit is far from being impressive and my plan was to replace it anyway. But having discovered somewhere in the middle of France, on my way to Vienna that I do not have a sat nav I nearly went ballistic - and Peter was at least decent enough to offer £300 (the cost of a basic portable unit) toward the purchase of another unit. I even received the cheque… 4 months later. Just to add insult to injury, the Becker CD changer packed up after a couple of weeks.

My next stop was at Prestige Audio in Rickmansworth (www.prestigeaudio.co.uk). Being a hi fi enthusiast for the last 20 years, and having worked as a professional sound engineer before moving to IT, I am not only highly critical on sound quality, I have very little faith in the skills of most in car entertainment installers. Most of them tend to substitute clarity with screaming mid band, and tight controlled bass with overpowering boom boxes on wheels.

Prestige were a pleasant surprise. They immediately understood my musical taste and my objectives. These included a modern sat nav, improved clean and natural sound, and minimum alterations to the car. We ended up replacing the head unit with the flip-screen Alpine, the indoor 5¼ inch mid-bass drives were upgraded and so were the tweeters - which were also relocated. The shape of the cabin allowed an ideal positioning close to the mid-basses and at the same time in direct line to the ear.

My car came originally equipped with 'improved stereo' - which meant two questionable quality subs in the boot, each in its own semi open circular plastic enclosure. Instead, Prestige build a rigid MDF enclosure taking no more space than the OEM subs, and equipped with two hi power, long throw 6" subs - ideal for the kind of tight and rhythmic but not overblown bass I was looking for. The two mighty amplifiers were sunk into the boot well, with appropriate ventilation.

The results are impressive, with one of the best in car sounds I have heard. Other then the boot enclosure and the relocated tweeters there are no apparent visual changes and in general, the quality of workmanship is very high. Admittedly, the system prefers AC-DC over Bach (I do listen to both) but given the less than ideal environment that a car is, this is as good as I could hope for.

October 2005 saw me travelling to Bruntingthorpe airfield for the Don Palmer course. Others have already sung Don's glory and I can voice my full agreement. I personally really like Don's attention to detail, Toa (or Zen) like approach, his teaching skills and his ability to really challenge me to think about driving in a totally different way. Not wishing to ruin my tyres or trash the car I rented an Elise for the day. I did however swap to the Fezza for an hour towards the end of the day.

Comparison between the two was interesting - obviously accelerating and braking were in a different league. But I was also surprised by how agile the 575 can be for a 1.7 tonne GT. One thing I really liked about the car is that it felt so much more neutral and progressive then the somewhat twitchy Elise. It also had impressive grip.

On the minus side, it was still understeering quite a lot and the brakes were certainly not up to the task and started feeling mushy after about an hour so I switched back to the Elise.

With that lesson learned, my next stop was QV for some minor brake mods. On that and more in part two…

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