Ferrari

Date Acquired:

28 Aug 2007

Year:

1995

Cost:

£29,995

Fuel consumption:

dunno

Odometer:

33,000

Servicing:

lots

Annual Insurance:

£800

Other costs:

£3618 see text

The following morning, I fired up the silky V12 and was escorted off the city limits by Blair who later phoned me to tell me the car looked "bloody gorgeous" spearing onto the M74 heading south.
I decided to catch up with another uni friend in order to break up the tedious schlep to Surrey and reached Derby in time for lunch.
When it was time to leave, I did notice a few spots of oil spoiling Anna's immaculate driveway, but assumed it was just one of those things classic Ferraris did and was not overly concerned.

However I did notice a flicker of red light when negotiating some speed bumps and by the time I was a mile away from Anna's house there was a faint but distinct glow from the low oil pressure light...
I pulled over onto the forecourt of a Shell petrol station, not quite believing my bad luck.
Horrifyingly, an examination of the lower rear of the car showed a slick film of oil and when I checked the dry sump dipstick it showed no oil was in the reservoir at all!

A full 4 litre container of Shell Helix Ultra still barely registered on the dipstick and I was really worried. Looking under the composite bonnet showed oil leaking copiously from the oil cooler area.
I phoned Karl Verdi (www.verdiferrari.biz) who told me not to panic as the "first thing to go on a Ferrari V12 if it runs out of oil, is the valvetrain" and there were no untoward noises from the top end.
But it was clear that the car wouldn't be going any further under its own steam, so I put a call in to trusty RAC International Rescue.
A couple of hours later, the low loader turned up and after winching the disgraced supercar onboard, we began our slow, depressing, 56mph speed-limited journey home...

So, much later than planned, we finally arrived home, the 456 was ignominiously dumped outside my house and I went to bed very grumpily.
The next morning, the RAC sent another lorry to complete the Ferrari's journey to Verdi Performance Cars in Hayes, who are used to picking up the pieces after my Prancing Horse-borne adventures.

It's interesting to see and hear the proletariat's reactions to Ferraris, particularly broken-down ones. I was initiated into this humiliating past time within a few minutes of buying my first Ferrari, a gorgeous but temperamental silver 308GTB qv, which decided to stall and refuse to hot-start whilst negotiating the Wandsworth one-way system back in 1993.

This time round, it was some oafish builders "working" on my next door neighbour's house who were chortling at the sight of the car being hoisted aloft. "Made my day, that has!" said one particularly unsympathetic soul."I don't want that car back, until it's fully sorted!" I hissed down the phone to Karl.

Unfortunately he took me at my word and it was a few weeks before I saw the 456 again, as Verdi's were very busy as usual.
Luckily for me, the oil leak was relatively simple to fix, once they could get round to it. Apparently an oil cooler line had split and dumped nearly the whole content of the oil system.
Fortunately, like all recent Ferraris, the 456 runs a dry sump system and there had been just enough oil to keep a feed going to the high pressure pumps and that kept everything lubricated without damage.

Although the interior of my car was in very good condition, considering its age, one of the grey plastic panels on the centre console (that I remember being the height of cool in1995) had melted and distorted over the years. Karl had a new replacement panel fitted and also tried to re-align the driver's side window that whistled ferociously above 80mph; again a common 456 failing.

Finally, I had a modification that I had actually purchased before I had bought the car, fitted.
A gorgeous set of 19" Novitec Rosso wheels.
Verdi were actually, at the time, the sole UK distributor for Novitec Rosso, a renowned German tuner specialising in Ferrari, but I had bought this year old set from an acquaintance who had previously had them on his 550 Maranello and subsequently advertised them on Pistonheads.com. I paid just under half the original £6k cost for the set of four with brand new P-Zero Rosso tyres- a whopping 355mm on the rear two! -and had them shipped to Verdi's in anticipation of buying a 456.

Of course it turned out that the spacers required to clear the inner arches of the 456 were different to those needed for a 550, so with the longer wheel bolts required that added £400 to the bill. Along with the faintly ludicrous cost of a set of 456-specific Pagid front brake pads at £600, the grand total came to an eye-watering £3618.

Still, as I've always been told (usually by Karl): there's no such thing as a cheap Ferrari.
If only I ever listened...

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