The Dark Wob

Around the millennium like any self respecting scouser I had a few personal injury claims coming to fruition. This gave me a pot of about £8000 to spunk away and obviously a big name supercar was on the cards. Looking at what was on offer I decided a prancing horse was what's needed so I scoured the classifieds to see what's on offer. The 308 Dino 2+2 was just out of my price bracket leaving me with two choices, either an early Mondial 8 or a 400i. The Mondial was my first choice but I was beaten to the only affordable example for sale by minutes but there was a 400I for sale in the leafy area of Cheshire. Obviously not being a fucking retard I took someone sceptical with me to talk me out of this and we scampered over to audition the thoroughbred.

Upon arrival at the vendors coach house it initially looked good in its gleaming light metallic blue paintwork and looked like the sort of car Michael Winner would drive to lunch at the Ivy. The seller was pretty honest about its patchy service history but as this front engined V12 Ferrari was about as close as I'd get to owning a Daytona I was so far undeterred. My sane friend who's never been this close to a Ferrari on the other hand was letting enthusiasm take over him! The vendor fired it up after a few attempts and it idled away initially on probably nine cylinders and eventually on at least eleven. Even I was at this point suspicious of the blue smoke and holed exhaust but as we'd travelled this far we may as well take it for a spin. I'm not sure whether Ferrari owners are naturally trusting but he insisted we take it out for a test drive without him.

I slid behind the wheel and snicked it into drive (it was an automatic) and headed off around the lanes. First impressions weren't actually that bad, the steering was quite light being power assisted and pretty much all the electrics worked. My sane friend by this point was beside himself screaming WE'RE IN A FUCKING FERRARI and completely forgetting his role as devil's advocate. Fortunately, I was at this point wondering why this car seemed a hell of a lot slower than an XJS and had a nasty misfire. I didn't so much as wake up and smell the coffee as much as wake up and smell the unburnt petrol! Feeling a bit let down by the car and total lack of admiring glances I limped it back under protest of my friend and politely declined the offer of Ferrari ownership.

Sadly I've been sitting on this topic over on the beige for nearly a decade looking for the right time to post it.

That's class. 400is are like 50k now aren't they?

Is there any more to this tale?

I also looked at a 400 that was in Coy's auction back in 2001. I bottled it in the end and bought a Maserati Biturbo Spyder instead which was actually pretty reliable. The 400's were good looking cars and affordable back then but the v12 just scared the shit out of me.

I once knew an English chap but of Italian stock. He had always wanted a Ferrari and came across a 400 in an estate auction. £7k he paid, in around 2002. Lovely car, I went out in it a couple of times.

Anyway, it was stored in a yard where I also kept some stuff. The Ferrari was on axle stands over the pit having some work done.

In the meantime I had a Lada Niva I was breaking. I bought it from a scrapyard with no keys. I wanted to test the gearbox as they would sell straight away so snapped the steering lock and fired it up. No clutch or brakes but that didn't matter, it was a big yard and I only wanted to do a couple of laps to test it. Upon reaching the area near the Ferrari the Lada throttle jammed on full and at the same time the broken steering lock decided to start working. The handbrake wasnt man enough to stop it. A Niva in low box on full throttle takes some stopping but the Ferrari managed to stop it whilst falling off the axle stands and partially into the pit. Did I mention it was a large pit, for lorries? The Ferrai was not road legal at this point. No tax, mot or insurance.

Anyway, lots of details you dont need to know happened but we ended up going through my trade insurance some months later... The next I heard was that while the car was on the jig, they broke the back window and took ages to source another. It spent many months at the bodyshop. When it finally came back he couldn't wait to test drive it. A few miles down the road it cut out and caught fire. No phone signal to call anyone either. I'm told that his insurance had expired by this point too but I've never asked him about this...

They say some cars are cursed and this certainly seems like one.

Ferrari 400i - like an XJS, but much, much worse.

I don't see the point in cars like the 400i unless they're cheap. £50'000 now eh? I suppose you'd look cool whilst the AA/fire brigade turn up. Apparently, even a festering turd like a Mondial is 'worth' 30 grand now.

I do like the look of the 400i, and I did consider picking one up when they were sub-£10,000. I'm very glad I didn't though, because I'm sure it would have bankrupted me.

I did buy a Lotus Excel though. A 1984 "B" 50,000 mile example in white with a porn-red leather interior and a massive file of service history. The clutch was very heavy though, a sure sign that it needed changing - but before I booked it in for the work doing (I lived in a London flat at the time & had no spannering space) the bloody thing tore the patellar tendon in my left knee. After the knee had healed (good old BUPA healthcare), and before I'd had the clutch changed, I arranged a climbing trip in the Lotus for me & three mates to Fontainebleau, south of Paris.

The clutch failed completely just before we set off, dumping all its fluid out of the slave cylinder. Ah bollocks, we said, we don't need a clutch anyway. So we did the entire trip crashing the gears and coasting up to traffic lights, etc. in neutral, then kangarooing off in 1st gear on the starter

I had the clutch changed by a Lotus specialist after arriving back from France - not cheap! But the specialists said that my Excel was a particularly tidy version, and was worth much more than the £2,900 I'd paid for it. Which was very helpful when I stuffed the Lotus into the front of a Vauxhall Frontera on twisty roads in North Wales a few weeks later, killing it stone dead. But thanks to a declaration from the specialists about the condition of the car, I received an insurance pay-out of over £5,500

I like this thread, it makes buying ropey old Jags seem sane.

Ropey old Jags are great. At under £1000. Anything over that is insanity.