Is a Portofino for under £100k the most sensible decision?

[Honeywell]

Now.

I am in the market next year for a 50 year old birthday present to myself and I'v been toying with various flavours of 911 and Lotus Emira and so on and so forth. However, in the spirit of go big or go home I have lately been pondering wether it makes more sense to actually buy a Ferrari Portofino.

Am I mad and have a I missed something?

The car needs to do about 3000 miles a year, not on a track, it needs to be used several times a month throughout the year mostly on local trips but every now and again I want to do 200 miles on a weekend away. I want it to be a a buit of a status symbol, I do like driving so I want it to handle, I want it take my teenagers to the prom, I want it to scratch a petrolhead itch of having had a Ferrari.

I can stomach spending £9,000 a year on insurance warranty and maintenance. Am I being realistic? How likely is such a car to throw me a dispiriting massive bill which will spoil the whole experience?

[DeejRC]

Save some money, go for a Cali T instead. Wait until the M drops in price a lot more in 2-3yrs, then swap the T to the M.
You will miss very little going for a T instead of a Porto.
I am pondering v similar thing to yourself, except I have no interest in it being a status symbol. And I hate teenagers.

[Honeywell]

Well I am being honest about the status symbol. And I have to love teenagers given I own two.

I have a 2022 MX5 and frankly if I am being Mr Spock it does everything I need for £25k and it does it perfectly well and I love it. Nevertheless you're only on this planet once and in your first 25 years you are poor but horny and in your last 25 years you are rich but impotent so there's only a limited window to actually have a Ferrari and by horny.

[johnnyreggae]

You sound like a perfect candidate - just do it - and I'll save you a few hundred quid by pointing out annual maintenance is included up to 7 years so most of the cars you are looking at should have a couple of years left - also buying within dealer network may cost a little more but will give a better warranty than any any 3rd party

[Honeywell]

Thanks. I am at a slight loss how to value the official warranty. Do the dealers find a massive amount of problems in year 8 that they ignored in years 6 and 7? At an independent - and I like a non franchise garage specialist generally - what is the sort of cost of an annual service?'

I might be the sort of buyer who keeps the car for twenty years so the gap in official service history will be less important than overall condition. This will be one of last petrol only Ferraris without a GPF and fittable with a loud exhaust. Might be an end of era motorcar.

[pete]

If you buy a Portofino from a Ferrari main dealer with a good few years left on the 7 year servicing package and a 2 year warranty, then you're well insured against big bills. Not to say they are impossible, given the warranty isn't as comprehensive as something like a Porsche, but the Portofino does seem to have a pretty strong reliability record, not being that different mechanically to the Cali T.

I did exactly that a couple of months ago. No regrets so far; the Porto does everything you say in your post. A nice combination of theatre and enough fun to drive, while also being a practical and comfortable GT that my kids fit in the back of (for short journeys at least). Yes, it's a softer drive than a 488 or F12, but it's far and away more engaging than something like a Merc SL or a Bentley Continental. The addition of race mode with side slip control on the Portofino M, and a few improvements to things like brake feel, didn't justify a 25+% price premium in my view. I'd like to think I'll be tearing around the countryside at dawn, enjoying 600 horsepower and the limits of grip in race mode, but the practical reality is rather different!

[GingerMunky]

johnnyreggae said:

You sound like a perfect candidate - just do it - and I'll save you a few hundred quid by pointing out annual maintenance is included up to 7 years so most of the cars you are looking at should have a couple of years left - also buying within dealer network may cost a little more but will give a better warranty than any any 3rd party

^^This

Do it, life is too short, and the Portofino is a great car. What an amazing 50th birthday present. I did exactly the same thing but bought a Roma for my 50th

[andymc]

will they be under £100k?

[456mgt]

You're not going to get many people on here telling you *not* to buy a Ferrari if you're able! And the Portofino is a good choice. My wife has one and we've been all over the place in it. It's a really practical, sexy car, and has given us no problems whatsoever in the 4 years we've had it. It's quite a grown up car, exactly as Ferrari intended.

One question to ask yourself is whether modern or classic is the best option. The Portofino is a modern car with the full gamut of tech and driver aids and if you want/need that, all well and good. Older stuff won't have it, but will match or possibly exceed it for the sense of occasion and excitement. Years ago I bought a (cheap) Porsche 930 flatnose and it edged out my 456M as the go to fun car. And that was my first Ferrari too,, thought I'd never sell it.

So have fun making this choice and go with your heart, your head has no place in this decision

[Honeywell]

Thank you for the replies.

I look at the values of Portfinos and I weigh the premium of something like an £80k Porsche 911 of Lotus Emira which would be a lot newer and I just can't help but think that for an extra bit of money the Ferrari is a lot more special. Premium sportscars are taking a bath right now. I've not followed Portfinos pricing for long enough to take a view on values/costs. I'd be looking to buy in about 4 to 6 months time. Hence hoping for an entry point closer to £100k.

Is the market dropping that far that fast or are Ferrari's in another world?

I dodged a bullet in not buying a Rangerover in the Spring and bought a much older leggier Dicovery4. Avoiding the depreciation trap is a key factor for me. But it's an odd time of year to be surveying the market for drop top Ferraris. The Portofino would be traded in against a 2 year old MX5 so quite the change. I can stomach something like £10k a year running/depreciation cost but am nervous of the thing throwing me a £30k bill or depreciation hit.

[Mark_Blanchard]

I'd buy the Portofino. I've been a Lotus man all my life and moved to Ferrari's a few years ago and have never regretted it. Ferrari's are fantastic cars and a privilege to own. Good luck with your purchase.

[Honeywell]

See this appeals to me greatly. I'm just unsure what happens when it hits 7 years and drops out of warranty/servicing. Do the values nosedive?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202310112...

[johnnyreggae]

You're beginning to overthink this - warranty can be extended to (I think) 15 years and call a few dealers main & indie for service quotes - I'm not sure they even change the oil now except after 24 months so its more of an (albeit essential for value) inspection service in the other year

[pete]

Honeywell said:

See this appeals to me greatly. I'm just unsure what happens when it hits 7 years and drops out of warranty/servicing. Do the values nosedive?

https://www.autotrader.co.uk/car-details/202310112...

They're amazing value at under £120k asking price for a 5 year old car with pretty low miles. When I bought mine, Maranello had a similar age car with 30k+ miles for about £120k, but I ended up paying a little bit more for a car with only 4k miles and a generous options list (all the exterior and interior carbon fibre, for example, that you'd have to be both mad and very rich to spec new). Given the way the market is moving, I wouldn't be surprised to see them around £100k outside the official dealer network in the depths of winter, and the keener dealers will probably have cars from £110k with a full warranty and all the after-sales love.

The servicing package is included up to 7 years, but I doubt an annual service at an indy would be too expensive. They'll have had plenty of practice servicing California T's by 2026 after all. Warranty can be extended up to 15 years, albeit focused on major components like powertrain and electronics and not especially cheap, but I wouldn't expect that to drive a cliff-edge in sudden depreciation. If you ask around, there are a lot of people happy to run them without a warranty once the factory or approved warranty runs out; I think you'd be better off putting a few grand in a savings account every year just in case.

[Honeywell]

OK, that's reassuring. Thanks.

[Panamax]

Honeywell said:

I can stomach spending £9,000 a year on insurance warranty and maintenance.

You need to be looking total cost of ownership, which includes depreciation and also the opportunity cost of sinking £100k into a car.

In round numbers, if owning a Portofino is worth £12 to £15 a mile, go for it!

[Honeywell]

It's a tough one.

I am trying to resist my inner sensible self which says get a 5.0 Jag F type or a 911 991.2 and take it to Lichfield for 480bhp or get a Lotus Emira or so anything that is more sensible than a Ferrari. Yet something in the back of my head is saying that - because I can - go and buy a Ferrari and just enjoy the extra extravagance because that is what the whole thing actually is.

And values seem to be getting better and in the era of the £50,000 Golf GTi not quite as silly as the once seemed.

[Guyr]

Panamax said:

You need to be looking total cost of ownership, which includes depreciation and also the opportunity cost of sinking £100k into a car.

In round numbers, if owning a Portofino is worth £12 to £15 a mile, go for it!

How do you figure that?

How does 3,000 miles per year in a Portofino cost £45k per annum, especially if done for 3-5 years.

[pete]

Panamax said:

You need to be looking total cost of ownership, which includes depreciation and also the opportunity cost of sinking £100k into a car.

In round numbers, if owning a Portofino is worth £12 to £15 a mile, go for it!

I'm not sure you'd end up in that cost per mile ballpark unless you did very little mileage and bought a car so new it was going to depreciate dramatically. Given opportunity cost is independent of how much you drive the car; depreciation in this market has a big fixed cost element as well as the mileage component; and you only lose the buy/sell margin when you change cars, then you can make the cost per mile a lot cheaper by simply doing 5000 miles per a year and keeping your car a bit longer! I'm certainly not expecting my annual TCO to be £60,000, unless I've missed a big trick in where I could have invested the cash I spent on it.

But in general I agree that if you need to rationalise your purchase financially, you shouldn't ignore those important parts of the whole life cost. The original owner of my Portofino spent about £100k more than I paid for it, then drove it about 1000 miles over a few years, so their cost per mile was astronomical.

Anyway, back on the topic of buying a Portofino, in the words of Ferris Bueller: "If you have the means, I highly recommend picking one up."

[PinkHouse]

This might be controversial in the Ferrari forum but have you considered a DB11? Although not as sharp to drive as the Portofino but good ones start at around £70k and they would have similar kerb appeal to the random observer. Cheaper running costs as well if you go for the V8 although I'd be going for the V12 AMR if if was my money