My Quest: Six cars in six years
Discussion
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Thanks everyone for the replies, I love reading them! 
Last week, we were back in the Aston for an old friend of mine whose eldest was heading off to college. A family of Aston Martin fans, so we had smiles all round, and the Vantage got what will likely be its last prom outing under my ownership.
And yes, I’ve decided it has to go up for sale.
I can’t put all of my cars in the garage, and I particularly don’t like having them on the driveway, or in storage really. And let’s not forget that financially, with all of these old and potentially expensive cars to maintain, it’s a bit like playing automotive money roulette. It was a tough decision though and has taken me weeks to actually do it. I got as far as the payment screen on one of the selling sites, I entered my credit card details initially, but couldn’t bring myself to press the button so I abandoned the idea for another week. 
But the decision has now been made!
Spin the wheel, which one will bring financial disaster first….?
School Run in the Ferrari.
This was always going to be an interesting experience. I’m still new to the car and learning its ways and the Aston gave me a similar level of stress when I first got that until I was familiar with it. But there is no denying that the Ferrari amps this up quite a bit. The school run is already a sensory overload, it’s a narrow road to school, kids going back and forth across the road on foot, on bicycles, there is a mini (painted) roundabout to contend with, no pedestrian crossings, cars parked literally everywhere and buses parked so badly that most days you have to mount a very dicey grassy curb to get around them. Yellow lines and parking restrictions mean absolutely nothing on the school run and it brings out the absolute worst in driver decision making. Whilst you can marvel at the bewildering levels of daily ridiculousness from afar if you can walk to school, its a different story when you are driving in it trying to avoid (or actually be) the chaos.
And the Ferrari is big. And it doesn’t do curbs. And it doesn’t like traffic. There is lots of traffic. It’s a bit grumpy on hills too. There are lots of hills. Hills with lots of traffic. And if you make a mistake? Everyone is watching whilst one fumbles about with this throbbing red manhood extension. I know they are, because a sheepish glance around, eyes are always looking back. They can all hear what one is doing too because it’s sooo freakin’ loud.
So yeah, you are really on display and I’m still getting used to the controls too. We’ll cover controls and gearbox in another update.
Porsche Logo is staying
So the school run is probably the stuff of nightmares for a car designed predominantly for racing and going fast for large portions of the day and not really what its designed to do. That said, the experience does have its plus points, as some of the kids reactions upon seeing the car are really fun. One lad literally covered his mouth in surprise seeing us drive past, whilst another one across the road mouthed “Ferrari”. I think back to when I was a kid, I would have loved to see a Ferrari at my school, it would have been unbelievably motivating for me.
My daughter is used to me driving her about in my silly array of cars, so no issues there, but given all of the above I don’t think I’ll be using the 360 for too many school runs - certainly not daily ones as the opportunity for things to go expensively wrong are just too high, and I don’t feel that people would offer much by way of tolerance to a driver of this type of car making any kind of error.
Reactions
I took Mrs Cloudy out in it earlier this week for the first time and on the journey we stopped at a petrol station. Whilst there a lady came over and asked if her son could have a photo with the car. Then on the journey home I noticed the passenger in the car behind was taking photos/videos too. Lots of people do look at it - enough that, in traffic, I did consciously reach for the sunglasses as a rudimentary cloaking device.
I’m really looking forward to getting it out on the country roads and getting more familiar with the car in the coming weeks and months.This is where this car will make sense and be an absolute joy to drive. I can’t wait!! Whether you like it or not, this car is always going to be an event to drive. I’m just going to make sure that they are the good type as often as possible.
I’ve not managed to drive it beyond this as my spare time over the last couple of weeks have been helping families out doing prom runs in the Camaro and the Vantage. But with those now finished, I’ll be sure to get more pictures and drives out in the 360 and will report back!
Here’s to an exciting summer of driving!
TheDoggingFather said:
This sounds like a great plan, entirely without terror
PRO5T said:
Out with the old and in with the new?
Pretty much yes. Well, I suppose it’s more ‘out with the old, and in with the older’. Last week, we were back in the Aston for an old friend of mine whose eldest was heading off to college. A family of Aston Martin fans, so we had smiles all round, and the Vantage got what will likely be its last prom outing under my ownership.
And yes, I’ve decided it has to go up for sale.
I can’t put all of my cars in the garage, and I particularly don’t like having them on the driveway, or in storage really. And let’s not forget that financially, with all of these old and potentially expensive cars to maintain, it’s a bit like playing automotive money roulette. It was a tough decision though and has taken me weeks to actually do it. I got as far as the payment screen on one of the selling sites, I entered my credit card details initially, but couldn’t bring myself to press the button so I abandoned the idea for another week. But the decision has now been made!Spin the wheel, which one will bring financial disaster first….?
School Run in the Ferrari.
This was always going to be an interesting experience. I’m still new to the car and learning its ways and the Aston gave me a similar level of stress when I first got that until I was familiar with it. But there is no denying that the Ferrari amps this up quite a bit. The school run is already a sensory overload, it’s a narrow road to school, kids going back and forth across the road on foot, on bicycles, there is a mini (painted) roundabout to contend with, no pedestrian crossings, cars parked literally everywhere and buses parked so badly that most days you have to mount a very dicey grassy curb to get around them. Yellow lines and parking restrictions mean absolutely nothing on the school run and it brings out the absolute worst in driver decision making. Whilst you can marvel at the bewildering levels of daily ridiculousness from afar if you can walk to school, its a different story when you are driving in it trying to avoid (or actually be) the chaos.
And the Ferrari is big. And it doesn’t do curbs. And it doesn’t like traffic. There is lots of traffic. It’s a bit grumpy on hills too. There are lots of hills. Hills with lots of traffic. And if you make a mistake? Everyone is watching whilst one fumbles about with this throbbing red manhood extension. I know they are, because a sheepish glance around, eyes are always looking back. They can all hear what one is doing too because it’s sooo freakin’ loud.
So yeah, you are really on display and I’m still getting used to the controls too. We’ll cover controls and gearbox in another update.Porsche Logo is staying
So the school run is probably the stuff of nightmares for a car designed predominantly for racing and going fast for large portions of the day and not really what its designed to do. That said, the experience does have its plus points, as some of the kids reactions upon seeing the car are really fun. One lad literally covered his mouth in surprise seeing us drive past, whilst another one across the road mouthed “Ferrari”. I think back to when I was a kid, I would have loved to see a Ferrari at my school, it would have been unbelievably motivating for me.
My daughter is used to me driving her about in my silly array of cars, so no issues there, but given all of the above I don’t think I’ll be using the 360 for too many school runs - certainly not daily ones as the opportunity for things to go expensively wrong are just too high, and I don’t feel that people would offer much by way of tolerance to a driver of this type of car making any kind of error.
Reactions
I took Mrs Cloudy out in it earlier this week for the first time and on the journey we stopped at a petrol station. Whilst there a lady came over and asked if her son could have a photo with the car. Then on the journey home I noticed the passenger in the car behind was taking photos/videos too. Lots of people do look at it - enough that, in traffic, I did consciously reach for the sunglasses as a rudimentary cloaking device
.I’m really looking forward to getting it out on the country roads and getting more familiar with the car in the coming weeks and months.This is where this car will make sense and be an absolute joy to drive. I can’t wait!! Whether you like it or not, this car is always going to be an event to drive. I’m just going to make sure that they are the good type as often as possible.
I’ve not managed to drive it beyond this as my spare time over the last couple of weeks have been helping families out doing prom runs in the Camaro and the Vantage. But with those now finished, I’ll be sure to get more pictures and drives out in the 360 and will report back!
Here’s to an exciting summer of driving!
I am so glad to have found this thread, what a great read, inspiring and entertaining.
Also great timing, the sun came out over here in Germany at last today so I thought I'd take my little French mistress to work with me. Once I got here I thought about selling her and getting something a little more grown up and have been looking at a V8 Vantage all morning trying to decide whether I'd rather have an English brute, or my little French Tart.
Also great timing, the sun came out over here in Germany at last today so I thought I'd take my little French mistress to work with me. Once I got here I thought about selling her and getting something a little more grown up and have been looking at a V8 Vantage all morning trying to decide whether I'd rather have an English brute, or my little French Tart.
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