The Ferrari Testarossa's metal suspension bar was smooth to touch, coated in glossy black paint, satisfying to caress. Just above it, a pair of springs, next to each other, disappeared into the car’s chassis; these, too, had a pleasurable, slightly naughty feel to them, freshly machined black springs astride a thick tread of brand new rubber.
Read more: What it's like to buy a Ferrari Testarossa at auction
More than a year, and £40,000 of restoration costs, after we bought our Ferrari Testarossa at an auction in Norfolk, the car was ready. When the car had initially been taken to Joe Macari, the official Ferrari service centre in south London, for a post-purchase inspection, it had scored highly on three out of four key areas. Its bodywork was excellent, the engine was also in good shape; with only 22,000 miles on the clock and a file of old maintenance paperwork; and the interior was well-preserved.
However, the underside of the car provided some unwelcome surprises. Springs, suspension mounts and other parts not visible from the outside, were coated with a fine (or not so fine) layer of rust. Macari began a process of repairing and replacing these.
Each part was removed from the car, tested for metal fatigue and strength, and then a call was made on whether the part is repairable, or whether a new one is required. In the latter case, these have to be made to order, which can take months; and, like refurbishing a house where you peel back layers of plasterwork, removing some parts reveals others in need of freshening up.
There was also a decision to be made about the extent of the work; the exhaust, springs, and suspension struts were either in need of replacement, or borderline, and were all replaced or fixed. Other parts in the suspension had only a light layer or tarnishing or corrosion, and were operationally fine, but would have looked unsightly next to the shiny new bits we were replacing.
In the words of Andrew Gill, sales and service manager at Joe Macari: “The car itself aesthetically looked fantastic; but in the detail of the car in the underside when we looked it, a lot of parts were very perished due to age. We could have put new suspension bushes in, but we didn't: we took all the suspension arms apart, detailed them, re-shimmed them and refitted them. This keeps the car original.”
The decision we made to replace or refresh absolutely everything, regardless of cost, came down to a combination of slightly unhinged perfectionist zeal and cold reasoning in a rapidly rising market. In the 12 months in which the works were being undertaken, prices for Testarossas doubled; at one stage they were moving so fast we had to revalue the car for insurance purposes every month. A decision to spend £750 on a set of of new brackets (for example) is easier to make in these circumstances, because in a rising market, the very best examples of a classic command appreciably more than mediocre ones. Or so we hoped..
Read more: Meet the 203mph Ferrari 488 convertible
When the car was finally done, we had to make a decision about whether to keep it or sell it. The idea of cruising around the Cotswolds in an echt 1987 Miami Vice-style Testarossa, while keeping our money safe, was tempting. But a few more Ferraris had been added to the GQ classic car stable during this time, including the Testarossa’s newer, badder, sister, the F512M. We decided to put it on the market.
Macari transferred the car to their museum-like showroom across the road, where the Testa sat alongside a McLaren F1, Lamborghini Countach, Ferrari GTO, Pagani Zonda, and other megacar aristocrats for a few weeks. The asking price was £155,000. We had purchased the car for £67,500 just 12 months previously, and spent around £40,000 making it perfect. Was this folly or inspired?
Read more: Buy all of these classic cars immediately
While waiting to see if anyone bit, I asked Andrew Gill, with whom I had become speed-dial best buddy over the past months, about the state of the market. “The market is still climbing; just to a slower degree than it did. It leapt up massively over 18 months; and now the best-maintained cars are still appreciating, still, but more slowly.”
“Modern classics”, interesting cars from the Eighties onwards, are a new category. More comfortable and reliable than older cars, with mod cons like air conditioning, modern classics are also much more adept at making the cut in fast road driving today, while a Ferrari from the Fifties is likely to be embarrassed by a diesel saloon from today.
Macari put us through to one of their investor-clients, Javad Marandi, an industrialist based in Switzerland, for another perspective. Marandi has a broad collection of proper classic cars, including one of the 37 “James Bond” Aston Martin DB5 “short chassis” Volantes from 1965, in Goodwood Green. He spotted the movement towards modern classics a few years back, but strikes a note of caution. “You need to be careful, because these cars are made in far greater numbers than real classics. Their values were low in 2012 because they were perceived as “used cars”; then there was a rise in interest from the younger generation who remember these cars from their childhood. But only the very best and rarest examples of the more modern cars will keep their value.”
He cites the last manual-transmission Ferraris, like the 575 Maranello in its HGTC or Fiorano edition, as cars that have more than doubled in value in three years, but notes: “More recent special edition Ferraris and Porsches have appreciated rapidly, but they may have peaked for the moment. The real classics are what they always were: limited-run, coachbuilt Ferraris, Aston Martins and others from the pre-electronic era, with perfect provenance, in original condition.” Their prices are likely to remain in the millions, rather than the hundreds of thousands for the more modern cars.
With that sobering thought in my mind – to get really rich as an investor, it helps if you’re really rich to start with - we awaited the endgame from Joe Macari. After a couple of weeks, we received an offer for £148,000, which we accepted. Someone has himself a very painstakingly perfected Ferrari Testarossa. And, taking into account sales fees and restoration costs, we turned a very pleasant (tax-free) profit of just over £32,000 on our “Testa”. Not bad for a modern classic. Just a shame we never drove it a single metre.
