nberry:
After reading your posts I believe I have an understanding with what you are wrestling with. You want change from your Porsche and do not know which direction to take particularly since it involves substantially more money than what you are accustomed to paying.
Your Porsche is gone. Do you need the change now or can it wait? My advice is to test drive the California. If it blows your sock off, buy it. iF you like the car but remain uncertain then park your money and wait for the next Porsche model or any other model which will be out in a couple of years.
If you want a car now, seriously consider a used Scud or 430 with an extended warranty and a promise by the dealer to provide a 458 within 2-3 years. To me the Scud looks more aggressive than the 458 and its performance is on par if not better. BUT it is not an everyday car. Nor is the 430. The California is.
My guess is you probably will be better off just sitting and waiting for the next Porsche or new California.
Very well said NICK. Now you understand. To me, a 911 C4S and even up to a turbo would be my threshhold but I wanna have an experience now on Ferrari which is something more exclusive. I know if I don't do it now, there may never be another time more apt as circumstances change... more kids, more education funds... I have the spare cash but it is just that I wanna spend it on something that stands up well even in dep front. Yes agree now that the C4S is gone, I have all these cash with ZERO yield (next to zero anyway and treasuries for 30 maybe... ) and buying mutual funds actually this year bummed me out as most funds lost money anyway... so I figure if I have a car at least I can drive it... depreciation may actually beat the performance of a fund (this is a weird train of thought)... this financial crisis had made me rethink what value investing (stocks) truly meant as I lost my shirt... ! If I hadn't gotten a 911 C4S, it would have all been long gone.
Maybe you are right but let me drive it sunday and see. There will always be new stuff around the corner and the porsche will come out with 991 soon so the sales of the C4S while it fetched only 20% depreciation was nice enough... when next year comes, it will steepen like how tiptronic took a dive when PDK comes out... so I wonder if when California M comes out, the original would lose and suffer a lot. In general, due to the Ferrari game quota system, you always always have to put in money (nick, they keep you on the loop... like o now you buy california and upgrade it to 458 or the next new 458 by putting down yet another deposit)... that's how they keep you on the hook.
I wanna wait for my new Porsche to come but that is not gonna materialize till say 2012 for the 4s or turbo (2013?) at least... So the California is a good proposition... plus I figure if I really want the porsche back, I can always sell the California after a year suffering some depreciation and with minimal cash outlay (actually money back) get a C4S.
My problem is I seldom keep a car more than 2 - 3 years...
