Diary of a P-virgin part 1
OK, so I've had the car (S Coupe) three days now and I thought it would be worthwhile sharing some impressions. Please excuse the (very) long post but I'm pretty happy right now 
:
* Quite a performance on hand-over of the car: when the dealer had recovered from his surprise at me being in his office before he arrived for work (I was let in by a technician through the back), he took me through all the paperwork and then with an impressive flourish, handed over the car (I leave some of the details out so that other P-virgins can enjoy the experience). Then after a warning to avoid going over 5000 rpm in first 500 miles, hand over keys and we're straight off up to Yorkshire to visit friends. Very excited, very nervous (dealer didn't help by regaling me with a long list of first journey accidents by his customers!).
* Appearance. In short, stunning, in that understated P-car way. Hips wider than I remembered, overall very sensuous, even sexy profile, especially when Rejex'd !
* Colour: I selected Atlas Grey and Cocoa. An unusual combo, but I thought about it a lot and (luckily!) conclude I am happy I did so. The Cocoa is very dark the veins are hard to see (in my car at least). Atlas is very understated but beautiful IMHO, and the colours go well together.
* PASM Suspension seemed soft at first: expected a more direct feel from both the steering and the car so that I could feel the road underneath. Solution simple: keep sport suspension setting on without the sport button activated(not bothered about increased throttle responsiveness). Do other people do this or am I the only one? Steering not exactly passive, but less road-sensitive (until one starts to drive harder) than it could be IMHO.
* Engine immediately had great pull, better than I could have hoped. Sound good even without PSE, too. Suggest you don't lug the engine at all - I did it v. briefly by mistake once and it sounded awful - anyone know why this is? Something about the starter motor?
* Nav system doesn't work very well (in London at least): It tried to take me back to North London from Yorshire via the M4 (!?). I think it tries to be too clever - suspect the traffic status messages have too much priority in the route calculation.
* MP3 system is brilliant: Why have an autochanger when you can load lots of complete albums onto 1 disk (which are displayed as albums too)? Sound quality near-impeccable (I'm still not a fan of CD sound quality, anyway).
* BOSE system: good in parts. Base very boomy and unseparated, so I've followed the recommendation of others to disable the 3D sound and take the setting to -1 - thanks guys. Mid-range intensive music like some classical stuff works pretty well, though.
*Misc: STRONG RECOMMENDATION TO ALL (NEW) OWNERS; the evening of my arrival at my friends', we celebrated by consuming one (or three) bottles of good red wine. The room was right next to where my car was parked outside. The next morning my friend's wife asked why the windows were half open. Horrified, I checked that no-one/thing had nicked/vandalised/soiled the car and thankfully, all was OK. After a bit of thought I realised that I had the key in my jeans the previous day and during the process of consuming/boozing on the other side of the window, must have inadvertently maneovred the unlock button into a position where there was continuous pressure on it. So guys (n' gals), suggest you don't keep your key in your trouser pockets if you're nearby and partying
.
* On the next day we drove some quick trips around the Dales - now I really know what this car is for - absolutely brilliant - grip, acceleration, brakes all really really good. When you push it, you can really feel the race heritage of this motor. As I become bolder, I start to get addicted to the Tunnel vision acceleration that increasingly seems to be on-tap as the car breaks in. Not sure if my passenger did, though!
* Fuel economy (eh?): on the return journey I played around with economy (I plan to cruise around the continent a fair bit). Found that if you drive in 6th in a conservative way (you kind of have to on motorways anyway) and keep the aircon off, you can keep it to over 30 mpg!!! This is better than my BMW 330i. Does anyone else have the same experience? Also does anyone know how many HP the aircon takes out of the engine - seems a lot - like 5-10?
Overall, this is a wonderful machine that I am continually learning more about, and I would unconditionally recommend it to anyone. It is a completely different animal to anything I have ever owned before, and I feel very, very privileged to look after it for a while. In essence, the 997S is a practical, and even economical, supercar. And, with all due respect to Ferrari owners (yes, Nick included), I think it is more subtly beautiful and true to its roots than anything else around today. I feel a great sense of responsibility wisely to use this powerful, superbly built and uniquely designed beast.
I'll post some rather poor pics (blame the user, not the camera) in a bit.
Now off to Switzerland to see friends in Basel. Hope it doesn't snow - winter tyres are for next month. At least I have the clearbra to protect the paintwork from the salt. It seems to work fine.
SoS.
:* Quite a performance on hand-over of the car: when the dealer had recovered from his surprise at me being in his office before he arrived for work (I was let in by a technician through the back), he took me through all the paperwork and then with an impressive flourish, handed over the car (I leave some of the details out so that other P-virgins can enjoy the experience). Then after a warning to avoid going over 5000 rpm in first 500 miles, hand over keys and we're straight off up to Yorkshire to visit friends. Very excited, very nervous (dealer didn't help by regaling me with a long list of first journey accidents by his customers!).
* Appearance. In short, stunning, in that understated P-car way. Hips wider than I remembered, overall very sensuous, even sexy profile, especially when Rejex'd !
* Colour: I selected Atlas Grey and Cocoa. An unusual combo, but I thought about it a lot and (luckily!) conclude I am happy I did so. The Cocoa is very dark the veins are hard to see (in my car at least). Atlas is very understated but beautiful IMHO, and the colours go well together.
* PASM Suspension seemed soft at first: expected a more direct feel from both the steering and the car so that I could feel the road underneath. Solution simple: keep sport suspension setting on without the sport button activated(not bothered about increased throttle responsiveness). Do other people do this or am I the only one? Steering not exactly passive, but less road-sensitive (until one starts to drive harder) than it could be IMHO.
* Engine immediately had great pull, better than I could have hoped. Sound good even without PSE, too. Suggest you don't lug the engine at all - I did it v. briefly by mistake once and it sounded awful - anyone know why this is? Something about the starter motor?
* Nav system doesn't work very well (in London at least): It tried to take me back to North London from Yorshire via the M4 (!?). I think it tries to be too clever - suspect the traffic status messages have too much priority in the route calculation.
* MP3 system is brilliant: Why have an autochanger when you can load lots of complete albums onto 1 disk (which are displayed as albums too)? Sound quality near-impeccable (I'm still not a fan of CD sound quality, anyway).
* BOSE system: good in parts. Base very boomy and unseparated, so I've followed the recommendation of others to disable the 3D sound and take the setting to -1 - thanks guys. Mid-range intensive music like some classical stuff works pretty well, though.
*Misc: STRONG RECOMMENDATION TO ALL (NEW) OWNERS; the evening of my arrival at my friends', we celebrated by consuming one (or three) bottles of good red wine. The room was right next to where my car was parked outside. The next morning my friend's wife asked why the windows were half open. Horrified, I checked that no-one/thing had nicked/vandalised/soiled the car and thankfully, all was OK. After a bit of thought I realised that I had the key in my jeans the previous day and during the process of consuming/boozing on the other side of the window, must have inadvertently maneovred the unlock button into a position where there was continuous pressure on it. So guys (n' gals), suggest you don't keep your key in your trouser pockets if you're nearby and partying
.* On the next day we drove some quick trips around the Dales - now I really know what this car is for - absolutely brilliant - grip, acceleration, brakes all really really good. When you push it, you can really feel the race heritage of this motor. As I become bolder, I start to get addicted to the Tunnel vision acceleration that increasingly seems to be on-tap as the car breaks in. Not sure if my passenger did, though!
* Fuel economy (eh?): on the return journey I played around with economy (I plan to cruise around the continent a fair bit). Found that if you drive in 6th in a conservative way (you kind of have to on motorways anyway) and keep the aircon off, you can keep it to over 30 mpg!!! This is better than my BMW 330i. Does anyone else have the same experience? Also does anyone know how many HP the aircon takes out of the engine - seems a lot - like 5-10?
Overall, this is a wonderful machine that I am continually learning more about, and I would unconditionally recommend it to anyone. It is a completely different animal to anything I have ever owned before, and I feel very, very privileged to look after it for a while. In essence, the 997S is a practical, and even economical, supercar. And, with all due respect to Ferrari owners (yes, Nick included), I think it is more subtly beautiful and true to its roots than anything else around today. I feel a great sense of responsibility wisely to use this powerful, superbly built and uniquely designed beast.
I'll post some rather poor pics (blame the user, not the camera) in a bit.
Now off to Switzerland to see friends in Basel. Hope it doesn't snow - winter tyres are for next month. At least I have the clearbra to protect the paintwork from the salt. It seems to work fine.
SoS.
