As I refueled the red Ferrari 308 GTB on that Thursday morning a week ago, I could not help but think back on how much that model has meant to me – and many other car enthusiasts.
Over six years ago, on the occasion of its fortieth anniversary, I wrote a heartfelt article entitled My First Dream Car Will Be 40: Congratulations, Ferrari 308!, where I sensed that I was not alone with my sentiments. Many readers felt the same way, and the expectations for such a childhood hero will inevitably be so high that it is easy to be disappointed. At the time of writing I had never driven one – but then we got one into the showroom where I work, and I decided to do a video on it.
Besides shooting in a studio this obviously requires a lot of driving, and I was not disappointed at all: Both Thursday and Friday offered plenty of driving in the 308 and it was every bit as lovely as I could have dreamt about. The closed GTB was an early steel car with carburetors and dry sump, just as I prefer it, but in many ways I was sort of prepared for the fall of greatness: How wrong can’t things go with a 38-year-old Italian sports car?
Instead, it was love at the first turn of the key. No, even before that: When I got into the 112 centimeter low midengined sports car hero everything literally clicked, and I found myself sitting perfectly in the narrow sports seat – and from there it just got better. The little Ferrari drove completely as tight and sleek as a world class 1978 sports car should. Engine, gearshift, steering, chassis, tires. The interplay was perfect and the car felt even more solid than I had dared hope for. I was completely overcome by Pininfarina’s little masterpiece, to put it short – and that really does not happen that often after all.
In fact, as the actual car is for sale I must honestly admit that I counted and weighed and analyzed – whether it really should be now? I have never had a Ferrari and at times thought I did not really want to either – but the Pininfarina design holds up100% and the car drove so convincingly entertaining that I had almost been seduced. And had there not been several other great things brewing in the garage (including the garage it self), it might all have proved too tempting for me. Well, actually I would not be able to afford it anyway, but with a good friend, perhaps – as Ferrari ownership is never really cheap, not even as a 308, “the little Ferrari”.
I knew that very well, of course. But to be honest, I did not think so much about the economy either, but was really just so positively surprised at how well it drove and how enticed I was by the whole classic Ferrari’s spectrum of qualities from design to history.
And all the nonsense that such an old 308 is not a particularly fast car by contemporary standards? Oh, please! This one happily pulled all 250 horses out of the stable over the 6,000 rpm, and was surely plenty quick for me! I would take a 308 over any modern GTI anytime, even if GTI was much faster: It was the way the 308 drove that really did it for me.
Pininfarina and Ferrari produced nothing less than a masterpiece with the 308 GTB, and the fact that almost forty years later it may still be relevant as a sports car is an achievement that only the best GTIs will be able to emulate. But NONE of them will show the timeless beauty of the 308 – neither now nor in forty years: The sexy hip swing of the 308 is among the best in the world, and I almost do not understand myself why I have not grown tired of it. Attribute the credit for it to Pininfarina at their best. I almost fell in love with the encounter with my first dream car, and it is definitely still on the list of cars for the dream garage.
And the speeding ticket? Well, it was not the fault of the Ferrari, as I got blitzed on the way home from the filming: Behind the wheel of the S-Class in my own little luxury world, a red flash of light brought me back to the real world just within the village city limits, which I crossed with the least conceivable speeding. Maybe the big smile on his face after the Ferrari experience confused the camera? I sure hope so. But in fact even that could not ruin my week, which ended with a clear realization that even the little Ferrari is a great classic car and that one should never forget one’s dreams.
I wonder when the film will be finished as they in fact could barely get me out of the car: