Woud you a GT car?

I just learned a week ago that you could buy a Maserati with a 4.2 liter Ferrari engine that has a 7500rpm redline and a 6 speed for less than $20k. Just before I was looking at BMW 8 series which are also around the same price range. But of course there is the fear that cars like these will be endless money pits. Would you or have you ever taken the leap on a car that was once worth 6 figures?

>Would you
I'd do it for a Testarossa, but they shot up in value over the past few years. I imagine you'd need a combination of patience, ability to do your own work, and a more practical car to own an older exotic. And it still wouldn't be cheap.

It would make sense to go the other direction and get something like a Lotus where you know engine parts are available.

you are essentially paying $20k just for that engine and transmission because everything else in the car is dogshit jimmy jimmy

Cut off your dangly bits.

>Streamlined
>No longer need to wear pants
>Lighter so you can do more pull ups
>Special privileges for being weird.

What is dogshit about it? Reading reviews it was a bit tail happy which for what it completed with back then was bad but at the under $20k price range sounds fun.

In about ten years when I've got a decent amount of money saved up I so want to buy something in the same vein as a Testarossa.

Will a lotus ever be valuable? I just can't see it happening.

Are you buying it for value? Because shitty mazaradis will not be the way to invest in a car.

205gti is probably the best investment you can make right now.

wasn't OP.

In the states everybody should be buying up those Miatas. They're rising in value quickly.

The trans is terrible, feels bad, you will be lucky to get 10k miles out of a clutch, new clutch is 6k at an average shop. Engines leak a lot, the coupes have a nice chassis but the spiders are floppy, seats are awful, 0 bolsters, soft touch interior falls apart, there's really not much going for them unless you can track down a manual car which are pretty rare. Not really fun to drive at all.

As cool as they are I'd rather have something I can use and enjoy, at least as a weekend or bi weekend car. I don't have any interest in a Lotus.

Just get something with a 350 in it

Those floppy paddle shifts sound absolutely terrible. If I were to get one, manual and a coupe would be a must. I was disappointed finding out how often the clutch must be changed even for a regular manual.

Would you think it's still better buy than an auto 8 series? Manual those are just too hard to find.

I'll add a bit- other things that go wrong a lot

-water temp sensor/thermostat, there's a redesigned thermostat that supposedly saves the sensors but it doesn't work
-fuel pumps, there's two and a crossover, they either die or the anti-vibration rubber piece disintegrates and destroys the filter and rollover valves, have to take everything out either way and it's a big job
-intake gaskets, shitty cardboard, fail all the time
really any gasket can go at any time, front cover, cam cover, etc.
-Cambiocorsa trans - besides the clutch you have the actuator, release bearing, reverse switch unit, all these things are thousands to replace

If you could get a perfect manual coupe for $18k it would be borderline, but in my eyes a Cambiocorsa coupe or Spider is maybe worth $3k in decent condition, considering the amount it costs to keep it going, 50k miles would be an absurdly high number to see, by 100k miles nearly everyone has given up on it

Funny, I nearly bought an 850i. 8 series are less of a handful than the 138s, the Maseratis are dry sump, have a poorly implemented dry clutch automate manual, loaded with tech with the worst interface ever put in a car, remember at this time Ferrari was using the Maseratis to beta test their new engines/trans while cutting costs to sell them at a price point that was 1/3 of a cheap F car, they're really just a mess, the only reason to get one is you just really like the looks and the engine (which does sound great). The manuals are really hard to find, I've only seen 1 or 2 and I've worked on 30-40 Cambiocorsa cars

I'm not interested in the automated manual version. Does the regular manual still need a new clutch every 10k miles?

wow i cant believe how cheap those are. weird.

id buy one for status only but man id be fucking scared to own that when shit goes wrong.

>would you
GT is Grand Tourinng, i.e. Driving at high speeds for extended periods of time right?
I wouldn't get a Maserati, would prefer an Aston. But at least you don't want a jag.

Astons are still expensive and very unreliable

Helluva lot more reliable than a 15k maserati

ya but isnt a db9 like 60k?

Yeah.
You want a 15k money pit, I get it.
Why not invest in an old Alfa? Bit cheaper and just as hair-wrenching

There's many videos of db9s simply break down for no reason at all, I'm not finding anything like that on the Maserati. Also again the difficulty in finding a manual.

Good friend of mine in the car sales business worked at an exotic car dealership here in central NC for several years, and I picked his brain about this once as I was seriously considering doing something similar.

They frequently had older exotics around the 20-25K price point, and if it was just a matter of doing the maintenance work yourself/sourcing the parts yourself I was going to consider pulling the trigger on something interesting if the opportunity presented itself. After about an hour conversation with him, I never considered the idea again, I'll try and highlight his key takeaways

1.)Insurance. You will still get hit exotic car tier car insurance, and with many exotic models, mainstream insurance companies won't even offer coverage, so you are forced through someone like Hagerty where the options become even more experience

2.)Even with the internet, certain parts are fucking impossible to find outside the dealership, even simple things like fuel injectors or ignition coils. So even if you had the ability to service them yourself, you'd still be forced to go through the dealership and pay astronomically high prices for the parts

3.)Assuming you can get the parts, almost no exotic is DIY service friends. You would almost have to have access to a lift, and even then, mundane service and repair tasks often require absolutely ridiculous procedures (having to drop the engine to get to a common trouble component to replace it, for example). Beyond that, actual factory repair manuals or service documentation can be a complete pain in the ass to get ahold of-(and no easy to reference youtube tutorials)

4.)Little shit will break all the time. Again, most of these cars were never built with longevity in mind, so you will small problems almost constantly. Combined with that, most have interiors that will age horribly, so even relatively new Ferrari's/Maserati's/Lambo's/Aston's/RR/Bentley's will have seats and interior trim that's falling apart

I was actually thinking that an Esprit would be great.