Nine months ago, in my first-ever column as a bona fide Jalopnik writer, I proclaimed: Why Yes, You Can Drive a Ferrari Every Day. You may remember this column, because I tied a TV to the roof of my car, and I duct-taped a monkey in the passenger seat, and I went through a McDonald's Drive-Thru. It's awesome! I recall thinking. It's fun! It's easy to drive! It's fast! It's even PRACTICAL!
Well, in the last nine months, I've had the chance to really mull things over, and I've ultimately reached a slightly different conclusion: It's awful.
I decided to revisit the issue of driving a Ferrari every day because there is no single topic that inspires more readers to e-mail me. What happens is, every week or two, out of the blue, I get an e-mail from a guy in someplace like Kansas, or Delaware, or Kuala Lumpur, and he's seen one of my columns, and he really likes the 360, and he wants to know: do I think it's a good idea for him to sell his truck, or his car, or his home air conditioning system, or his ex-wife's stereo, or his collection of ceramic thumbtacks, so that he can buy a 360 and use it as his only car.
The answer is simple: absolutely not. I wouldn't wish daily driving this car on my biggest enemy. I wouldn't wish it on my greatest foe. I wouldn't even wish it on that guy who called me "Doug DeDouchebag" because I said they don't have valet parking in Idaho.
To help explain why I've had such a change of heart, I spent a week daily driving the Ferrari – and while I've covered all the drawbacks in today's video, I've also decided to write about them for those of you who aren't yet ready to take our relationship to the level of moving pictures and sound.
Drawback the first: driving this car is expensive. Yes, we all know the fuel economy is terrible. I have to reiterate this point every single time I'm at the gas station, and someone comes up and asks: "What kinda mileage d'ya get?" in a joking manner, like they know it's awful but they want to hear it for themselves.I imagine that this is how it would be to go through life named Will Smith. "Are you related to the actor?!" people would say, giggling, as if they're the first person to ever come up with the question. And then you'd sit there, chuckling along with everyone else, but silently thinking: "I wish I could push this person off a grain silo."
But beyond the fuel economy thing, everything else is expensive. Case in point: while filming this video, I noticed there was a small screw in the front passenger tire. You'd know this if you followed me on Twitter, because I posted a photo of the ultimate first-world problem: sitting at a gas station air pump, filling up my Ferrari's tire. This is like when a light bulb goes out in your house, but you can't reach it, because it's in your ballroom and you have 47-foot ceilings in there.
Now, in a normal car, this is a non-issue: you go to Kaufman Tire, or Firestone, or whatever, and they plug it for a few bucks, and you move along with the rest of your weekend plans, such as e-mailing me to ask if you can drive a Ferrari every day. But not in a Ferrari. In a Ferrari, if "Kaufman Tire" shows up on the service records, potential buyers will run away at light speed. "You let a TIRE STORE… touch a FERRARI?!?!?!?" they will say. And then they will hang up so quickly that your phone will spin around in circles on the table, like in an old Bugs Bunny cartoon.
So anyway: you have to go to the dealer, which I did. I waited three days for an appointment, I drove 35 minutes to the dealer, and I had them patch my tire. And the cost of a tire patch at a Ferrari dealer? Seven bucks for the patch. One hundred sixteen dollars for the labor. I am not making this up.
Cost isn't the only issue with driving the car every day. I'd say the biggest issue is attention. Now, I want to mention right now that this is most of the reason why these readers e-mail me about the car in the first place. They want attention. They want to look cool. They want to attract women, and jealous men, and little kids, and old guys, and people in parking lots. They think it's exciting. They think there's no way they could ever get tired of being "the cool guy with the Ferrari."
Well, let me tell you: It. Gets. Old.
It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter how much you like the attention. There will come a time when and your wife has the flu, and your daughter has the flu, and your family is currently spending more on tissues than electricity, and it's 11:45 p.m., and you've been sent out to buy cough medicine, and you're exhausted, and you're angling the car juuuuust right to clear the driveway lip at the grocery store, and you'll hear it.
From the sidewalk.
Next to you.
Rapidly approaching.
"YO MAN!!! CHECK THIS OUT!!! THIS GUY'S GOT A FERRRRARI!!!!!"
And at that moment, your only thought will be: I have never, at any point in my life, at any moment in my existence, at any second in the history of the universe, wanted so badly to own a Toyota Avalon.
Of course, there are a few more drawbacks: Parking. Road quality. Practicality. But they're all in the video. I suggest you watch it so that maybe, just maybe, you won't e-mail me to ask if you can drive this car every day. Because I'm starting to get so annoyed that I might just say yes.
@DougDeMuro is the author of Plays With Cars. He owned an E63 AMG wagon and once tried to evade police at the Tail of the Dragon using a pontoon boat. (It didn't work.) He worked as a manager for Porsche Cars North America before quitting to become a writer, largely because it meant he no longer had to wear pants. Also, he wrote this entire bio himself in the third person.