At $79,000, Is This 2003 Ferrari 360 Modena Spider A Silver Steal?

With just 20,000 miles on the clock, today's Nice Price or No Dice 360 Modena is amazingly underused for a normal car, but in Ferrari terms, it is reaching middle age. Fortunately, it seems well-cared for. Let's see if its price is low enough to make us care.

The Apollo astronauts, being the most daredevil American heroes possible, naturally all chose Corvettes as their Earthbound adrenaline activators. Being Federal employees and bound by strict gift-receipt limitations, they couldn't accept the 'Vettes as gratis from GM. Fortunately, a savvy dealer down in Florida figured out that a one-dollar-a-year lease would skirt such constraints, saving future space fabulists from having to close this bit of Apollo/Corvette lore on a sour note.

The 1972 Chevy Corvette 454 coupe we looked at yesterday cost way more than a dollar, and lacked any acknowledged space-race connections. That said, it appeared to be in great condition and, at $23,999, came with a price tag tastier than Astronaut ice cream. As such, it rocketed to a substantial 78% "Nice Price" win.

Chevy's Corvette has long offered great bang for the buck in the sports car market. In fact, there's likely one to meet the budget of any jorts and chunky white walking shoe-wearing mid-life crisis haver out there.

Ferraris, on the other hand, tend to run on more rarified air, are appreciably more exclusive, and are most often much more expensive. Then YouTube happened. It seems like every Automotive YouTuber worth their plaintive "like, comment, and subscribe" pleas had a 360 Modena on their channel at one time or another. Fortunately, Ferrari built almost 18,000 of the V8-powered coupes and spiders, so there are plenty to go around.

There's no evidence that this 2003 Ferrari 360 Modena Spider has appeared in any ad-supported streaming video. Admittedly, its subtle silver metallic over a dark gray leather cabin and black top might not be as camera-friendly as a view-hungry YouTuber might like. For the rest of us, however, it comes across as elegant and less ostentatious than a more flamboyant color combination might.

Both Modena coupe and Spider present their respective engines under a sheet of glass. In the closed car, that's a standard sloping hatch, although a second, vertical window separates the cabin from the engine bay. For the convertible, Ferrari added a window to the engine cover, and given how handsome the engine's red crinkle-coated cam covers and intake plenum appear, that was a laudable decision.

Under that glass sits the Tipo F131 all-alloy V8. For the deets, that's a 3586cc DOHC flat-plane crank mill that produces a factory-claimed 395 horsepower and 275 pound-feet of torque, and which can scream to a redline of 8,500 rpm. According to the ad, this Spider sports a mere 19,100 miles on the clock, and enjoyed a major service, including the timing belts, less than 1,000 miles ago.

Behind the red devil of an engine sits the six-speed F1 auto-manual gearbox, designed in conjunction with and built by Graziano Trasmissioni. Seeing as part of the expected joy of Ferrari ownership is rowing through the gears via a gated shifter, the impotency implied by the tiny transmission lever on the center tunnel of this car might prove disappointing. That might be mitigated by the understanding that the F1 box can shift faster than any individual and that aftermarket manual-shifter retrofit kits are available for any Ferrari owner who refuses to believe that.

Aesthetically, this Spider is great in most places and just OK in others. The silver paint is stately and benefits from 3M PPF. The factory wheels are unmarred, which is expected because who in the heck would curb their Ferrari's wheels? There's no mention in the ad of the tires' age, but given the car's low mileage, they might be the originals. Scary!

Craigslist

Things start to fall down a bit in the cabin. The seats with their Daytona stripes appear to be in great condition, but some of the leather elsewhere needs attention. Most notably, both the passenger airbag cover and the door armrest on that side show signs of shrinking. The electric switches for the door actuators also appear to require adjustment or replacement, and while it's not obvious from the photos, these cars almost all suffer from sticky button syndrome. 

Lastly, the paint on the hard tonneau behind the roll bars indicates the top may have been there too long, or perhaps the edge of the PPF is showing dirt intrusion. Either way, it would benefit from some spit and polish. On the plus side, the seller states the car comes with a clean Carfax, all factory manuals, and, importantly, all factory tools. The title is clean, and, to date, this is a two-owner car. It should be noted that, while offered in Phoenix, Arizona, the car wears California plates showing 2017 tags, so it's questionable how old all the ad's photos might be, or where the car resides.

OK, let's recap. On the plus side, this is a Ferrari that seems to have been reasonably well-cared for where it counts. On the downside, it's in a less expressive color palette than some might prefer, and, like most, it has the F1 transmission that most people tend to dislike. For anyone who sees the balance as comparable, we now need to determine whether the seller's asking price of $79,000 tips the scales one way or the other.

What do you think of this 360 at that kind of cash? Does that seem like a fair deal to get into a Ferrari that likely won't immediately kill your bank account after the fact? Or has YouTube spoiled these for you, making a much lower point of entry into the car a requirement?

You decide!

Nice Price or No Dice:

Phoenix, Arizona, Craigslist, or go here if the ad disappears.

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