First Encounter |
With clear mountain air and a curvy, winding road it was the perfect place to drive a Ferrari. My lack of recent experience with manual transmissions plus its stiff clutch meant I was something less than smooth but I knew that this would ebb with a little more time behind the wheel. I could feel the front shocks kind of chatter through the turns and he said that the front shocks were due for a rebuild. The car was very responsive and felt every bit the Ferrari that the GTS did. The whole experience was there, the sweet sound of the motor, the solid shifting, the tight handling, all of it. Jaan said that he'd built several rear sway bars and finally found the right diameter to give the car a little more turn-in and just a touch of oversteer. He had also removed the thermal reactor that was part of the exhaust and replaced it with a muffler from a Buick grand national, losing around 70 pounds in the process! He said it was like taking a dead body out of the trunk! Of course it required readjusting the rear shocks to bring the rear end back down. Through and through this car showed that its owner had spent hours making the car perfect. Perfect for me, that is.
He still wasn't sure if he was going to sell, though.