home First Encounter 
We walked down to the car chatting as we went. He had just arrived and his water bottle and a banana peel were sitting on the floor. It had a lived in look and it fit him to a tee. Well, almost, as I watched his tall frame slide into the seat which was not only all the way back but reclining partway as well. We took it for a drive up the hill, Jaan driving first. I was impressed with how roomy it was and easy to get in and out of. It was not nearly as loud as I remembered the 308 GTS was and the comfort was way up. We pulled up to a nice flat area that would be decent to switch and traded places. I was thankful that it was an easy place to start out from as getting used to the clutch was going to take some time. It felt very different than the GTS. The seating position was the standard Italian style with knees and elbows out. The steering wheel felt small and running it through the gears it kind of felt like I was driving a toy. I guess I was.

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.