How to buy a sub-£40,000 Ferrari

Depreciation: it can be as much a friend as an enemy. It shrinks the value of your wheeled assets but can also bring once-unattainable dreams within reach.

The idea of cheap Ferraris and Porsches is almost as old as the brands themselves, but as clichéd as the ‘Ferrari for the price of a Ford’ story is, the excitement of this possibility never wanes, so we make no excuses for once again testing the waters.

You must still spend the price of a very decent set of new wheels – a range-topping Ford Kuga, for instance – to buy a Ferrari of sufficient calibre to ensure that its presence in your garage doesn’t quickly sour. For a Porsche, however, the story is rather different.

Those for the price of a Ford Fiesta – and a less-than-shiny one at that – have been around ever since the not-quite-a-Porsche 924 made its debut nearly 50 years ago.

In fact, you can still buy a tired 924 for a few thousand, but a more rewarding and viable proposition is a Boxster, of which there are plenty from around £4000. That’s almost 10 times less than for a decent starter Ferrari, although if you can double the amount you pay for a Boxster, the risks might reduce somewhat.

Enough of the theory, though. Can you really buy into exotic territory on a shoestring? And does that come with the sort of headaches you would imagine? Read on to find out...

Quick links: Background - Driving - Servicing - How to buy a budget Porsche Boxster - How to buy a budget Ferrari Mondial

The cars

We set out to find the cheapest Ferrari and Porsche and ended up inspecting the pair you see here. Neither was absolutely the cheapest functioning Porsche or Ferrari available on the day, with anything left-hand drive or accident-recorded being eliminated.

And in the case of the Porsche, we avoided the Boxsters that had done many more than 100,000 miles (although that doesn’t imply that these are bad buys) and another kind of Porsche that can often be had for even less than a Boxster: the first-generation Cayenne.

Early Porsche SUVs often suffer troubles ranging from leaking plastic coolant pipes on the V8 to air suspension levitation issues and glowing engine management lights with causes that are hard to isolate. Plus, impressive though the odd-looking Cayenne was, the Boxster is a more exciting prospect, being a sports car.

There’s more than one sub-£40k starter Ferrari too. For the really adventurous (or rash), there’s the 400/412, an elegant, V12-engined four-seater that’s very much a grand tourer and often fitted with a value-reducing automatic gearbox. Thirsty and costly to maintain, it’s nevertheless glamorous and gets you one of Ferrari’s finer engines.

Or there’s its successor, the 456 GT – also a V12 four-seater, also often an automatic and also expensive to maintain, according to Kent High Performance Cars boss Roger Collingwood.

KHPC is a long-established Ferrari specialist – 40 years so far – and very likely Britain’s largest source of used Ferraris. It also has a workshop that services, repairs and restores these cars.

It’s here where we find a £37,995, 49,000-mile Mondial from 1985, with the 240bhp 2.9-litre V8.

“The Mondial is a typical entry-level Ferrari,” says sales executive Simon Hamilton-Walker. Collingwood adds that its four seats can often help win a green light from a family man’s partner, although Hamilton-Walker drily adds that the rear seats “are only useful if you haven’t got legs”.

Collingwood explains that most of the stock “is on a sale-or-return basis”, KHPC earning commission on cars sold on behalf of customers. It typically sells 60-70 annually.

Every car is inspected before it’s sold and any necessary work carried out to bring the car up to standard. This can include anything from minor rectification to corrosion repair, especially on older models like the Mondial, which Collingwood says “is very prone to rust”. He elaborates: “The chassis is usually okay – it’s tubular – but the wings, doors and sills are all vulnerable.”

The mechanical story is more encouraging. “The engine will do 100,000 miles with no problem if it’s properly maintained and has regular oil changes,” he adds, and the same applies to the gearbox if it’s treated carefully.

Most mechanical parts are still available for the Mondial and body panels can be found or fabricated. Trim is harder, says Collingwood, but can usually be made.

What're they like?

We can’t drive this Mondial, because it belongs to a customer, but we’re taken for a ride in it over enough distance to suggest that it functions as it should, a sports exhaust lifting its aural impact. There are no rattles or squeaks, the engine sounds healthy, everything works and the interior is in excellent shape, as is the red bodywork.

It feels like you could immediately do some distance in this car with no issue.