The short answer is a pretty broken-down 308 GTB. But if you’re willing to cheat a little (or a lot…) there are still some “cheap” Ferraris out there that you could someday aspire to own.
YouTube’s Car Trek asked if you could buy a Ferrari for the price of a Camry (these days, American Camrys run from $25,000 to $36,000 before options) and returned with three options. The first happens to be the cheapest Ferrari that was on sale in America at the time of filming.
It’s also in pretty bad condition. First introduced at the Paris Motor Show in 1975, the 308 features a transverse-mounted 2.9-liter V8 that made 237 hp for the U.S. market. Designed by Carrozzeria Scaglietti and with a body made out of glass-reinforced plastic, it weighed just 1,090 kg (2,403 lbs).
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This 1978 example was America’s cheapest Ferrari for a reason. First and foremost, its engine is more of an oil sieve than anything else. That said, there’s no single giant fault with the car. It’s just that everything is a little bit wrong.
The second option is a 1994 456 GT that cost less than a fully equipped high-trim Camry, though only before shipping, as this car spent most of its life in Japan. All of which pushes the total up quite a bit.
Powered by a 5.5-liter V12, Ferrari said it was the fastest four-seater on sale when it launched in 1992 thanks to its claimed 192 mph top speed. That was thanks to the 436 hp engine, which made it the most powerful regular production Ferrari of its day.
And to this day, the model featured in the video is pretty good. Despite having a few small leaks and some other niggles, it is a genuinely good Ferrari that costs a relatively reasonable amount.
The final car, meanwhile, is a 2009 599 GTB. It’s powered by a 6.0-liter V12 that you might recognize from the Enzo. Detuned for duty here, it made 612 hp when new and is the only model of the three with a flappy paddle gearbox.
If you’re wondering how someone could get this for the price of a Camry, well, they can’t. The host plain old cheated here, but the flood damage on the car does mean that it was bought for less than $100,000.
That’s pretty impressive, but it does come with quite a few and pretty expensive faults. Whether that would ruin your experience of this is entirely up to how much you like saying the phrase “Same engine as the Enzo”.
