1985 Ferrari 308 GTS QV: Reader Ride

By: Greg Ashe, Photography by: Greg Ashe

Date: 30.05.2016

Greg Ashe woke up one morning, decided that nothing other than a Ferrari would do. Go Greg!

1985 Ferrari 308 GTS QV

I’ve had the Ferrari since about August last year, the 308s don’t come up for sale very often, and the last one I saw was about two years ago and it was advertised at about half of what I paid for this. They’ve just recently started to go crazy in value, I paid $140,000 for this one, but they’ve started going for around £90,000 (approx $172,500) in the UK. The week I bought this, a previous model 246 sold for $522,000 here at a Shannons auction. I figured if I didn’t buy this one now, that’d be it. I’d never own one otherwise.

This is actually the same model that Magnum PI used to drive around in – that was a red GTS too. It gets plenty of looks, I was out a few weeks ago with it and as soon as I went out on to the Boulevard it was like all the jaws went into slow motion. It’s got a bit more character than some recent models, but the brand new ones have started to bring that back a little bit. They’ve got that same kind of swoop that they lost for a while. I love the sound at 7000rpm, but the style of it is really great too. One of the main reasons I was actually after the 308 is that it’s the last of the Ferraris that mere mortals like myself can work on. They’re not too complicated mechanically, there aren’t too many exotic materials and it’s reasonable conventional, as long as you don’t mind getting a few scraped knuckles. This one owes me a bit of skin and blood already. It’s also fairly easy to source parts if you know where to look. There are websites based in the UK for things like that, even a service kit for all of the filters that you’d do once every 18 months was only £120 (approx. $230). Even the tyres are easy... These were probably pretty big in its day, but these are now the standard fitment on a Mazda 3. The only things you have to look out for are timing belts, it’s got two so if one of those goes you’re looking at a very costly rebuild.

It’s still got pretty much all of its original 240 horses, but even in their day they weren’t a massively fast car. Zero to 100km/h is in the low sixes. I had a Lancia Delta Integrale when I lived in the UK, and that’d do it about a second quicker. I also have a Fiat 124 sedan as a race-car, and that’s a lot faster than this. But you can’t beat the style of this thing. It’s definitely not an everyday car. The air conditioning is pretty well rubbish and when you put the windows up you just create a little glasshouse for yourself anyway. The steering is really heavy at car park speed and the turning circle is so wide it’s ridiculous. I’ve never found a road where I can do a U-turn. But hey, you can put up with that stuff, it’s a Ferrari.

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