Old Ferrari Magazines

I recently thumbed thorough some old Ferrari magazines from the early 80's and thoroughly enjoyed the little history lesson. The articles on the cars were the same as always with great emphasis on some little details, "look at those lovely weber carburetors" and "the sound of the V-12 engine...", yadda yadda.

What was interesting were the advertisements. Todays best known restoration shops had small b/w print ads who today buy a cover page. Guys who started out advertising one car in the magazine only to become "big shots" in the world of sales. Interesting to me were there the private guys who would advertise one car at a time, own a few cars over the course of a year and flip them. Many of these guys are still doing this today.

Most interesting is how much higher quality everything in the Ferrari "world" has become. The magazines are full of high quality writing with historically accurate information (kind of always have been) with beautiful color photos and great event reporting. The cars that they feature are so beautifully restored and all over-restored comments aside, are very accurate and drive as Ferrari wishes they could have made them! Some of the cars that they featured in the old magazines were "restored" with some artistic license, incorrect hose clamps, chrome all over the place in the engine bay, incorrect upholstery and on and on. The cars in the magazines today are generally very nice and correct down to the minute details. The advertisements in the old magazines showcased 100 point restorations on a 275 GTB with no bumpers and strange louvers in the rear quarter panel! 100 points, are you sure?

There is also so much Ferrari "stuff" clothing, toys, F-1 memorabilia, lifestyle gadgets, so many ways to keep the whole image thriving that it made me think about how this relates to the Ferrari (and any collector/classic car Porsche/Jag/Mustang/) values and market. I feel that as the quality of everything increases, the whole market surrounding the brand increases in both quantity and quality. If people enjoy the brand and what it stands for than the demand increases. This is not really a comment on the values of the cars, it just shows that there is more high quality product out there for us to enjoy and be part of, for whatever it is worth.