Childhood dream, but should you meet your childhood heroes?

Last week I took a Ferrari F430 Spider for 3 days. I took on a well known supercar club as a client, and as a perk of developing their database system software, I have access to their amazing fleet of supercars which is just perfect for someone like me.

I only told a select few people about it until I was sure it was going to happen, but then held off telling anyone again as I thought turning up in a supercar would be quite a cool surprise.

I also owed one of my best friends a birthday present, so I told him to take the afternoon off work, but didn't tell him why. I got to London first thing in the morning for a meeting, and then headed over to pick up the F430. After being shown around the car, I was then asked to take it around the block to make sure I was happy with it, and then I set off back to my house.

I planned to drive with the roof up just to avoid attracting too much attention in an unfamiliar car in a busy environment, but it was so hot that idea was thrown straight out. I left the roof down and was loving it. A couple of roads away and I was already amazed by the car. The noise is just superb. I noticed that at 3k and slightly more than normal throttle opens a valve which literally doubles exhaust noise. It was so pleasing to do.

Unfortunately I got stuck in a load of traffic and it took me about 2.5 hours to get home, so I headed straight to Kriss' place. He looked pretty surprised when I turned up and couldn't wait to get in. We took the car for a nice drive to a pub, had some lunch whilst I told him about my new perk, had another extended drive back, and then dropped him home.

I made lots of excuses to just go and take the car out. Eventually I stopped coming up with excuses altogether and decided that, "I'm going out in the Ferrari" was good enough. I experimented a bit with the different modes, and Race Mode gave the car the best feel. It was the most responsive, although it allowed the car's rear to move a little, you never got into any trouble. CST or "Schuey mode" as it's affectionately known, took off all of the help except ABS, so naturally I didn't do too much experimentation in this mode in a car that's not mine, but you can feel the difference, especially when the ground is less than perfect.

Video of race mode here

I spent a lot of time with the car over the next few days racking up quite a few miles. As a young'un the Ferrari and Lamborghini models are always the best of the toy cars you have, and always the most prominent posters in your room. Did my first drive of a Ferrari live up to its expectations? Yes.

I just have to work harder because I need a supercar in my life. Sure the Nissan GT-R I have on order will be nice and definitely "supercar" in performance terms, but the exotic nature of the Ferrari is something I just have to buy into as soon as I can. During the 3 days I couldn't have asked for better weather, and really didn't want to give the car back!

One thing I did notice is the amount of people who "don't notice" the Ferrari drive past them. Of course, they do notice it, but they hate to give you the satisfaction of looking. They forget you have mirrors though, because the moment you pass them and think you can't see, they are all over it, looking as much as they can. I just found it quite funny :)

I'm really looking forward to taking the Gallardo Spyder next to see how that compares with the F430.

Full album can be found here:

F430