So on the second day of owning my 360, I had managed to scuff the underside of the front bumper! It was’t much of a consolation knowing that this is a common wound with Ferrari’s, although there was’t a lot I could do about it now. Still, I my brother and his fiancée had been told to come and visit, as had my grandmother, so I was able to show them what I had achieved. I followed this up, on the Sunday, with a drive to the midlands to surprise my granddad. After a lovely drive in the Sunday morning sun, I made my way into Ledbury and interrupted breakfast. (The road through the town centre is in terrible shape, but the ring road is fantastically smooth and more or less straight.)

So of course I took my granddad out for spin, but imagine my horror when attempting a three point turn on his cul-de-sac and the clutch peddle goes limp! Luckily there’s a slight gradient which allowed us to push my stricken Ferrari to the side of the road. Thankfully I have breakdown cover, so a quick phone call was all it took to arrange for someone to come and help. A second quick call to my parents—as I now had no way to get home—and then a third to my uncle (just around the corner) saying Ashley’s here visiting, he has something you might like to come and see… Though when he arrived we had to mention that it was now a Ferrari that wouldn’t go in to gear.

After lunch I made another call to the breakdown firm asking whether they had forgotten about me but was told that they had decided not to send someone to fix my car by the road, but were in fact sending a flatbed recovery truck and that it was about an hour away. So we settled down to watch the Formula 1. After the race had finished, eventually, a truck pulled up outside. As I am only entitled to one free transport per breakdown, I had opted to take her back to Slade’s Garage, although I had been unable to reach anybody there as they’re predictably closed on Sundays. After a long, dull, 3:30 hour drive, the 360 was parked outside Slade’s and I was back home, and then I received a phone call of hope—Daniel of Slade’s called—he had driven past the showroom, noticed my Ferrari and thought that’s not right, she shouldn’t be there. I explained what had happened, I also mentioned the engine cover (which hadn’t been a problem since Friday), and said that someone would be there with the keys for when they open on the Monday morning.

Come Monday lunchtime and I receive another call informing me that a small seal on the master hydraulic cylinder was the cause of the leak and total loss of hydraulic pressure; something so small, and normally overlooked was the cause of a disastrous Sunday. But it was fixed—and very quickly too—so I agreed to pick her up at the end of the week and that was just fine by me.

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By Ashley

Life-long Ferrari fan, and eventual Ferrari owner. It has long been a dream of mine to own a Ferrari, and in the summer of 2014—shortly before I turned 30—I was lucky enough to be in a position to buy my first: a 2001, 360 Modena in rosso corsa with tan interior. Following an horrific accident in 2017, I had to work hard to get back into a Ferrari, this time opting for giallo Modena with black. This blog is where I aim to share my experiences along my Ferrari journey.