Ferrari owners actually drive their cars
Fans of Ferraris have come to expect perfection. It’s well known at this point that Ferraris with “needs” (or even “questions” or “stories”) tend to get dinged at auction. Our colleagues in the U.K. noticed something further: You can’t even find a Ferrari with needs. Just 1 percent of the Ferraris sold at auction since 2018 were in poor but generally still drivable shape (Condition 4 in our parlance). For context, you’re four times as likely to find an Aston Martin in that state at auction. Given the scarcity of driver-condition Ferraris at auction, you might expect owners to be afraid of, well, driving them. Our insurance data reveal a different story. Looking at quotes on insurance policies for Ferraris in 2020 where owners have estimated their annual miles driven, we see owners have driven an average of 1638 miles. OK, that doesn’t sound like a lot. But remember: classics generally aren’t commuter cars. The average for all Hagerty-insured vehicles is 2212 miles.
No surprise, newer Ferraris get driven the most. Cars built during the reign of Luca Cordero di Montezemolo average 1814-miles a year. Enzo-era Ferraris, on the other hand, average 576 miles per year. Quite a bit when you take into account their average value of $2.8M, per our insurance data. Fiat-era cars split the difference at 293 miles per year. Ferrari owners appear to be just interested their cars as cars, not garage furniture.
Although the chance of finding a prancing-horse project at auction these days is slight, they are still out there. Owners are still driving their cars, but perhaps with higher values and better information about maintaining them, fewer are being left to neglect. Instead, they might be hiding away and may require some digging to find one. Just ask our editor.
