Ferrari 360 Spider

Coryat Manufacturing Company LLC (CMC) has completed the prototype for a Ferrari 360/430 Spider hardtop. This hardtop will fit both 360's and 430's and accommodate a wide variety of window adjustments. Spider windows can be quite different in terms of height and rearward travel from one side to the other. The hardtop is adjustable to the car, so the car doesn't have to adjust to the hardtop. That way, the OEM soft top can still be used as normal.
The CMC hardtop comes apart at the centerline so that each half can be handled separately for easy installation, transportation, removal and storage. One person can install or remove it in a minute or two. It's very easy! Each side weighs about twenty US pounds so should not be too heavy for anyone.
Four points are used to secure the top. Two in the front attach to the existing latch points and two in the rear are latched to the roll bar. The latches are all custom built by CMC to respect your car with all its beauty. CMC lat…

It's been six months now since I brought home my Ferrari 360. I've put over 750 miles on it in that time. Most of my driving has been around town with a few excursions on the expressway. I've driven the car every chance I could, which is any day that the weather is above 60 and the roads are dry.


I've enjoyed owning the car for the most part. The frustrating thing about the car has involved the convertible top. It's a nightmare of microswitches and hydraulics and delicate fabric elastic straps. I've had three failures of my top in the few months I've owned it. The first was before I owned it. The previous owner had to fix that. The hydraulic ram that locks the top in place, which is at the very front of the car, failed and spilled hydraulic fluid all over the car.

The second failure involved a crack that some previous owner had fixed. That "fix" failed right after I took my car off the trailer. Took me a few hours of messing around to fix that. My…

2001 gated 360 Spider, 18k miles. Stock everything except muffler.
I started the car like normal, everything seemed fine and drove it to the end of my road with low RPM's, as normal. By the time I got to the end of the road, the car had some temperature so I started driving normally. About half a mile from that point, I gassed it to get around a truck parked on the side of the road and then let it coast down to the speed limit.
At that point, the accelerator stopped working. I'd press it and nothing. Car was idling fine but no throttle response. I pulled off at the first right and suddenly, the pedal worked again, for a moment. Then it stopped responding. I turned around and started back home. No pedal. Luckily, it's a short ride on a 35 mph road, so idling along in 4th gear (about 15 mph) wasn't too much of an issue. I kept trying the pedal and nothing.
I turned down my road and drove the 1/2 mile to my house in 4th, idling. There's a pretty good but short hill ri…

I had a problem the day I bought my gated 360 in that the shifter jammed in 5th gear and I couldn't shift. At the time, I was on the NY Thruway (287) and no way I could stop. I was only 10 miles from my exit so I continued. As I slowed into the toll booth, the problem miraculously cured itself and everything was fine. After discussing the issue with Fonzie, a master Ferrari mechanic, he concluded it must have been the mat bunching under the clutch. Fixed the mat and moved on.

Fast forward a couple of weeks and 300 miles of event free driving to last night. I was having a very pleasant night drive, the first time I had been out after dark. I goosed it up to about 7k RPM's in 5th on a long straight limited access road (about 100mph) and the shifter jammed again. I couldn't get it out of 5th. I slowed down, like I did that day on the Thruway and it popped out of 5th gear. Ok, so maybe I had a problem with 5th gear. Not the end of the world yet.

I continued my drive and all was …

Why Ferrari? Ferrari. What's the first thing that pops into your head when you hear that word? Ferrari as a brand is among the most recognized in the world. Everyone has heard of Ferrari, right?

My first encounter with the Ferrari brand goes back to college. The owner of the apartment building I lived in when I attended the University of Miami had a Dino of some sort. I don't know exactly what model. I recall a sloped nose and shark like gills in the hood. It sounded way cooler than the noise that came out of my '71 Opel Manta. He also had a Donzi or maybe two. It seemed like he used the apartment building to house his numerous beautiful women "friends".

Fast forward forty years and now I'm buying a Ferrari. At first, I didn't really know I wanted a Ferrari. I wanted a really nice, prestigious, fast, exciting car that I'd keep until they pried the keys out of my cold, dead hands. I really like the Mercedes cars, have two, and thought a good choice wo…