A manual transmission and a V12 go together like a kick and a snare. There’s just something so inherently right about that combination that poster cars from the Lamborghini Countach to the Ferrari F50 to the Pagani Zonda used it. Want a cherry on top? Make that manual gated. It’s a rarified combination, one that usually commands blue chip pricing. But what if I told you that you might not have to mortgage your dog to get your hands on a gated manual V12 car? No, it’s not some shed-built special, it’s a proper Ferrari.
I’m talking about the Ferrari 456 GT, predecessor to the 612 Scaglietti and a turning point car for the brand. With this four-seater GT, it finally felt like Maranello had entered the nineties, and it came with the performance to match. We’re talking zero-to-60 mph in less than five seconds, a top speed of 192 mph, and all the pedigree you could possibly ask for.
Despite being enjoyed by everyone from the Brunei royal family to Michael Schumacher to Mike Tyson, the 456 is now something of a sleeper in the second-hand Ferrari market, and that means you can pick one up for less than you’d spend on a well-equipped Ford Mustang Dark Horse. The two cars both have equine motifs on their noses, they both have an engine at the front, and they both seat four, but that’s about where the similarities end. Tempted?
What Are We Looking At?
Back in 1992, the 456 GT was something of a revelation. At the time, it was the brand’s first all-new front-engined V12 GT car in twenty years, and did it ever show. The sleek Pininfarina lines were all modern, with pop-up headlights enabling a low nose and modern construction allowing for flush glazing and double-bubble molded tail lights. Under the hood, a brand new 65-degree V12 making 436 horsepower set the stage for every V12 Ferrari through the 575M, and when mated to a six-speed gated manual transmission, that propulsion made the 456 GT the second-fastest four-seater of all time when it went on sale. The first-fastest? None other than the Porsche 959. We’re talking about a performance envelope high enough that Car And Driver used one to race a plane across west Texas. The plane won, but only by a nose.
Our silver 456GT—the quietest, bestriding, most user-friendly Ferrari ever built—has lost the race by exactly 540 seconds. It averaged, for 2 hours, 34 minutes, and 20 seconds, a speed of just under 103 mph. In return for this grand performance, the 456GT gulped 25 gallons of fuel, four more than the Mooney required.
Still, that first sentence is high praise, and speaks volumes about the liveability of the 456 GT. Here’s a roomy, practical four-seater with decent ergonomics, comfortable seats, and hushed freeway cruising abilities that still serves up a dose of gated manual V12 performance. Best of all, you can now pick one up for less than the price of a new Ford Mustang Dark Horse, making this an attractive entry point to the holy grail of Ferrari powertrain layouts.
How Much Are We Talking?
When I wrote that you could buy a manual V12 Ferrari for Mustang Dark Horse money, I wasn’t kidding. A Mustang Dark Horse Premium stickers for $71,370, including freight, and it’s not hard to find a gated Ferrari 456 for less than that. Take this 1995 456 GT, for example. Finished in lovely Blu Swaters over beige leather, it had just 51,000 miles on the clock and a clean Carfax when it crossed the virtual auction block on Bring A Trailer in July. Belt service? Done. Control arm bushings? Done. The hammer price? A reasonable $67,500.
Not a fan of bumper reflectors? How about a European-spec car? This grey-over-tan manual 1994 Ferrari 456 GT has some serious pedigree, sold new in Switzerland before being brought to Germany by the then-CEO of Ferrari Germany, then making it to America years later. With about 53,000 miles on the clock, it seems reasonably well-cared-for. Sure, it’s had some paintwork, but it’s also had the all-important belt service done. The hammer price on Bring A Trailer in December reflects this, coming in at a solid $70,456.
If you don’t want to wait on an auction, you could always give the traditional classifieds a go. This 1995 Ferrari 456 GT is up for sale on Long Island for a reasonable $69,500. Sure, it may have 82,312 miles on the clock, but cars like this being driven is generally a good sign. It typically means someone’s been maintaining it rather than letting things pile up while the car sits. Plus, this 456 GT comes with a clean history report.
What Could Go Wrong On A Ferrari 456?
I mentioned the belt service several times above, and that’s for good reason. In addition to replacing the timing belt, tensioner, front drive belts, and associated components, a belt service on a 456 GT also requires valve adjustment, and labor really does add up. You can expect to pay somewhere in between $6,000 and $8,000 for a belt service, and the recommended interval is a mere 30,000 miles. This will be your biggest expense on a 456 GT, but it’s not the only thing that goes wrong. Self-leveling suspension accumulators can fail, although third-party replacements are available for as little as $319 each. Wind whistling can likely be traced down to poor window adjustment, which will take a few hundred dollars in labor to sort.
Otherwise, keep in mind that a Ferrari 456 GT is effectively a 30-year-old car at this point. Soft-touch switches can get gummy to the touch, little things can break, and it helps to budget around $3,000 a year in maintenance to run this big V12 GT car. That’s not bad for a Ferrari, but it’s still not exactly inexpensive.
Should You Buy A Ferrari 456 For Mustang Dark Horse Money?
There are two ways of concluding this. The first is that most people probably shouldn’t buy a Ferrari instead of a Mustang. That feels fairly obvious. The second is through the lens of car person math. Whether you buy a Mustang Dark Horse or a Ferrari 456 GT, it probably won’t be your daily driver. Sure, a few thousand a year in maintenance is a lot, but so is a few thousand a year in depreciation. Given that 456 GTs have effectively bottomed out on their depreciation curves, buying one might not be as financially harmful as you may expect. Of course, if anything goes seriously wrong, you’re on your own. The Mustang, meanwhile, has a warranty. So, if you’ve always wanted a gated manual V12 Ferrari and can afford the upkeep, buy the 456 GT. Not only is it the most cost-effective way to your dream, it’s also just a good car to enjoy.
Top graphic image: Bring A Trailer
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These were a lot cooler of a proposition when they were “V12 gated manual Ferrari for the price of a V6 Camry” ten years ago.
I mean if you must have a Ferrari V12 and just want to find the cheapest one. Sure. But that is one ugly Ferrari.
Maybe for a Ferrari, but it reminds me of a SAAB Sonnett.
It really does. But I don’t want to pay Ferrari money for a Saab Sonnett neither.
This car has a bit of a valet conundrum. You won’t want to hand the keys to your gate-shift V12 Ferrari to the kid at the valet stand who may have driven a manual Honda once in training. And it’s not cool enough that they’ll let you park it at the curb up front. So what do you do, self park while your date stands out by the front door waiting for you?
“The first is that most people probably shouldn’t buy a Ferrari instead of a Mustang. That feels fairly obvious. The second is through the lens of car person math. “
On the subject of why most people shouldn’t buy an older Ferrari instead of the new Mustang… part of it has to do with downtime.
On old/low volume cars like that Ferrari, there can be long lead times for getting parts.
Most people who buy a car, buy it to drive it regularly and depend on it.
You can’t really do that with the old Ferrari (or a lot of old/classic cars) because you can’t have a car you depend on be out of service for weeks or months while you wait for a part to arrive… or worse, have a part rebuilt because new replacements are unobtanium.
With a car like an old Ferrari, at best, it’s your 2nd car while you also own a reliable daily driver that you can use when the Ferrari is out of service for one reason or another.
And the $3000/year in maintenance is what you’ll spend with relatively light use… as in 10,000 miles per year or less.
I would LS swap this piece of Italian trash and never change a timing belt again.
… and kill the resale value in the process.
Crazier things (k-swaps) have been done…
Why? You would lower your maintenance, but it wouldn’t be a Ferrari anymore. Just buy a C6 or C7 and be done with it.
That last pic shows exactly why Ferrari were so cross about the Peugeot 406 coupé, also designed, not long afterwards by Pininfarina. See a lot more of them on the roads still than Ferraris….
So you’re telling me I can either get a brand new MT-equipped sports car optioned exactly the way I want it, with more horsepower, reliability, and modern engineering, serviceable by Billy Bob’s Ford, or for the same price, I can get a 30 year old milquetoast Italian sports car that will explode immediately if I even slightly delay one of it’s multi-thousand dollar yearly maintenance requirements?
That’s generally the idea between any “I can get (insert heavily depreciated luxury/sports car) for the price of a new (mainstream alternative)” sort of comparison.
I mean, yes, you technically could. It’s almost certainly a terrible idea, but you could.
Legs get a VW Phaeton to go with it shall we?
For sure. At least this is a little more reasonable than say buying a crappy old Jag for the price of a new Hyundai. Someone who has $70k to spend on a toy can probably swing a couple grand on maintenance per year.
And you can’t even use it to pick up gold diggers. You might attract them with the key chain, but then they’ll see it and make up an excuse to bug out. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but attracting gold diggers is one of the reasons to pick a lukewarm Ferrari over the Mustang.
I’d buy the Dark Horse Mustang over this prancing pony every day of the week. Styling of this car is hideous. It’s just ugly.
It sucks being That Guy… but I have to mention I get the Ick whenever casual reference is made to cult tragedies where lots of folks died. Feel the same way about “drink the kool aid”… I just wish we kinda wouldn’t.
Huh! I hadn’t even thought of “Heaven’s Gate” cult until you brought it up. I took the headline to imply a gated transmission is so good it is like the gates to somewhere wonderful like Heaven. Or comthing like that… you sure you just don’t have mass death tradgedies on your mind?
Yeah, I totally didn’t see that as a reference to the cult at all.
It certainly isn’t the heaven Talking Heads sang of, as in “Heaven is the place where nothing happens.”
You mean it ain’t no party, it ain’t no disco it ain’t no fooling around?
You beat me to any quips about white Nikes (which I still, to this day, cannot unsee every single time I see white Nikes).
But yes, I think this one pushes the limit just a little. The Kool-Aid comment has a bit more time component to it, but I’m also surprised it became so sanitized that it’s an everyday expression now.
Especially since we now know that most of them were forced to drink the Kool-Aid. At least it seems the Heaven’s Gate people went willingly, and the death toll was far lower. Also no traumatized survivors iirc.
Also, I have a feeling that most references nowadays are made by people completely oblivious to the origins of those phrases.
Ah,a 456, a ferrari too expensive for ferrari owners.
Stick does get rid of the unreliable auto.
The 456 is still a bit of a hidden gem, it seems to have flown under the radar and not suffered the price hikes of all other classics.
I’m a big fan. A really beautiful car inside and out, and you get a gated manual V12 for less than $100k. What’s not to like?
The problem with the 456 is the existence of the 550, but those have shot up recently so it’s not as straightforward anymore.
My favorite part of these is the subtlety. Get one in the colors shown in this article and you’ll only attract the attention of the people in the know, i.e. the attention you want.
The blue one in the article has either been poorly polished or is in serious need of paint correction. Those swirls are visible from space.
I’ve always loved these ever since watching the one video of the test driver testing one to destruction. I think it was from an old Top Gear episode, I remember having the video downloaded through Limewire or similar for regular watching (pre Youtube)
These are screaming deals with the old 4-speed auto, which sounds like it would be terrible, but I’ve seen some driving videos, and the combination of only 4 ratios and transmission programming that seems to not be too eager to upshift means you get to hear the engine a lot, in a good way.
This is probably the only Ferrari I’ll ever own at this point. All the 308s, even the Bertone ones, are appreciating fast, and these are in that sweet spot of the 90s where they look great, still are pretty quick, and are analog feeling machines.
I also feel like the front engine V12s are actually cheaper to maintain than the mid engine V8s.
I can’t imagine looking for Ferrari on the pull-down menu on rockauto or pepboysDOTcom
So buy a Ferrari with the unreliability of a Ferrari but with the style of the most boring year of the Ford Probe. Frankly I prefer Ferrari style but with a better company reliability. This is a boring looking car
That was my take as well. If I’m going to invest $70,000 plus $3,000 per year in maintenance and $8,000 timing belt changes, I sure as shit want a better looking car than this blob.
A gated manual is like a gated community, it’s the maintenance fees that get you.
That C&D contest is weird. Did they run illegally or close off the course? If the former, that seems like a huge legal liability at best, if the latter, that’s really damn slow unless they included a good amount of unimproved roads. Fuel capacity was 29 gallons, so shouldn’t have needed a fillup, but that would still not be an excuse. The Subaru Legacy set a record for the under 2.0L class averaging just under 139mph over 18.5 days in 1989. I have no doubt I could have beaten that Ferrari’s time in my FWD Legacy wagon and maybe in my ’83 GL, though it would be a long shot as that’s not far off top speed and I’m pretty sure I’d have to refuel.
This was C&D in the glory days – closed course – surely you jest? They pointed the thing where it needed to go and put the hammer down ala the Cannonball Runs.
I still wouldn’t call that impressive, but it’s fair if it was due to some semblance of consideration for other users (and their license).
It’s west Texas. 100 mph is grandma speeds.
That’s what I would figure. I’ve never been to TX, but the SW in summer and I could go minutes without seeing anyone else and the visibility was probably miles. Nebraska was like that, too, but with corn and I wouldn’t doubt I would have averaged about what this C&D Ferrari did if I didn’t stop to make a call and watch a Lynchian scene of an endless freight train pass a crossing through a bisected cornfield.
ROFL – have you READ that magazine from back then? Pretty sure they had attorneys on staff just to get the writers out of trouble!
Go find the epic Mexican roadtrip issue where they hit a cow with one of the cars, and IIRC killed another one in a flood. They defined “shenanigans” with cars in those years. Decades actually. The boring guys wrote for Road & Track and Motor Trend. Once the publishers tried to neuter C&D, David E. Davis left and founded Automobile to somewhat carry on the tradition, though it was never nearly as wild.
This race against a plane took place in the ’90s, post DED. Outside of waiting rooms, I didn’t read many US magazines in the ’90s except for Automobile and Auto Week for the quality of the writing and more recent news respectively. The big three seemed way too obvious about who paid their way to me and the reviews often seemed paint-by-number. If it did take place prior, that would make even less sense because 103 mph average for 2.5 hours could be achieved in just about anything, never mind one of the fastest 4 seaters in the world at the time. I’ve probably averaged that on runs with older and far less impressive machinery just as a manner of trying to get somewhere far in a more reasonable time/reduce rush hour exposures as I passed by cities.
One of the most boring looking Ferraris’ of all time.
The 2nd gen Ford Probe came out at about the same time… and the Probe looks more like a Ferrari vs. the 456. And I fucking hate Ford Probes.
If you want a V12 from this era…just get a 600 series Benz. If having a Ferrari nameplate is that important for you… you need to save for a cooler Ferrari.
Good lord, it does look like a Probe. Didn’t notice until you pointed it out. Now it is all I can see.
Or an early 90s BMW 850.
Ah, yes, good point.
And the taillights look an awful lot like something from VW.
I think that Ferrari has had far more boring or bad-looking cars than nice-looking ones. The 365-412, Mondial, F50, 612, California, current F80, and Daytona are not attractive cars. I don’t think the 456 is too far out of what is typical for Ferrari.
You’ll notice that all Ferrari 4-seat cars tend to be subdued. They are marketing to a different customer than you.
That said, subdued can still be classy. Taste will always be an individual thing, though.
Are gated shifters actually any fun to use, or is it just a nostalgia thing? I’ve never driven one and am genuinely curious.
Paying $70K for a 30-year old Italian car sounds…dangerous, but I’m obviously not in the tax bracket where it would even be feasible. And I don’t even need a Dark Horse – I’ll settle for a regular old GT.
(Also, the correct term is ‘bass drum.’ It’s only a ‘kick’ if your pedal breaks. 🙂
Sincerely,
Drummers)
I’ve driven a couple. I don’t recall anything too special about them but I think I was more focused on coming back without a single scratch so that likely sullied the experience.
I’ve driven a few gated shifter monopostos, mostly John Deere.
My understanding is that it the gate is there because the linkage and feel is so sloppy.
I heard/read somewhere (I cannot remember now as it was long ago) that the gates in early race cars were there as actual guides for the shifter and later became more of an unnecessary traditional appearance thing on road cars because of the racing association. I don’t know if it’s true—it sounds like it could be, but it also sounds like one of those falsehoods that get passed down. I’ve seen some people sell goofy gate kits for regular cars. They’re pretty expensive for something that will be used once or twice before the joy of novelty wears off and it’s removed.
I have seen some homemade shift gates on Porsches, especially on track 914s. The 901 linkage is just awful. I was going to make one for my 914/6 but the engine spun a bearing, and it’s been sitting for 8 years.
Actually, all you need is a lockout for first and reverse, and something to push against on fourth and fifth. Trying to find second and third in a hurry can be very expensive.
I’m sad about the 914/6. Is it orange?
Signal orange, with Mahle gas burner wheels. It has a Jerry Woods built short stroke 2.5 liter engine back when he was at Garretson enterprises. Basically it is a GTU engine because at the time it didn’t cost more than a stock rebuild. My uncle worked on the pit crew for Garretson enterprises and when he died, this was in the barn with a bunch of stuff stored in it and a bent valve. Bob Garretson got it running again and recognized the wheel and hub that kept Paul Newman from winning LeMans that my uncle kept as a souvenir.
OMG. That sounds amazing and like a shit ton of work. When I saw my first 914 in (uhoh) 1970 in London I was smitten beyond measure, and it was orange. I thought it was even cooler than the BRG Lotus 7 driving down the street there. Hoping for you there is minimal rust. Keep us posted if you get it going.
They are ridiculously fun. The click click alone is worth it.
A friend had an F360 manual, and he very generously lent it to me a lot, not least because my feet were small enough that I could actually drive it properly. He’d have me drop him off on some corners and then heel’n’toe my way through them, just so he could listen to it. Wonderful car, great guy.
At the time my daily driver was a high mileage mk2 MR2 and you get exactly the same click click noises from a gated shifter as you do a worn shift cable ball joint.
This is one case where it actually makes sense to go with the Ferrari.
I always wanted to own a Ferarri just once in my life. I almost pulled the trigger on a 308 back when they were just a 20k used car not a 100k collectors item. But you would have to be nuts to choose a 456 over a new mustang. The mustang is faster, quieter, handles better and comes with a warranty. The huge service hassles would never be worth it in this case just to say you own a Ferrari.
As my Ferrari-owning friend always says, there is a great deal of value in being able to say “that’s MY Ferrari”. Certainly far more than saying “that’s my Mustang, regardless of how much motor is stuffed in the thing.
How much you value that is a very personal thing, of course. I’m actually more with you – I find even this, the least shouty of all modernish Ferraris, to be a bit too shouty. And the author is underselling the servicing costs of one of these by a LOT. There are plenty of articles out there where people have tallyed up the long-term costs of ownership and they tend to be absolutely eye-watering. I am not in the right tax bracket for this sort of thing.
The depreciation you save buying this over a comparably priced new car pays for lots of maintenance, and if you keep it up well, it’s only going to go up in value.
Maybe, but you don’t have to write checks for depreciation. You do to keep one of these on the road, and rather big ones.
I certainly wouldn’t spend $60k on any 30+ year old car without having ready cash to do immediate and ongoing services.
Most people can’t afford to spend $60K on a 30yo car in the first place. But for these, the price of entry is merely the downpayment in a way that a comparably priced new car just is NOT. Chalk and cheese, and not comparable at all. Nor would anyone with a brain use one of these as a daily driver unless they had *epically* deep pockets.
I never said I’d use it as a daily driver, though in SoCal I probably could use it for most of driving, since I don’t have a commute.
Then what is the point of comparing it to a comparably priced modern car? Which as I said, is not a comparison at all.
It is said that the 456 is the only Ferrari not bought by rich YouTubers because it’s the one car that can bankrupt them and when you look around there’s a noticeable absence of 456 content.
Tyler Hoover bought one. Cost him a fortune and he lost a bunch of money on it. These are not appreciating with any particular speed, even if they aren’t really depreciating either (though they certainly will if they don’t have that all-important service history). Shame really – they are lovely, but somewhat unloved cars. Same as the 412 before them.
I loved this thing when it was brand new, and I was only ~14 at the time. Something about having 2 actual, semi-usable seats in the back just made it more attractive than the usual mid-engined affair (It also helps that I hit 6’2″ about that age, so the idea of sliding a seat backwards and reclining really appealed to me, too).
30k intervals on the belts? I’d have to guess the aftermarket has come up with more durable components, but maybe the real underlying issue is the valve adjustment.
Yeah once you’re in there to adjust the valves, you might as well replace those other components.
Man this would be a fun rebuild after the inevitable money shift. Would they sell me parts without being special?
The 456 should have had its best service done six times by the time it was sold on BAT. It is 30k miles or every five years. The listing said it had been done 4+ years earlier, which means it was already almost due again. So, the car had likely not had recommended service completed over its life.
For a Ferrari, I agree that this is likely the way to do it. It is likely the closest to the bottom of its value, and there was a meaningful proportion made with a manual.