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Exotic insanity
Having owned or brokered many exotics, from Abarth to Zagato, I can assure you that Italian exotics can be incrdeibly expensive to maintain. Parts can be extremely difficult to get due to the extremely low "production" numbers. Cars like the Lambo are essentially hand built by craftsman. They are considerably less expensive to maintain in Italy. For example, I took delivery of a new Moto Guzzi 750 Sport motorcycle in N. Virginia in 1973. This bike cost $2500 when a Honda 750 was $1650. As soon as I fired up the Guzzi I realized it had no air cleaner...on an egine with chrome bores! That meant I could suck in dirt, rocks and small children and ruin the engine in no time. In the course of acquiring a K&N filter set up for the bike from the west coast distributor it was explained to me that the bike rountinely came without air cleaners. They were built that way because in Italy the owners simply had the v twin pushrod engines (think American OHV V8 short 6 cylinders) rebuilt every year or 10,000 miles! In Italy there were/are 1st class mechanics and bike shops on every corner and an engine overhaul v. inexpensive (about a third of the cost for an overhaul here!). In the U.S. you basically could expect to spend 50% of the price of the car in service costs if you kept it for more than a year or two and actually drove it if it was a Lambo, Ferrari or Maserati.
WGJ
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