After its original debut in the mid-2000s, the Ferrari F430 has lost some of its mechanical appeal even if its stylish exterior remained clean and timeless. As a result, it’s a bit of a tough sell on today’s market. Perhaps realizing this, one of the owners did the one thing he had to do to restore the appeal – and won big!
To be more specific, the F430 Spider pictured here was available in two versions – with a six-speed manual transmission and a six-speed automated F1 manual. The latter option had a single clutch and was regarded as the inferior choice of the two, despite being based on genuine Formula tech. Well-maintained manual examples tend to sell for $350,000–400,000 nowadays, while the semi-auto goes for $90,000–120,000 on a good day.
As you must have guessed by now, this particular car started its life with the lackluster automated manual gearbox. What the owner did was hand it over to European Auto Group for a swap to a full-fledged 6MT.
As a result, this Rosso Corsa example fetched U.S. $202,500 on Bring a Trailer the other day – not too shabby at all, considering its 19 years of age and 19,300 kilometers (12,000 miles) of use.
