[Maximus_Prime]

I've had the same experiences as everyone else in this thread. Almost every time I take the car out I get a thumbs up, a random question at a gas station, a driver behind me taking pictures, etc. Since these occurrences are so common I've never felt the need to report them. But I recently had a pretty interesting experience that I thought you'd love to hear. Hope you like the story.

Last weekend the Ferrari Car Club of America had their annual "Spring Thaw" meet in Reston, Virginia. As a gearhead I had to go. On the drive down from Baltimore to the show I happened to pass by a beautiful yellow Ferrari 308 GTB. Since I love that car I decided to pull up next to the driver, double tap on the horn and give him a big ol' thumbs up. The owner, however, appeared to completely ignore me. I decided he was probably trying to change lanes and may have been distracted so I decided to let him be and merrily went my way.

Fast forward to the Ferrari show. It was of course stupendous. Lots of beautiful Italian machinery to weep over. And there in the corner was the yellow 308 that I had passed. I walked over to check it out and noticed the owner was getting something from inside the car, so I said "Are you the owner? I think I saw you driving on I95 south - I tried to give you a thumbs up!"

The owner (the prototypical Ferrari owner - a white male in his mid 50s) frowned and said "Oh, you were in the orange M3? I wasn't trying to race - I know your car is faster than mine." Of course, I had to correct him. "Well, it's not an M3, it's a 1M. And I was just trying to say 'hi' - not trying to race."

My interaction with the owner ended there. As soon as I said "1M," it appeared that everyone within earshot paused in their tracks and headed my way. My friend an I quickly found ourselves facing a small group of people. "Did you say you have a 1M?" "Where is it?" "Is it parked close by?" "Can we see it?!!" It was pretty surreal. Here we were surrounded by at least 50 Ferraris and yet these folks wanted to know about my measly little 1 series!

I ended up having a great conversation with these people. One of them mentioned that he was a car journalist and made professional video reviews of cars. It turns out that the now-infamous 1M video review done by the ditzy blonde girl (you old-timers in this forum know which one I'm referring to) was created by the company this journalist works for. We had a good chuckle over that review. He said the 1M was amongst the top 3 most fun cars he's ever driven.

You meet some really nice gearheads with a car like the 1M.

Oh, and these people were all hanging around talking to me about my 1M while we were standing not 150 feet away from two of motoring's most beloved Ferraris: a F40 and a 330 GTO. Here's some photo proof: