Anyway, I thought you might all be interested in more info on the burned up F430 at the start of this thread, as I was there when it happened.

I participated in a World Class Driving event (wcdriving.com) last August in Santa Barbara, CA, along with my brother. For those unfamiliar, WCD is an event where you can drive 5 or 6 exotic cars over a 200 mile or so route. We were part of the afternoon session. I drove the 430 for about 30 minutes through a canyon, and then switched with my brother. He jumped into the 430, and I into the 997 TT. We pulled out onto the road with the 430 directly in front of me, and after only about 3 minutes of driving on a somewhat crowded road with speeds of only about 45 mph, I saw fire coming from the area by the right exhaust tips. I started to freak out as the fire was growing, and my brother just kept driving as he hadn't seen it yet. He finally saw it once the flames were rising out of the engine compartment. He quickly pulled over, but had trouble getting out of the car, as he didn't know where the door handle was since it was his first time in this car. He did get out unharmed, and the car was completely engulfed in flame within 2 minutes. The fire department arived about five minutes later and extinguished the fire. The fireman had to ask us what type of car it was, as it was burned beyond recognition. He didn't believe us at first when we told him it as a Ferrari. Any way it was quite a spectacle, and it gathered quite a crowd, especially since the police did not close the road and people were allowed to drive right by the flaming car. Fireman said they knew it was started by an blown oil line, as there was oil on the road for about a mile before the car. My brother was unharmed, but was pretty shaken.

After it was all over, the rest of the group continued on and finished the session. My brother and I had to ride back to the hotel in a minivan. The employees for WCD were pretty apologetic, and refunded our money. I will say that before our session started, there was no safety briefing of any type, and no instruction given to any of us on how any of the 6 cars worked or were shifted or anything like that. We were just given keys and we followed one another out onto the public roads.

Last I heard, the insurance company was going after Ferrari of NA, saying it was a design flaw, and Ferrari was saying it was lack of maintenance. The insurance adjuster said he had been researching other F430s that have caugh on fire, and said there were several that suffered the same fate, and said it was a bad design as the oil line runs right over the exhaust manifold in this car, and can melt after prolonged aggressive driving.