Classic car shopping is often like staring over a city from high atop a mountain. Once your eye sees one thing it likes, there are ten more within the same focal point.

Such is Hemming’s Classifieds section.

This site allows is a much broader type of browsing and car shopping, with long distance delivery of anything bought online.

Generally, private sellers online come in two flavors:

– extreme obsessives who are forced to part with a car they have cherished

– extremely careless people charged with liquidating an asset

You can guess which one you want to buy from to get the most high-quality, reliable and trustworthy purchase.

But the cheap guys have price in their favor: they price low and are willing to go much lower than the advertised price in a pinch.

Finding the right balance is key, and often the best way to buy a quality pre-owned classic car.

Why drive a classic?

Good ones are cool as f**k and everyone will love it – even more than if it were a brand-new F12.

F12 approach-ers are generally douche-bags, foreigners and kids.

400i approach-ers will always be smart, well-dressed men who know how cool you are – in 2013 and beyond – piloting a classic Ferrari 400i in daily traffic.

So after this long run-up, here is my first pick of Attainable Supercars: the 1976-189 Ferrari 400i, 412i and variants of this crisp machine.

The 412 is marked by body-colored bumpers and slightly different headlight covers up front, but both cut a very dashing shape in any city.

The red example below is actually for sale currently at a $48,500 price, which seems fair for its immaculate presentation and an $800 delivery quote across most of the country.

 

Some rougher examples are certainly out there, but an original, U.S.-specification car should be your main priority versus ultra-low miles.

Ferrari’s will stop running with high miles and no maintenance, so big miles are almost a vote of confidence that it does not break down constantly.

1983 Ferrari 400i in Newport Beach, California – European Collectibles on PCH

1981 Ferrari 400i – Grey in Jamal, California

 

1986 412i in Syosset, New York

 

Ferrari 400i – Gallery