I don't think I'd park an Aston Martin at a meter, particularly in SOMA; I'm perfectly comfortable parking my $4k used Jetta there, but I've seen plenty of cars significantly less awesome than a DB9 vandalized on the street.
Totally - then again DB9s are a poor choice for a daily driver - at least a Porsche can survive the grind - try driving anything British or Italian daily - won't end well!
Millions of people drive Italian cars every day. Fiat is taking over Chrysler. You'll see modern Italian cars in the US soon. They are not like in the 1970s.
Sorry, I should've said I'm talking about British/Italian exotics... Ferrari/Lambo/Aston/etc. are quite unreliable long-term (i.e. over 30K miles), but Porsche is like the everyday exotic - they're actually great long-term and available in 4WD (the Carrera4, Targa4, Turbo at least). Then again the truly rare American exotics (Saleen S7, Mosler, etc.) are even worse, but next to no one even has seen them.
Certainly not a blanket statement about about those cars. I love Fiats/Alfas, and I'm glad they might be coming to the States soon. Though British cars have had a bad rap for a long time (from the Brit Leyland / Rover / etc. days) - Jag is still pretty boring and only Land Rover is at all relevant / reliable.
Actually the biggest problem you'll run into with a Ferrari and similar in the states is that they ride so low that you will be continuously screwed by US speed bumps. Hearing the bottom of a Ferrari scrape against a speed bump is a truly tragic sound. For whatever reason Porsches actually do ride a bit higher, just enough to avoid speed bumps (although some curbs can still be a problem).
I learned that the hard way with my last car. A speedbump took off my midpipe! (pushed it up and the bolts snapped.. still intact just not connected) There was a good month when I was driving around Atlanta with a straight header V8.. surprised I did not get pulled over with how loud that thing was.
Hell - in my town my GTI scrapes all the time... I can only imagine having something lower. Porsche has the courtesy to put a replaceable black lip for the scrapes.
