Strange Acting Ferrari

I have a 1984 308 GTB Ferrari. I purchased it in June 2000 at about 34,000 miles. It has around 85,000 on it now. I'm not sure of the exact number as the speedometer died and was out of the car for a while being repaired. I guessed the speed using the tach.

Recently it started acting strange again. I say again because I have been towed home too many times to remember. Right now if I take it out for a drive it will sometimes seem to die. That is the engine will quite running for a couple of seconds and then come back to life with a giant backfire. Once I thought the mufflers would be leaving us with the lurch and sound. When the engine decides to stop running I can be anywhere, but usually in the fast lane on a freeway. I feel like an old time pilot who is always on the lookout for a landing field in case his plane dies. In the past I have had to move from the inside fast lane to the outside slow lane to park this beast off the road. It's always interesting trying to do this with no power - only momentum.

I'm trying to figure out why the engine is stopping, but no luck so far. My mechanic says that unless I can come up with a hard problem (dead in the water) he's not sure what to look for.

So my dilemma is how to get it to fail without getting killed. It won't die unless it's moving. It does not do this at idle. So to get a hard failure I have to be driving somewhere and let the car die. Park it safely and have it towed in. Ah well, fun and games with an exotic.

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