Ferrari F430

Ferrari F430 - Coasting isn't what management consultants would label a "core competency" at Ferrari. The black mare has been prancing at redline ever since current president and CEO Luca Cordero di Montezemolo kicked the door down in 1991. What had been a sleepy compound of squat red-brick workshops has become an Architectural Digest centerfold, the latest addition being Ferrari's Centro Sviluppo Prodotto, or Product Development Center.

Carrying over much of its extruded aluminum space frame, suspension, interior layout, and longitudinal V-8 configuration, the F430 isn't considered a replacement for the 360 Modena so much as an evolution of it. Inside Ferrari, the 360 was called the F131, and the company ladled out about 10,000 servings. Although 70 percent of the parts are new and the price increase should be about $9500, to $167,000 with gas-guzzler tax, the F430 is called the F131 Evoluzione or, more simply, "the Evo" by Ferrari's engineers.

Back in 1961, Phil Hill won the F1 world championship in a Ferrari 156 that featured similar "shark nose" vents, Stephenson explains. So it's retro? "I hate that word retro," snaps the father of the new Mini. "We're carrying over our DNA, much like you have your grandmother's eyes or nose." Family genetics also spawned an industry called rhinoplasty, but that's neither here nor there.

As in the 360 Modena, this new F430 is the only Ferrari or Maserati to use a flat-plane crankshaft. That means half of its connecting-rod journals line up directly opposite the other half, making the crank look as flat as a dash mark when viewed head-on. Most V-8s, including Maserati's own version of the motor, have a two-plane crank that looks like an X and spaces the rod journals at 90-degree intervals for smoothness. Ferrari says the flat way, which mimics two inline fours joined at the hip, increases vibration but pays benefits in breathing and power production. It also grinds a particular edge into the Ferrari's bark at high revs.

The F430's V-8 isn't just a spinner; its new dual-displacement intake plenum and variable valve timing put the pants press to the torque curve. American-delivered F430s with the optional F1 paddle-shift automated manual transmission go without the launch control that lets the driver commit hairy high-rpm clutch drops, but never mind; Ferrari's test drivers instructed us to just drop it in low and flatten the aluminum stick of a gas pedal—lightly at first to keep the 285/35 hams in back adhering to the pavement. While the engine went Bwwaaaaaa! and those crackle-red mounds twitched in the rearview mirror, the computer counted to 60 in—wait, does that say 3.5 seconds? Look, the quarter-mile is 11.7 seconds at 123 mph. Can't be. Fearing a test-box meltdown, we consulted with a rival magazine that was radar-gunning another F430 driven by a factory pilot. Results: practically identical.

Our time at Fiorano was unusually generous, thanks to the absence of an F1 testing crew. This late in yet another smack-down season, perhaps the Ferrari team doesn't even wash the cars between races. However, Ferrari's Gestione Sportiva, the racing department, rides along in every F430, most obviously on the steering wheel.

In the E-Diff, hydraulic pressure supplied by the self-shifting F1 transmission's pump (opt for an old-time stick, and you still get the pump and the E-Diff) compresses a stack of friction plates in the differential that transfers torque from side to side. The computer watches your movements and supplies the torque split needed in back to maintain traction and help rotate the car through corners. We can sum up the E-Diff in two words: It works.

Fiorano's lack of a suitable skidpad kept us from measuring lateral forces in our usual way, but we did see more than 1.05 g through some of the circuit's corners. Put in motion by a firm brake pedal, the carbon-ceramic discs—an option expected to cost the same as a Scion xB, or $14,000—performed four successive stops from 70 mph in fewer than 150 feet. Ferrari claims they're good for 350 laps at Fiorano without fade. They didn't mention the moaning that the huge carbon-impregnated silicon discs make when they're cold, or the wind whistle one of our sample F430s made at speeds above 60 mph, probably from an ill-fitting windshield gasket.

Now that the beginner's Ferrari has reached supercar levels of performance, maybe it's time to pump some excitement into the F1 program, too.

2007 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano

2007 Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano - Even Ferrari’s PR man had to stifle a snigger. Not because of the wounded English, but because most drivers who are worried about their carbon footprint aren’t trying to plug themselves into an Italian two-seater whose 611-hp V-12 has a 10-mpg fuel fetish. That the 599’s production rate of about 800 cars per year is unlikely to affect ocean levels one way or another is not important. Ferrari didn’t get where it is by skimping on details.

Where exactly is Ferrari? At the top of its game, the ultra-A-list car brand with the ultra-A-list lineup emerging from its doors. The House of Enzo built 5658 cars in 2006, up five percent over 2005, and still the celebrities and the admirals of industry—mere captains can’t afford them—willingly bend a knee and submit to two-year queues for a dose.

For testing, Ferrari supplied a different 599 than this one, although equipped the same. Minded by a couple of Puma-shod technicians, it reached 60 mph in 3.3 seconds and turned the quarter-mile in 11.2 seconds at 131 mph with the dry-mouthed, clammy-palmed author gripping the wheel. We were unable to record a top speed, owing to a short runway. The skidpad yielded a gripping 0.97-g performance, and the $18,550 optional carbon-ceramic brakes screeched to a halt from 70 mph in 148 feet, nine fewer than an Audi R8.

The 599’s mighty acceleration numbers are almost identical to the Enzo’s [C/D, July 2003]. At 3953 pounds, the Fiorano is 691 pounds heavier than the mid-engine, carbon-fiber Enzo and, by the factory’s accounting, has 39 fewer horsepower. Ferrari conservatively claims 3.7 seconds for the 599’s 62-mph mark. So, the 599 shouldn’t be this fast, but it certifiably was. Ferrari explains that the Enzo uses five-year-old technology and that the company has trimmed shift times of its F1 transmission (now called F1-SuperFast) down to 100 milliseconds and improved the electronic differential and subsequent traction.

It’s hard to be subtle in a Ferrari, but this slate-gray 599 comes close. The 599’s basic shape, a forward-sloping wedge with big hips packing big rubber and a low, fast-moving slip of a roofline, is a sort of Corvette-meets-Supra profile that is both audacious and fairly familiar.

Cranberry-red leather with licorice-red French stitching covers most of the interior, including the rear parcel shelf ($2418 extra to have it leather upholstered) and the ceiling ($439 extra). There is even a red-leather bootie on the $573 fire extinguisher with chrome clasps that can bite viciously into the passenger’s ankle during spirited maneuvering. What isn’t swathed in red is wrapped in black hide, and carbon-fiber panels are fitted as a $5621 trim option. The center air vents bulge like the two afterburners of an F-18, and the twin leather straps of the parcel shelf look strong enough to secure an engine block in a hairpin.

Select from six tightly spaced gears using the F1-SuperFast transmission paddles, or let the computer shift for you in automatic mode. Ferrari has made continual improvements in the software, but the smooth way is still the manual way. Shift with the paddles while lifting slightly between gears, and the 599 gently eases through traffic. Reverse can be maddening. The aft-mounted transaxle arbitrarily drops into neutral if you’re just feathering the throttle to scootch out of a parking space ($1294 rearview sensors watch your back). Perhaps it’s trying to preserve the clutch, which suffers a hard life. Reversing up a modest grade for 20 feet produced the stale odor of burned friction lining.

Short-stroke screamers don’t generally pack much torque in the basement. But towering intake stacks, variable cam timing, and tubular headers allow the 599 to surge impressively from 3000 rpm even in higher gears. The usable portion of the tach stops at 8200, and lots of living happens in between. Wide open, the engine yowls in fury and the rear squats ruthlessly—with this much power, only wheelie bars could stop it—as the steering goes light and squiggle-prone. Shifts bang home under full throttle, even harder if you switch the steering-wheel selector from sport to race, which also dials back the stability control and stiffens the shocks.

The carbon-ceramic brakes are a wonder (for $18,550, they should be). Sensitive and progressive from light trail braking to full anti-lock braking, the pedal selects just what your foot desires. More amazing, after 500 miles of hard driving, the 20-inch alloys were still shiny. Has Ferrari developed the cure for brake filth? Hair-trigger sharp and weighted to the lighter side, the steering is as faultless as the brakes. Combine the two, plus that stunning throttle, to make electrifying charges through curves.

While returning the 599 to a Los Angeles dealer—the car’s short front overhang is a blessing on driveway ramps—we overheard a salesman quote a half-million-dollar price to a couple of customers. There were no gasps, just nods, the complacent look of lambs in an abattoir. Ferrari says it encourages dealers to sell at sticker and that many longtime customers do pay just that, but the company acknowledges that dealers are independent operations the factory doesn’t control.

Ferrari Enzo

Ferrari Enzo - Ferrari slashed the promised test time because the F1 team needed the track, and the only person allowed behind the Enzo's wheel was Ferrari's own test driver who, though fast, was unfamiliar with our procedures and our test gear, which, anyway, was periodically fritzing out. The test gear spit out a jumbled mess of numbers that had to be sorted back home.

See, Ferrari doesn't lend out Enzos for magazine tests. As with the F40 and F50, we had to track down an owner in the U.S., someone who would let us drive an Enzo around without putting it through the pricey punishment of actual testing. That's when something good really did happen. We met Bob Rapp.

So do a lot of other people with the cash to afford an Enzo, so Rapp submitted the requisite application to Ferrari and promptly sold his entire car collection. After some haggling and a few stressful cell-phone calls, his Enzo landed at Foreign Cars Italia in Greensboro, North Carolina, in March, painted in Ferrari "fly yellow" with caramel-colored seats and a set of fitted Ferrari luggage. Sure enough, everyone wanted to see it.

This time, Ferrari is exchanging greenbacks for the Enzo with no apparent strings attached. Ferrari would not actively help us find a car, but officials did promise not to interfere (and they did apologize graciously and profusely for that April day at Fiorano). Chicago-area Ferrari dealer Rick Mancuso made some calls and discovered a willing Rapp. “I like making people happy,” Rapp explains with a shrug.

Once in Greensboro, we giddily crooked a finger under the Enzo’s hidden door latch and lifted the forward-hinged, upward-swinging panel. Inside, the charcoal-hued cave of bare carbon fiber is all business. Sparse rubber floormats are the only covering over the glistening cured-resin skin of the carbon-fiber tub.

Turn the Ferrari Red key, and push the Ferrari Red start button. From behind, the harmonic cadence of 12 pistons fed by 48 valves is packed into the whistling suck of the carbon-fiber-shrouded intake and the sonorous throb from the quad tailpipes. “The Sound” swirls up your eardrums and does shiatsu on the pleasure centers of the brain.

The Enzo’s six-speed is the most refined of the paddle-controlled breed. The changes are quick and quiet, the loss of momentum is brief, and the jerky clutch engagement has been buttered up into a gentle shove. There is no auto mode; shifting is via the carbon-fiber paddles only, but they can be tapped from most points on the steering wheel. The V-12 is exceptionally content puttering at school-zone pace, the revs sliding up and down without temperamental surges or uncouth stumbles.

The luxury of power steering and brakes as well as other refinements helped inflate the Enzo’s weight. At 3262 pounds fully tanked, the Enzo outweighs a McLaren F1 by 683 pounds; its predecessor, the F50, by 182 pounds; and a Chevrolet Corvette Z06 by 81 pounds.

Trouble is, turns come rapid fire at this track, many of them just over blind rises and with fast-changing cambers and barf-bag drops. The Enzo pulls 1.05 g on VIR’s skidpad (also stickier than its forebears and any other current production car we’ve tested) but plows into tight corners and can snap abruptly to oversteer at the exit by the ticklish electronic throttle and the explosive power it produces. Balancing the Enzo is a challenge; it reserves its best behavior for the talented and attentive.

On the trip back from the track, Rapp complained that the Enzo’s special Shell Helix 10W-60 synthetic oil, of which the V-12 requires 12.2 quarts, runs him $60 per quart. If a $732 oil change sounds criminal, consider that the factory won’t warrant the engine if you don’t use the oil and estimates the replacement bill at $200,000.