All Entries Tagged With: "FERRARI"
Video: Your Ideal Commute In a Ferrari 458 Italia
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: YouTube ::: Ferrari 458 Italia Ride Through Canyon Country
IMAGINE if this were your car and your daily, morning commute. Pas mal, non?
But who are you kidding? For even if your ride were a 2012 Ferrari 458 Italia and your commute wound through some sparsely trafficked Californian canyon, you’d likely get jaded. Yes, you’d pine for the easy comfort of something more practical like a Lexus and get to wondering what the weather’s like in Ireland this time of year. The grass is always greener, you know.
Ciao Superamerica! An Exercise In Customer Service
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Ferrari ::: Ferrari Superamerica 45
FERRARI’S latest is the Superamerica 45, a one-off, bespoke model finished in “Blu Antille” and made expressly for an avid Ferrari-collecting New Yorker. Part of Ferrari’s “Special Projects” program, Superamerica bows today at the Villa D’Este Concorso d’Eleganza.
Somewhat ungainly in proportion – with high rear flanks and a somewhat awkward if briskly efficient flip-top roof panel last seen on the 575M Superamerica – the Superamerica 45 while a showcase for Ferrari design underscores the car makers commitment to an adage that much of the mainstream car industry has long forgotten in pursuit of profits: the customer is not only king; he’s always right.
McLaren v. Ferrari v. Porsche
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: YouTube ::: McLaren MP4-12C v Ferrari 458 Italia v Porsche (997) 911 Turbo MK2
ADMITTEDLY, this video’s quality is only fair. But reader, when I saw this tri-colore spectacle of fresh exotica positioned at a checkered line- particularly the minty McLaren MP4-12C and the Ferrari 458 Italia – I had to know which one would best the lot. Unfortunately, we only kinda find out as who arrived in third is anyone’s guess. Though, if I could guess…
Now Everybody Wants $1.23 Million For A Ferrari Enzo
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay ::: Ferrari Enzo price
IF you ask the San Franciscan dealer that’s selling this rosso corsa on nero Ferrari Enzo just what it is that they all do, they’ll tell you: “Performance. It’s What We Do.” And schlocking an ’03 Enzo with 3,000 miles for $1.230 million is certainly one way to perform. Unlike Porsche’s former halo, the (magnificent) Carrera GT, it seems that the former Ferrari flagship actually appreciates with age. Like a fine bordeaux of appropriate vintage. The Enzo when new was $670,000, so, if the Californian dealer’s price seems like a fleecing, consider it a bargain. There’s a New York dealer that will sell you an ’03 rosso corsa on nero Ferrari Enzo with 3K for $1.235 million.
[eBay]
Post Christmas Glut: 2007 Ferrari F430 F1
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img via eBay Motors ::: 2007 Ferrari F430
TOO much of a good thing can be wonderful. And after all the holiday cheer, food, wine, and song, well, a guy’s got a blow off a little steam somehow… One way is provided for in this Rosso Corsa Ferrari F430 with F1 flappy paddle transmission. The sting of the original price is removed by buying previously enjoyed and take heart that the Ferrari’s been driven but a scant 4,000 miles in three years. Avanti!
[eBay]
Pic of the Day: When Two Testarossas Meet
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img Richard Wolf for ADLX ::: Ferrari Testarossa
YES, you’re seeing double. Our man Richard has one helluva an eye for a good shot. And an eye for beautiful cars, too. Above and below are shots of two, identical Ferrari Testarossas that R.D. took while visiting an Italian car rally at Autumn View Farms in Massachusetts. We covered this event last year and the sheetmetal present is stunning.
But about these photos – few can argue the Ferrari Testarossa’s inherent sex appeal. There’s something about that ultra-low profile, those wide hips that hug an enchanting thoroughbred V12, and pop-up gator headlamps that scream exotic.
And those Pininfarina side strakes…
Simply put: the Testarossa air intakes are the sports car styling cue to end all styling cues. The cars themselves are 80s icons which makes it particularly tantalizing two see twins compellingly staged as these have two redheads have been.
Grazie, R.D.!
Ferrari F430 Review
“I don’t know if I should tell you this,” Dr. Frank Setter, anesthesiologist and 2006 Ferrari F430 owner, is about to clue us in, “but I just learned how to drive stick.”
Really, doctor?
The F430 is so potent that the mid-engined Ferrari could, in theory, exhaust the average driver’s modest skill set within the first throttle blip. Or kill us dead faster than you can shout – malignant hyperpyrexia.
Gear lever snaps into second.
Shouldn’t we practice on something slower? Perhaps a BMW M Thr- oh, Jesus…
Four hundred ninety horses break free. Michelin coated hooves spark Dante’s inferno as quad exhausts set off a sonic boom. We hit eighty five hundred rotations.
Third.
Clocks and landscape starting to melt into goo. Outside, the F430 broadcasts Formula One. Inside, imploding with g-force, I am Munch’s screamer.
Cut.
It’s a blazing hot day in Litchfield, Connecticut. The sun beats down on the countryside without mercy. Dr. Setter, perhaps ignoring his better angels, has agreed to drive out to this lovely land of hills, valleys, leafy forests, narrow ravines, and broad meadows with serpentine b-roads that snake through it all so that I can pester him with questions and drive his F430 – one of Maranello’s sharpest asphalt scalpels.
Our date falls a day before Hurricane Earl’s light brush with the Eastern seaboard and on the same Thursday that Ferrari recalls the 458 Italia, the F430’s cutting edge successor. From a TV hung above the bar at Da Capo restaurant, CNN’s saying that as many as 10 customers lost theirs to catastrophic fire.
The anchor crosses to the weatherman who dutifully fear mongers.
Dr. Setter, a chill Staten Island-native in his lower 40s sits across a table dressed in full Ferrari regalia. We sip cappuccinos and he remarks on how his time inside hospitals has turned him off of AC.
The restaurant’s central air washes us in cool.
So, why the F430? Why the traditional manual gearbox? Is this his first Ferrari? What’s the meaning of life?
Answers given in parables: He traded in a 911 Turbo and bought the $200K F430 with 4.3 L V8 for a relative song after browsing the lot at Miller Motorcars. It’s been a beautiful friendship ever since. The traditional gearbox represents sporting tradition and a cue to stay in the game of driving to say nothing of owning one of only 216 M.Y. 2006 F430s fitted with the gated shifter.
He’s taken a class or two at Skip Barber. Lapped the track at Lime Rock. And yes, this is his first Ferrari and likely not his last.
“Growing up, my family wasn’t affluent,” he confides. “But I read car magazines and used to go to the NY auto show.” He remembers getting hold of his first BMW 3-series somewhere at the corner of the new millennium following his residency.
“I enjoyed that car every day I drove it,” he recalls. The Bimmer was one of his favorites, though plenty of German machinery followed.
Now flush with the success of putting patients into and out of sleep, Dr. Setter’s finding a balance between his automotive passion and life’s fundamentals. He beams brightest when, as proud father, he retells the exploits of his precocious 4 and 10 year olds. Apparently, they tease their dad that he enjoys his car too much.
He gleefully agrees.
The F430 provides what we might call adrenaline induction therapy. Slipping behind the wheel, I insert the red fobbed key into the ignition and press the red start button on the helm. The fiery V8 comes alive and then settles into a low rumble. Then, like a complete ass, I stall out rolling forward in first.
Let’s try again, shall we? Tweee- varrrooooumm!
“You know, there are times I forget what I’m driving,” he says as a yellow bus load of stunned school kids passes by.
In rosso corsa, there’s no missing the F430 Berlinetta. The coupe’s color is so vibrantly Italian and quintessentially Ferrari that applying the same shine to a minivan would turn the mundane into the exotic.
Good thing, then, as the F430’s Pininfarina-penned body is the subject of some controversy among certain sects of the Ferraristi. As Clarkson once opined, it’s not the prettiest Ferrari. And he’s right.
But Dr. Setter, unfazed, tells it like it is. “They don’t have to buy it.”
Truth is, if they heeded his prescription, those well-to-do abstainers would really miss out.
Two big airscoops in the front swallow cooling air while voluptuous fenders arc, 1970s Dino style, into the windshield’s sharp angle. The shoulder-lines cut straight back into high-raised intakes that balloon out from the rear quarter panels as if bubbling from the V8’s heat.
A righteous glass canopy acts as display case to red-headed motor – a true work of art – and there’s a window to the mechanical wonder from inside the cabin, too. The quad tail lamps are stationed like rockets above the twin sets of dual exhausts pipes provide pleasing symmetry.
From inside the hide bound cockpit and behind the steering wheel, you’re treated to the potent taste of F1 technology. A clever little dial on the lower, right spoke allows for five settings from snow to psycho mode that tailors the E-Diff, traction control systems, ECU, and Skyhook suspension to your mood. Sport mode strikes the best balance and the technology stands as a beautiful affirmation of Ferrari’s purest ethos – let the driver decide (and make him look heroic)!
Your turn to drive.
Signature metallic ball-on-stick lever in hand, click it into first. Clutch pedal is light and is tightly tucked in with the stop and go pedals. Legroom is an improvement for Ferrari, though the front wheel well still cuts in.
Drop the hammer.
Eight cylinders ignite into a raging frenzy. Exhausts bellow and bray, drastically altering their tone and tenor each stage of the tach’s range.
Second gear. Speedometer needle spins upward as…
Shift now! You’re in third. With full throttle there’s just no time and…
You’re flying down a long descent that starts to ascend into a right hander into a forest so it’s time to…
Brake.
Pads clamp discs forcing the F430 to decelerate fast from three digits speeds. You detect a left-right-back-front tug as ABS and yaw control sensors fight a stoic battle against physics. You arrive at the uphill bend smoothly and notice that signature Ferrari poise as the rear hunkers down and tracks neatly with the front.
The F430’s handling is nothing short of a modern marvel and the power assisted steering betrays none of the road feel elicited from earlier unassisted setups. Perfectly weighted, the helm provides great assurance that the F430, locked on target, will go precisely where you point it.
Secreting a glance in the mirror, you’ll notice you’re spanning both ears with a Cheshire cat’s grin.
Cut.
Dr. Setter and I find our way to Cornwall Bridge and then up along Route Seven, a scenic yarn of tarmac that shadows the Housatonic River’s back and forth trail through a slice of Connecticut’s Appalachia. We circle back once we reach Falls Village and make a loop back to Litchfield.
A perfect slice of bucolic New England.
Pulling to a stop, I press the horn in appreciation – triggering Ferrari’s unmistakably strident siren. Dr. Setter nods, “That’s the sound of a traditional Ferrari horn! I installed it with help from another Ferrari owner . The factory horn sounded like something out of Detroit.”
Fortunately, the F430 observes most every other Ferrari tradition. And in a package so complete, for the bulk of the last decade, it pushed the boundaries of Italian performance well past the competition. It is fiercely capable and nearly peerless in the realm of road-legal performance cars.
That the F430 accomplishes all this while maintaining the Ferrari magic stands as a testament to Maranello’s enduring role as the world’s greatest purveyor of super cars.
Ferrari Concorso in Hartford, Connecticut
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img ADLX ::: Concorso Ferrari Hartford
THREE years straight, yours has been chided by various pushy people concerned parties into driving to Hartford to see the annual Concorso Ferrari on the grounds of the state capitol. And for three years, I didn’t go for one perfectly good reason or another.
Finally this year yours went to what was billed as the largest assembly of Ferraris on the east coast. That claim’s certainly plausible. There were Daytonas, F355s, F430s, Mondials, 330GTs, Testarossas, the new California, and the odd Maserati and Bentley – to name a few.
All told, more than 100 prancing horses were said to be in attendance.
Ferrari Club of America’s New England chapter coordinated the party faithful. And the event – held in honor of the Connecticut Children’s Hospital – included a parade through downtown Hartford followed by a judging on the grounds of the capitol.
A lovely afternoon and worth the trip. Pics to follow.
Beijing Motor Show: “Exclusively For China”
by Gunnar Heinrich ::: img withdrawn Citroën advert via Jack Yan’s Blog ::: 2010 Beijing Motor Show
CAR companies are falling over themselves to cater exclusively to the Chinese consumer this year; 2010 being the first full year that the PRC counts as the world’s largest automotive market.
As an American consumer, I feel a little slighted. What have we been all these years, chopped liver?
Let’s leave the political, economic, and perhaps social ramifications of this attention shift aside, and also that little factor that we might all be at war over Taiwan, Near-East oil, or somebody’s loss of face inside 20 years, and consider that the US car market, perhaps still the world’s most lucrative in terms of real dollars and cents, has seldom in recent times been the platform for such grand débuts or special acknowledgments by foreign car makers.
Here’s an informal rundown of pre-Beijing Motor Show announcements:
- BMW announced a solely-for-China Long-Wheelbase 5-Series
- Mercedes said they’d début the CLS Shooting Brake Concept (at the New York Auto Show, their big announcement was the updated R-Class – joy!)
- Ferrari’s billing it’s new 599GTO as its “fastest road car ever”
- VW will show off its new flagship Phaeton
- Citroën announced the Metropolis concept, designed and built in China
- Maybach’s unveiling its fresh new face to its über-saloon at Beijing (again, why not NY?)
- Bentley’s press release read “EXCLUSIVELY FOR CHINA” as they announced the Bentley Continental Flying Spur Speed China (say that ten times fast in Mandarin) and the Continental GT Design Series China
And so on and so forth. Yes, China is presently the great new over-heated economic frontier.
That said, let’s not forget that India and Brazil are also emerging as meaty new markets, too. And neither of these countries’ governments force foreign car companies to embed with domestic car makers.
You know, once you share trade secrets with your corporate partner, when you’re no longer a collaborative force the other party tends to remember all your best plays.
Given that Chinese corporate culture is as transparent as dragon scales and that the government’s penchant for subversive market intervention is quite real (Google), there’s a distinctly awful possibility that the auto industry’s zealous forays into the Land of Mao could backfire horribly in years to come.
Ah, well. We live to learn don’t we?
Welcome to LA
IN Brazil, a sign that you’ve “made it” is a helicopter that flies you safely above the fray- to and from your gated villa. In Washington, it’s a fleet of Secret Service driven Chrysler 300s that shadow your government tagged Lincoln or Cadillac.
In Los Angeles County, where the lofty image is every bit as vital as the achievement, social status starts and ends with the car. To this end, there exist far more Bentleys in Beverly Hills than drivers with the requisite wealth to own them outright.
That said, it’s a reasonable wager that Marky Mark was good for his black on black Azure.
Angelinos know their cars better than anyone.
That brilliant red 190SL that if housed in Connecticut would rust, smell of must, and might start on a warm day is in SoCal maintained as a more perfect everyday driver than it was when Max Hoffman imported it all those years ago.
And to paint an unreasonably broad picture, the same goes for pretty much any car – from vintage 80s Honda Accord to 2010 Audi R8.
Such is the dry climate that everything metallic just lasts. And lasts.
Which explains your sighting of that odd 70s Ford that you swore the Dude drove in The Big Lebowski. As much as LA pays lip service to anyone whose fame is older than 15 minutes, the city’s highways are surprising showcases for cars that time would’ve forgotten anywhere else.
In this vein, LA makes for much more exciting car watching than, say, Miami. There might be higher concentrations of Italian exotica in SoBe, but Floridians are all about financing, leasing, or renting the latest and greatest. Angelinos pay as much respect to a mint 1988 560SEC as they do a new CL65 AMG.
But here’s the Catch 22.
There are in fact so many Audis, Astons, Bimmers, Bentleys, Caddys, Lexii, Jaguars, Mercedes, Porsches, Ferraris, and Maseratis that for all the portent of these fine autos being poster vehicles for their drivers’ implied status and importance, their impact registers as white noise in the cattle herd of plodding traffic that forever clogs the 405.
Where else could spying not one, but three Ferrari Californias be considered everyday but in the city that has its own dedicated Ferrari/Maserati Collision Center? There’s a reason that every auto mag has a presence here. And a reason why every major auto maker has a design studio here.
Such is SoCal’s love affair with the automobile.
Hooray for Hollywood. And LA’s auto aficionados.
