What key elements makes a good or great ferrari?

You make a great point. There is just nothing like the wail of a Ferrari engine. Nobody can capture the sound or the character. Even in a car as over the top as the testarossa, the character comes not from its eccentric body, but from its race derived "flat" 12.

I can literally listen to a 355 at full song for hours on end.

Ferrari does many things well, but ferrari is first and foremost the maker of the finest automotive engines in the world.

 

A good Ferrari is one that was built before 1960.
A great Ferrari is one that only a few remain intact.

 

2) A great Ferrari has a manual transmission and a single throttle plate per cylinder.

 

Start with a great body. Think of women, some tall some short some big boned some lithe. It does not matter the style there a re beautiful and alluring women of all styles.

A grerat ferrari must be beautiful and alluring, many are some are not.

Like a fine gun it must be a mechanical piece. Stand next to any ferrari starting up, you can literaly hear all the pieces meshing and then ignition takes place, everything comes alive win whirrs and sound, you can visualise all the pieces of the motor working as each has its own sound present..

A great ferrari is like a living mechanical thing.

A great ferrari has a motor that sings an operatic soprano, easily controlled with your right foot, mpreferably on a flowing winding road.

When you look inside any great ferrari, your emotion is to just jump in and start driving, you can feel the energy rising within you, the machine calls to you..

The contorls must be alive and full of feel. It is a car that talks to you as you go down the road.

A great ferrai has good days and bad days, on the good days you forgive it everything.

A great ferrari is like an extension of your body projected onto the road. As you drive your mind melds with the machine and everything else fades away. Man and machine become one, the controls are an extesion of you and your will.

Lastly when you park it, you always look back, because it is a thing of beauty.

many other marques have numbers of these elements, none have all of them in one vehicle.

 

Well done George, you've nailed it. I believe the OP wanted to know what made a great Ferrari, and you've dribbled on about your hate of the one of the most well respected cars, and not just Ferrari, of all time. And then you propose a red 456? Perhaps YOU should put the bottle down? I drove one recently and I was 'disappointed' is what I will kindly say. And you've got the worst color on that car by miles...

For me, a great Ferrari engages the driver, makes glorious sound, and is beautiful. V8 or V12, both are fantastic!

 

Why buy a Ferrari if you can buy prettier, better handling, better quality control, better gearbox, and faster?

In my opinion, Ferrari is beautiful. Some Ferrari can handle well and some Ferrari can perform well.

I am lucky many Ferrari owners value numbers produced more than performance and handling. This offers many Ferraris cheaper priced for enthusiasts who want performance.

I look at Ferrari and judge a car like any other. I want to drive it.

I see two choices for Ferrari. Ferrari can improve faster than everyone and make the best supercars. Or Ferrari can increase prices faster than everyone and have an exclusive supercar.

 

Or both.

Fearri is doing just fine.

Corvette can try go cheapo again and try get the production volume it needs, but wont get there, or It can try make a really great product. From what I see they're going to try make a 50K vette which will be like el cheapo and a much faster vette for over 100k which will perform but still be only bang for the buck. Because the engine is in the front it will lack tactility and that sharp turn in, the driving experience will be doomed like all vettes to that feeling of sitting just in front of the rear wheels, as opposed to over the fronts where the action is.

Its not just how fast you go, but how you go fast.


If all I wanted to do was tell time I could wear a casio digital. I like my Jaeger for many reasons one of which is it keeps good time.

In the immortal words of Dr Evil, "ya just dont get it, do ya Scott"

 

You are correct that a Corvette can go fast. A Corvette can take curves better than many supercars and Ferrari. You should drive a Corvette.

Since when is $100,000 cheap?

I saw a Ferrari Mondial offered for $20,000. A Quarter mile in 17 seconds. I suppose if you own one, you don't want to talk about performance or handling. You want to talk about subjective feelings.

 

Yeah thats the problem with vettes, at $100k+ they are not cheap. But the shutlines are aweful, only my elsie is worse, the interior is shamed by crappy rental cars and the various GM bits here and there bring the whole experience down, yet it costs 100K+. If Hyundai can make a Genesis V8 for 50k the vette shoudl at least be well built.

As to going round corners better. Maybe on some paper soec, running R compounbd tires assuming there are no ripples in the road to upset the vette suspesion it can go round acorner quicker than most anything. How Often do you drive round bends at 120+ because thats the speed you need to do to get enjoyment from the vette expoerience.

Even a lowly modial to use your example would be more "fun" than a vette except maybe aC2 at fatser than normal speeds on a twisty road.

Its the same reason the last GT3 porche was so popular, it clearly was not as fast as a Zo6 or even a more modern ferrari. But it was more than fast enough, and a rewading challenge to drive for most drivers, pros included. We do all this driving street and track for fun. If all I cared about was fatstest lap times, as a semi ami professional matuer then I would be fatsest in a Nissan GTR. In fact I would porobably be fastest in a fully programed computer car where all I have to do is tell the keyboard how fast i want to take abend and le the computer detirmine how fast this can be done.

A Vette is like a Las vegas gal from claifornia , she will do everything right going though the motions and blow you like no other, and is low maintanace. A ferrari is like a tempramental red headed girfriend, lots of admin and attention needed, when it grooves its a full on experience with love and passion, covering all the arts of love, even if the blow job is not as good as the blonds.

As to comparing vettes to Mondials, How about if I compare an 82 Vette to any mondial.

Or maybe another example is more apt. A citation jet is pretty much going to outperform a P51 in almost evey objective measure, and be more practical and useful. But which one would you rather take up into the wild blue yonder for a couple of hours of pure adrenal joy.

But yes If i lived with straight roads and stoplights as my tarmac canvass, then yes a vette would be more fun and pratical.

If I lived on US1 south of carmel, then even a lowly mondial qv would be more applealing and fun.

Horses for courses.

 

A combo of:

- Engine noise. It has to have a great engine noise.
- Designed in a way that makes you want to study it.
- Has to make you feel like a lucky guy getting to experience one.


Also, IMHO:

Good Ferrari: A product of marketing forces (California and FF, I'm looking your way!)
Great Ferrari: When their main objective is to create a thrilling driving machine (lightweight + flagship Ferraris)

 

A V12 motor. Period!

 

Any Ferrari that I can afford to put in my garage is a GREAT Ferrari, all other Ferrari's are just nice cars.

 

Why are Corvettes making their way into a thread about "what makes a Ferrari great"?