812 Replacement Rumors

I don’t think anyone on this site is a poser but the nonFerrari enthusiasts out there may see us as such. My wife didn’t let me get a Bentley because she called it “an old man’s car”, (BTW I am getting up there), same for the Aston DBS SL when we took it for a test drive.
Why can’t Ferrari take the Lotus path and add lightness or McLaren for that matter. The 750S is about 2800 lbs dry and 3065 wet and has hypercar performance. The SP3 is 3275 lbs dry( a porker in weight and looks IMHO) and although it has a better engine than the McLaren it doesn’t perform nearly as well as a result. Now these are all midengine “race cars “ so why doesn’t Ferrari take the AMG Black (the latest putting in a phenomenal time at the Ring) route and lighten the car as much as possible? The majority on this site and Ferrari V12 buyers are probably interested in unassisted V12s, so why doesn’t Ferrari help its V12 front-mid cars by lightening the load? Performance both in the curves and straight lines improve.
I have asked this before but has any manufacturer dared to produce a front engined carbon tub car to decrease weight? The Merc McLaren SLR, Aston One77 and the Lexus LFA are the only ones I know of. If Ferrari can’t or won’t go that route then lighten the car with everything else carbon fiber and keep the aluminum frame they seem to be sticking with.
Would I love a Ferrari V12 true ie front engine GT that is comfortable beautiful and at least does a 10 sec 1/4 mi and a Ring time around 7 minutes? You betcha. My back would thank me and my wife would thank me.
Unfortunately I think we are going to get another heavy GT with 830 hp and Slide Slip Control Ver. Xxx with a marginally improved 1/4 mi of 10.3 and a Ring time of 7:15. All phenomenal numbers 10 years ago but not what we expect from Ferrari today.


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I know a few people that re-did their interiors in various cars, but yeah it's rare. Partly it takes serious sewing craftsmanship that simply isn't a common skill. And even then it can take a significant amount of time.

 

I’m not talking about leathers and stitching, plenty of people do that here. I’m talking a complete overhaul. Different design, different buttons, everything. Think of putting an F8 style interior in a 296, just as an example.

 

The thought of making lighter more engaging analog cars is dead at Ferrari. They are now catering to the new generation that want digital screens, Haptic Touch, batteries and unusable power. Just took out the 812 gts and the 458 on the same day and I experienced Ferrari peak. I guess if you don’t have access to these cars and have only driven the new ones you won’t know what you’re missing. The visceral rawness of the 458 and the magical v12 without the 1980’s processor speed electronics are car nirvana. I am not disparaging the new cars as they are very good at what they do but they lack emotion. It’s hard to describe but drive one of the slightly older cars and you’ll understand. In a generic AI world sometimes newer isn’t necessarily better.

 

Well the current crop of Ferrari customers is getting younger. Since 2018 sixty percent of Ferrari buyers are FIRST TIME buyers. The nostalgia aspect is diminishing in the rear view mirror.

 

Im hopeful that ferrari will pull something out of left field for us that want the old school experience. Maybe its the 812 successor or something else but would love to have na rear mid engined car. I know folks will argue that no way as it wont be fast etc but who cares, there are plenty of other ferraris that are for others that crave the speed. I hope ure listening ferrari…

 

A testarossa successor would be a dream for lots of nostalgics like me.
But unfortunately it won’t happen I fear.

 

....and there are some of us that love both approaches to the powertrain. I started with a 360 and have kept buying. Drove my 458 this weekend and the 296 last week and love them both. Other than being in the same weight range (296 is ~roughly 200lbs.more for 1/2 tank curb), their totally different approaches both allow me to have a great driving experience. I also believe that lighter weight frees up dimensions of handling and power. Assuming you do it well and not like a Lotus, but like an F50. When I say lighter, I mean 2400-2800 lbs. The closer one can get to that light weight feeling of a race motorcycle cutting amazing angles, the easier handling gets. At the same time, luxury interiors and some cool features will push the weight up. And I like some of these like the lifter and the JBL hi-fi. So (pun intended), where to balance must be a question in these days of radically increasing power.

When there are cars doing well over 1G sustained for 1/4 mile, it must be tempting for design and engineering to add more. Ironically, the driver’s and passenger’s weights will affect low weight cars much more than high-weight/high power. If you add a 150 lb passenger, you will feel it a lot more in a 2500 lb car than a 3800 lb car which is also quantifiable in torque/weight and hp/weight. Torque seems to be setting the performance headlines these days.

Ferrari having a spectrum of power units across markets makes sense to me. There are already different groups that have variable care about what the power unit is. So Ferrari is smart in addressing those groups and having to deal with differing country regulatory levels for emissions.

So we get to have fun with pure Ferrari ICE till at least the end of 2030, based on the most recent Ferrari financial analyst call. Ferrari also stated it plans on building ICE cars into the late 2030s. It was stated that they will have a three power unit approach of EV, hybrid, and ICE.

 

I drove our Testarossa yesterday, first time since October. I’ve been driving our 1989 911 Turbo LE more. I love them both. The only reason to not use the Testarossa was it was a couple deep in the garage so I was too lazy to get it out! I don’t really get why we should want Ferrari to build a ‘new’ Testarossa, or even a new old anything. We’ve been there. If you want the Testarossa experience go buy a Testarossa, it’ll be quite a lot cheaper than a new imitation one. And it will do the nostalgia thing much better. It’s reliable, solid and a really beautiful car. The sound is unrepeatable, as is the flat 12 engine - the world’s only one (and won’t be repeated by anyone so in fact, Ferrari can’t do another Testarossa really). But if they tried, the market would be quite small in my view. It’s not as easy to use as an 812 and maybe only 50kg lighter. This is a sum that would easily be accounted for by the move from 440hp to 800hp, including modern braking and electronics plus pedestrian safety and other crash and emissions legislation.

So if they did what the collective request seems to be here, you would have a smaller mid-engined V12 with a lighter weight. It would either be hypercar expensive (and therefore hypercar exclusive - and they’ve already done it; LaFerrari or F250 for example) or lower power. But even with lower power, they need to develop a brand new 500hp V12 at about 4 litres (takes some doing with a likely limited market - I doubt many buy a 500 hp, 1,500 kg, smaller front-engined Ferrari, much more compromised and slower than a Roma but still twice the price). Maybe you say you would but I doubt it. The odd one or two only. That leaves Icona series. Testarossa would be an ideal basis for an Icona, except they tend to like using the ‘pinnacle’ icons, race cars with lore and fame.

Ferrari’s direction is not a ‘modern’ thing. They’ve been heading here for 25 years. Probably before 90% of fchat bought any Ferrari. Today’s range is just a legislation-induced extension of the strategy LDM started with the 550. I just don’t get why we always whinge about it being a modern thing. The 550 arrived because of sound market considerations over the Testarossa. It was comparatively heavy, aluminium construction (I.e. relatively light, affordable and repairable), front-engined with a big, beautiful mid-V12 type design. All that’s happened since is more power, better brakes. Which of course needs better electronics to stop customers killing themselves (never a good look whatever we say). Add emissions and safety and voila, here we are. Given the limited additional weight after all that compared with a Testarossa, what are we all talking about?! Give them a break, they are doing a stunning job.

Perhaps they could do a better job with the haptics but everyone is at it. Porsche do it pretty well but they have a few hundred thousand vehicles over which to get it right. I can forgive Ferrari for that. I sort of get it, haptics theoretically allow two things; the ability to control ever-increasing driver functions, some of which are critical, through fewer buttons and second, the ability for designers to create a simpler and more free-flowing interior. You might say we don’t need all that but take the SF90’s headlight and HUD system for instance. Really valuable for night driving - and adds safety, which is important for such a powerful car - but the configurability is also important. Some may not want HUD, or auto beam with matrix for example. To do that without haptics means buttons all over the place. Or you just go back to Testarossa, slower speed, more dangerous (the lights are not great) and say “yeah, man, love the nostalgia”. So you’ve paid three times what it would cost for a Testarossa to get a car that is way off the pace in today’s environment. What do people say about Ferrari then?

You just can’t have high-volume, low weight, high power, safety, emissions met, at a reasonable price. Ferrari need to stay modern and relevant, a pinnacle motor car that has power, performance, beauty. It doesn’t have to have low weight. It needs to make people who buy one smile because this car is very different from the BMW they drive every day. They are not Lotus. And their front V12 line is not McLaren either. And I don’t think we want them to be. This is Luca’s vision. Fast, beautiful, practical, usable and desirable. And he didn’t build many cars that were lighter than what went before. He built cars that were not that much heavier given the added power and modernity.

 

I know I'm in the minority, but I prefer a coupe/GT as my daily over a sports car. Putting 68,000 mi on a 991.1 over two years confirmed that.

Some of us remember the days when we only had 4 choices: the small car with the engine in the rear, the bigger car with the engine up front, exterior color and interior color. Of course, only after having bought the obligatory used car in order to be allowed to talk to someone about having the honor to place a deposit and wait 5 years for the last year/end of run car for your first. Or you could have paid $50 over sticker for one with 7 miles on it.

IMO, once Ferrari put the engine in the rear, all 2 seater V12s whether flat or Vs became sports cars, not GTs.

Even after they put the engine back in the front, where God intended it to be, they remained sports cars, not GTs. Performance, weight, creature comfort, etc etc etc Aston makes (now made) V12 GTs, not sports cars, which is the biggest difference between the two. If anything, once Ferrari put the engines up front, the V8s (Cali and successors) have become the GTs. Again, IMO.

I don't care that the SF90 has become the "flagship" at all. Let it be the supercar, that everyone else (the C suite & new customers) want. I wholeheartedly disagree with lightening up and making the 167 to make it sportier now. That makes absolutely no sense to me at all. Do all that **** to the SF90, which is a sports car and take us back to what a front engine V12 should be- a GT. I want the F167 to be more of a daily driver than a track car.

My God man, there is more than enough power in the 812 as it is anyway. A little more weight to replace the clock radio with a real stereo and other creature comforts as well as moving the suspension settings one step softer would be more of a benefit than going in the opposite direction.

Sadly, this is the swan song for a Ferrari production V12, so whatever route they take I am fine with it, though I prefer buttons and hydraulic steering over electric. I just hope they don't **** up the design like they've done recently as there is not one production car in the current lineup (allocation status notwithstanding) that I want or would buy.

Again, just my opinion.

 

The discussion is very interesting, and we could talk about it for a very long time.
LCDM was fired because they always refused RACE. That's the most important reason. The rest is just a bad excuse.
His product strategy and his vision of Ferrari is the exact opposite of what is being done today. He was the guarantor of the past and the best representative of Enzo, today they are only the representative of RACE. He was looking for the content and the container , they are just now looking for extreme profitability.
As a result, today's cars are mostly made for the masses, and Ferrari customers don't have the same expectations as Murray's...
Who cares about weight and maneuverability apart from us...no one! On the other hand, the three-digit hp are enough to make them happy. We are a minority of knowing enthusiasts who are more boring for Ferrari than the other way around.
There will be no more central rear V12, because Ferrari has no reason to invest in this car today. SP3 does the job perfectly at a crazy selling price...
the order books are full, no need to make efforts... The masses are happy.
Ferrari no longer has in its catalog, with the exception of 167, a car for enthusiasts.
Strategically, at the product plan level, there was room to do something different.
LCDM would probably have done things very differently. He would certainly not have built a huge extension of the factory to produce his own "made in Maranello" batteries, because in the current context of thinkers, this will have the same value as the V 12 made in Maranello, claiming as at the time "we build our engines", it will be "we build our batteries", what added value...and above all what disconnection with reality...Maybe new customers will like the parallel...
But the badge is enough to sell without too much effort... Yet the prices have doubled and the quality is not really there. When you take most of the interiors, it's pretty cheap overall, and there's so much plastic
and bad screens
, including the exterior, that you have to add 100k of options to get something decent...the stock paints are still drowned in varnish and orange peel... For half the price, in terms of construction and materials, you take a Bentley Continental GT and it's day and night... But hey, the badge is enough. ..and it is enough even to the point of selling his soul and producing an SUV that was not necessary for the vital health of the company.
Add to that the artificial design of the cars, the constantly increasing weight (
weigh a Challenge stradale and a Pista then compare...)
, the designs where one team does the front and another the rear, then we assemble the two, the 6 cylinders at the price of 12... and we arrive at a conclusion which is mine: regression in terms of emotion and experience of driving and ownership. I am not opposed to progress, except in this case where it is regressive...Give me a T 33, every day...against any current Ferrari, including F 250.
I need emotions, no raw numbers closer to aviation than to the road...

 

Ferrari could easily build a 650-700 hp 4.0 l V12 that revs to 10K and stick it in the rear of a 2900 lb car. The demand would be endless.

 

Make it a manual and people would revert to human sacrifice.

 

I didn't want to go too crazy. But the thought crossed my mind as I wrote that post. Ha.

 

Funny convo I had a couple weeks ago along the line of this subject - I was at Road Atlanta for Ferrari Challenge. There's a lot of sitting around between driving sessions. So we got to talking about what would you do if you had $200B (like Elon). I said, instead of buying Twitter, I would buy Ferrari (similar price) and from thereon out Ferrari would only make two basic cars (i) 2600 lb front and rear engine V12s and (ii) 2900 lb V8 hybrid (no turbo). Elon if you are listening!

 

Sadly nothing but the truth... Opposite to Porsche which has also drastically increased its product output, models, profit, quality and customization but kept a few of its exciting cars alive...at least for now.

 

Uboat commander for président !

 

porsche gt3 has covered that segment

 

I think you answered your own question. The only reason you would need $200bn is because you’d need a good part of it to make such a generous gesture to the Ferraristi - you would see very little of it back. The cost to develop and produce those cars in high volume would be sensationally high and you would probably have to charge below your build cost to make sure they sell. We can criticise Ferrari for RACE but there aren’t many competitors who can make the sums work. McLaren have really struggled, Lamborghini would be bankrupt if not for VW AG and Porsche have only survived by building 200,000+ cars, mostly SUVs. I really don’t get why people are so down on Ferrari. Sure, it would be nice to have 1,200kg V12 in theory, but in practice, for it to be cost-effective the quality and size would just not be what most people have wanted a Ferrari V12 for in the last few decades. Their reputation was made on this engine but not in the same ways as Lotus. Ferrari and Lotus, very different brands. If you want a lightweight, buy an Emira, they’re brilliant.

 

I heard from a few sources that Ferrari won’t be investing in another V12 so variants of the current 6.5L V12 is what we’ll see till the end of the decade albeit without the bit of analog feel that the gto and tdf had and mist likely without the sound as well.

this is the question are there any restrictions on sound from upcoming regulations likely to affect the sound and emotion of the 812 replacement?

 

Yes

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/149012450/

 

Great summary btw. On the subject of quality I drove my SF90 the other day - you cannot believe the reflection in the windscreen when the sun is low - coming off the HUD and matt carbon surfaces behind the instrument binnacle. Even in the 60s they knew to put non-reflective fabrics on the dash. I cannot believe Ferrari does this today - clearly shows profit purpose over purity of design.


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I could name plenty of issues in terms of reduced quality for the sake of money making. The latter one being an understanding aim it should not end up in antagonized customers who feel cheated when prices sharply go north in parallel.

 

An airplane is totally designed for efficiency. Take a look at the legendary A-12 Oxcart or the SR-71 Blackbird: absolute efficiency and no compromises!
Today's Ferrari models are light years away from this principle. And if this plane looks nice, it's because no compromises were made and simply no designers were employed.
So it always bothers me when F. Manzoni compares his design to airplanes or spaceships... has this man ever seen a Blackbird? Kelly Johnson was a master... unmatched to this day!

 

Wearing polarized Sunglasses helps eliminate glare Also helps in improving the view outside the windshield