599 Review

In October last year a friend of mine collected his 599 GTB and have spent some time in the car since, albeit only in the passenger seat. Around the same time I started working on a review and I am sure you will agree putting something together that does the 599 justice wasnt easy, especially not when you are also busy with a review of a 430 Challenge.

Of course I needed to be sure the reivew was of a decent standard before posting it here, as in my experience web forums contain some of the harshest critics you will find anywhere!

(just a little bit of backround I have contributed to the South African Ferrari Club Magazine on occasion, am NOT a journalist though)

Here is the review, comments good, bad, constructive much appreciated!

"To understand the brilliance of the 599 GTB one needs to look back 30 years to the first supercars, most were extremely beautiful but for an owner these cars were far from practical, in fact in many ways the first supercars were merely racing cars made road legal, there were few concessions to comfort and reliability was usually far from a certainty. These supercars were the expression of mans desire to go very fast and to look good. 30 odd years ago Ferrari’s flag ship was the 365GTB/4, that car boasted 352 bhp from its 4.4 liter V12, itself a direct descendant of a racing engine. The performance figures were ground braking even if the technology wasn’t; a top speed of 280 km/h was truly headline stuff back in 1971.

Fast forward to 1987 and the launch of an icon, a car that I personally revere, the mighty F40, the F40 had the distinction of being the first road car to have a top speed of more than 320 km/h, it did this by being a light weight racing car for the road. There were no creature comforts of any description; it also possessed a truly unique aura.

You might ask what this has to do with the 599 and it’s very simple, the 599 has a top speed approaching 340 km/h, a 0-100 time of 3.4 seconds and one person I have spoken to has driven one at 325 km/h and remarked how easy it was. The figures suggest a low weight racing car but the reality is this is a car 1600 kg GT car that is as comfortable dawdling around the city as it is blasting around race tracks.

Walking up the 599 one is struck by the styling that’s both rounded and beautiful but also aggressive and assertive, not since I saw an F40 for the first time has a Ferrari had such aggressive yet beautiful styling. It’s a clever design, the dimensions suggesting a large car but no matter how you look at it, it never seems large and overbearing.

Climb inside and you enter surely one of the best Ferrari interiors, everything falls easily hand, F1 technology has been applied in such a way that it makes the car more user friendly; the toggle on the back of the steering wheel for example is useful for scrolling through the OBC and it various functions

Everything pales though when you start that V12, the roar from the tail pipes leaves one in no doubt that this V12 once resided in the Enzo. Out on the road this car is nothing short of staggering, the power being relentless. Acceleration slams one back into the seat as one blasts up the road, ones senses are overwhelmed by the acceleration and power but the sound this engine makes is of the goose bump inducing variety. The F1 gearbox is nothing short of superb, the changes being so fast that one hardly even notices the, this is especially true in race mode.

Out on the open road the 599 just wants to go, at 250km/h it’s just getting into the stride but behind this mighty performance lies a car that will happily cruise around the city all day, a car that is comfortable and as well equipped as a luxury saloon. The dual personality defines the 599, one minute is a great luxury cruiser and the other it’s a bellowing, roaring V12 monster. Handling is nothing short of remarkable, the 599 simply doesn’t feel its size.

One gets out of the 599 slightly dazed the car is shatteringly fast as to make almost any other fast car seems irrelevant but it’s the usability that amazes in equal measure, back in 1971 you wouldn’t want to sit in Friday rush hour and rain pouring rain in your 365 GTB/4, the 599 just shrugs its shoulders and behaves impeccably.

We are talking about a car here that doesn’t know compromises, everything it does it does superbly well but don’t confuse this ability with a car that clinical, the 599 is far from clinical. The passion that makes all Ferraris special is there and its there in bucket loads, that feeling of sitting in the latest in a long line of V12 powered Ferrari is unrivalled. Hearing that V12 bellow and scream, the sound echoing off the buildings, the feeling of those mighty brakes as you stop in impossibly short distances.

Its hard so sum up the 599 without looking back, standing next to every Ferrari is a thrill, they are all special, all possess the ability to draw you in, all will give you an incredible driving experience, however when I stand next to the 599 there is a feeling of standing next to something epic, something so utterly bewitching. Ones stomach ties itself in knots, ones palms get slightly damp and dare it I say it there is an inkling of fear. The only other Ferrari that has ever given me the same feeling is the mighty F40, praise comes no higher."

 

The perspective I am comming from is that 20 years after the F40 we have a car with better performance, car that can be driven by most people. Whether a supercar should be so usuable is a debate in itself. Perhaps where the 599 brakes ground is that it is usable in almost any environment.

Obviously your experience is rather more vast than mine but to me the 599 embodies all of the supercar thrills in a practical package that demands few comprises from owners.

Of course there is technology that contributes to its brilliance and sometimes I wonder and this is a generalization and not directed at you, if some Ferraristi want bare basic cars that are too extreme and hardcore to actually be driven, no doubt there is a place for this but on paper one can see that even the 430 Scuderia is not as extreme some respects as the 360CS.....

Having said all that should I ever be in the position of choosing between an F40 or a 599 I cant honestly say what I would choose.....

 

Will due respect from the passenger seat on can feel such things as body roll and on the track one can definately feel lateral grip and the behavior of the rear end through high speed corners, the same is true of ride quality over bumps and such like.

 

Was waiting for this, have driven his 430, 355 and Gransport.....I think I have been around here long enough to not be considered another MDN exotics character or a phantom or a 13 year old kid. There are also F Chatters in SA that have met me.

Perhap a seperate thread needs to ne started as to what a supercar really is because to me anything that goes like the 599 does can be considered a supercar.

Of course in raw thrills it cant be compared to the F40 but lets be honest the F40 and its like were thinly disguised racing cars...

 

Agreed that technology is constantly advancing but in some respects the 599 has done as much to revolutionise the performance car as the F40 did back in 1987.
At the end of the day its all about enjoment, everyone has a differant set of criteria as to how thet judge and look at things, for some people a Ferrari is great because of the way peple look at them when they drive it, for others its the history, for others it could be the performance. My point is to clearly define a supercar as being a specific thing is perhaps incorrect as the supercar has evolved and changed a lot in the last 20 or so years.

 

Must say I was a bit surprised about some of the flack, but honestly I enjoy good debate and perhaps these forums are a great place to do that in an evironment where everyone can have their say and be truly transparent, though of corse some people choose to deceive, I am not one of those people so comments such as Darths dont really deter me much. Further I firmly beleive that forum debates should be about the subject matter and one should avoid deviating from that start assessing the character of other posters

Just my R2

 

I agree in part but then the CGT cant be called a supercar either as Porsche sold as many as they could, there was never a finite set number to be produced....