Ferrari F80

The 330 P4 was a pure racing machine built 39 years before the P4/5 which is a road legal car. It is true that the P4/5 has some reminiscences of the 330 P4 in terms of design, namely the bonnet duct and the side air intakes, but as the picture below shows the two cars are very different. I really like the lines and the design of the P4/5 but for my taste the 330 P4 is not so appealing.



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I said it back then and I still think the same: the P4/5 is a great execution of a bad idea. I´m not a great fan of "remaking" the classics, but even copying is difficult and Pininfarina did it right. I´m not against "retro" per se; the Dodici Cilindri does it right because it copied the proportions of the Daytona without copying a single line (except the front, wich I think is the worst part of the car).

 

p4/5 is a masterpiece imo both in design and engineering - shaving 617 lb off the Enzos weight whilst retaining the same engine says everything!

 

Gret discussion. I think you also need to consider the P4/5 was designed to appeal to 1 client. This is a different design mission than designing a car that needs to be come an icon for a generation. Both are tough assignments for different reasons. I think they succeeded in both.

 

P4/5 C never set a Nordschleife time, it was estimated. The car completed the full NS + F1 Circuit lap and they extrapolated from that, which is not official and doesn't complete a full NS lap, therefore pure BS and no history was made.

"the fastest lap ever in a Ferrari-powered vehicle" was pure PR in his crusade against Ferrari.

Anyway, back to the F80.

 

The Ferrari 599XX in 2011 got an official Fiorano lap time of 1:15.00 which is lower than the 1:15.30 of the F80 in 2024.

The 599XX in 2010 got an official Nurburgring Nordschieife lap time of 6:58.16, the fastest lap time ever recorded until 2010 for a production-derived sports car. It's true the P4/5 C Nordschieife lap time is not official and as you indicated it was extrapolated to obtain the 6:51. In any case and even if a margin for error is considered the P4/5 C, despite not having the Ferrari badge, was at least as fast as the 599XX.

 

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No offense to anyone getting an F80.

But the more I look at it, the less appealing it looks to me.

It's a car that really doesn't grow on you. Unless, you consider it a bad rash of some sort.

 

Aren't you lucky that you don't have to buy one then.

 

Some comparative pictures between the F80 which is a road car that can also be used on the track and the one-off P80/C which is a pure track machine based on the 488 GT3 chassis and designed without any restrictions. The P80/C was first shown in 2019 and is considered the most extreme one-off ever produced in Maranello. The P80/C has a length of 4,618 mm compared to the F80 4,840 mm.

How fast is the P80/C around a circuit no one knows exactly but what is assumed is that it is at least as fast as the 488 GT3. If Fiorano’s official lap time for the 599 XX is 1:15.00, identical to that of the F80, the only comparison I could find with the P80/C is the following. The Imola lap time of the 599XX is 1:48.65 and that of the 488 GT3 is 1:42.56.


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The P80/C, Omogalato, and the Unica are incredible one-offs. The Unica seems like the most complete design. The P80/C has a super bold presence. But, car doesn’t have the same feel as I walked a circle around it. It looked like different cars from different angles. Which was very cool. The Unica just feels complete and consistent all angles around the car.

 

The F80 looks awful in photographs, its a design that only works when you see it in person, human proportions from a vantage point of standing next to it. Its a 0 out of a 10 in photos, and a 9 our of a 10 in person, trust me..

Reserve your opinion until you see it in person, outside with a single light source. That is how cars are designed to be viewed. And not in the awful color they painted this show car (Mazda mid-size SUV red).

 

Are you referring to the iconic rosso corsa?

 

Nope, the new Rosso Supercar, the color of the F80.

 

To be fair, don't you think a car, if it looks good, should look in all situations, not just in person with perfect lighting?

 

So by your logic, the F80 will be slower than a 296gtb around Nurburgring.

 

And not even a factory effort. All this lap-times by proxy thing is nonsensical. Get all the cars on the same day and track, with the same driver and it only then makes sense. Or even better, bring in factory drivers, who will be able to drive each car to its absolute limit. That is one video I would love to see. Press cars with factory test/racing drivers, shooting it out.

 

In this post the only thing I was trying to compare were the times obtained by the 599XX and the P4/5 C at the Nurburgring Nordschieife where, curiously, the overall average speed per lap is not very different from that of Fiorano although the average top speed is higher at the former. However, the Nordschieife with its 20.8 km and 154 turns (more than 7 turns/km) and Fiorano with just 3 km and 12 turns (4 turns/km), are two completely different circuits.

At the moment, in terms of circuit performance, Fiorano’s lap times are the only ones that allow us to compare the F80, the 296 GTB and the 599XX. The 599XX is the one that has the lowest Fiorano’s lap time although with a very small difference to the F80 and the 296 GTB is around 6-7 seconds slower than the other two.

 

I have a degree in automotive design and when design a car we focus on how the design works when you stand next to it, both far and close. Also, we sit in chairs that represent the average drive/seat height of other cars which allows us to see how the car will look when viewed from people sitting in their cars on the road.

This is the focus, and should be the focus because that is what is viewed. Of course you want to make it look great from every angle, but when you see a photo, and the design is not working its because of a compressed vantage point, and proportions that are off due to the horizon line and how the eye views items that are outside of an in person sightline. This is why you often hear (car looks so much better in person).

When I see the front of my house and walk around my house it looks great, but when I take a photo of my house with a drone looking directly down at the roof it does not.

 

The F80 looks stunning.
If people took their time to understand the philosophy behind the design, there would not have been so many negative comments.

We live in a world dominated by social media. Everything is instant, we get a glimpse of something, we must form an opinion on the spot. It’s just the way it works.

By the time we get the next halo car, majority will love the F80.

About the launch color, I couldn’t have said it better myself.

 

Those must be tall chairs in this age of SUVs!

No understanding of a "design philosophy" can change my opinion of a car's beauty. It may make think the designer is clever - or not. But my assessment of its beauty is subjective and instinctive, not cerebral. I can often point out the elements that I like and dislike, but I could never explain why I don't like them any more than I can explain why I might find a woman beautiful.

The F80 is different and jarring. It's squarish and angular. It has the (extremely) divisive black blade. I don't find it surprising that something so new and different would be met with such mixed reactions.

Time will tell how many people grow to like it as the initial shock wears off. Certainly some will. But again, I think for most people, this would be a subconscious adjustment, not something cerebral. And I don't see a problem with that.

 

May be you, but not everybody.
You should never draw conclusions about others from yourself.

Marcel Massini

 

Acting/reacting solely on instinct is not ideal.

What if, your instincts are completely wrong?

By understanding the design philosophy this is what I meant, let go of your initial instincts, give it time and a proper thought, only then will you understand true beauty that the F80 is.

 

2013 —> Laferrari launch (Geneva International Motor Show)

2024 —> F80 launch (Shmee150, YouTube)

 

If I need to understand the "design philosophy" behind something to appreciate it's features, then it lacks natural design beauty. This is why we have immutable principles like the "Golden Ratio".

When I hear someone say, "you don't understand the philosophy behind this, and that's why you don't like it," it reminds me of the first time I saw a Jackson Pollock painting. At some point, I don't even want to understand the design philosophy underpinning the car or artwork in question.

I just can't be bothered.