Interesting Article...

Bye.

 

+1000

 

+100000

 

Nailed it. This is the kind of stuff I would expect from a third-world banana republic intent on showing the emperor on the finest regalia. You build a good car, people like it, they will buy it and support you. All this manipulation is rather beneath the marque.

 

"Ferrari forbidding journalists to drive other people's Ferraris without their giving permission?!?"

I would like to know how they do that. I am an automotive journalist myself, so I know the business. And I experienced first hand that Ferrari can be 'a tad' less flexible than other manufacturers, but I really wonder how they would make this happen.

Natan

 

Geez Tony: Take a aspriin and sit down a bit. You might want to lay off the cursing for a while because it doesn't help your arguments.

First, I never said I excused their or anyone else's actions.

Second, I said the author has lost all credibility by pointing out one manufacturer and not others.

Third, if you don't think press manipulation happens in just about all fields (including automotive), we can stop this conversation right here because you simple haven't the capacity to understand what goes on in public relations.

Fourth: You know what? I don't think it's such a terrible thing to ask the reviewer to only review cars they gave them. Apple did the same thing when the missing Iphone 4 showed up on Gizmondo. You do want some kind of control on what is said about your products. Call it overbearing but to be honest, it's not really that unreasonable. They have EVERY right to ask a reviewer to review any car they factory test. YOU as the reviewer, can say "yes" or "no". That's the price you pay for press access to Ferrari: something you and I and all but the best customers will never get. To you, that's overstepping. To Ferrari, it only make sense that tests are done under their supervision.

Fifth: Bibery. That's pretty laughable. Everyone is manipulated in public relations. That's what public relations IS. Now, if Harris had said "Ferrari paid me money to say this", then yes, that's bibery. But in no way is a trip to Italy and some good pasta bibery. And, in no way is holding cars from some sources and giving it to others bibery. It's just good business.

Sixth: Every company has the right to how it's products are reviewed and place restrictions on what the reviewer can say. The reviewer has two choices. He can say "forget it" or he can say "OK". But, when you say "OK" and then you assault the person giving you this opportunity, you're nothing but a back stabber who will lose all credibility in your profession.

Seventh: Strong arming journalists: I would have thought you wouldn't have a problem with this. After all Enzo did it all the time. Freedom? Give me a break. There is no freedom in PR. It's ALL manipulated. Everything in PR is manipulated. It's the game. Why? Because its NOT the press we are talking about. Harris is not a reporter: he's just a critic.

What Harris does is NOT journalism. He's a car reviewer. There are critics for food, for movies, for new electronic gadgets, for infomercial products, for everything. He's not investigating anything. He's just giving you his opinions which you can take or dismiss.

Which brings me to my point. This is NOT the best piece of journalism I've seen in years. It's not journalism.

It's by his own admission a rant from a frustated car reviewer who has unfortunately just thrown away his career by showing he can no longer be objective.

 

A great post even if I dont agree with a lot of it. Again look at the timing of this article, convenient I think to put it mildly! I see no harm whatsoever in sending crews to assist journalists, provided the journalist is actually doing the driving when the cars are figures are taken.

Fact unbiased journalism is impossible to find and unfortunately this exhibits more than a bit of bias, particularly when apart from sending technicians Ferrari isnt actually involved in the direct road test.

I do agree that not allowing private cars to be driven in ridiculous, the point of this is unclear.

Lets look at it this way, will you adevertise in a publication thats slams your products, will you invite said publication to launches of course NOT. I sometimes wonder about the sheer volume of Porsche adverts in every publication and am amazed that said publications find their products faultless.....

This is always going to be a debate where we will eventually agree to disagree but for me the article reaked of sensationalism and its the type of thing one would expect to find in a tabloid, lastly I wonder why no motoring publication would publish it, seeing as many say its so factual.

If its the job to report the truth, why didnt he do it back in 2000 with the 360 Modena, why wait 10 year to report the supposed truth...why not after the 599 incident, why not after the Scud....

None of us knows to the extent the marking departments involve themselves with editorial but I am sure they do play a role, to greater and less degrees.If you think this article will actually cause slower Ferrari sales I highly doubt that, frankly I dont think they care too much about a Porsche fanatic journalist.

I will say though its a pleasure to debate this topic.

 

Another great post!

 

When I throw in a curse word, or use bold/caps, it's carefully thought out and intended for effect! And I didn't type that standing!

 

It's OK Tony. I can see how some may feel that PR is a just a bunch of howie and everything they read is total BS.

But, to a large degree -- it is. That's what PR is all about: Giving and controlling your BS to the public.

Is it right? No. Should it be cleaned up? Well, maybe this will get the conversation going.

 

Like many not-so-clearly-defined professions, the practice of public relations sees a large degree of ethical discord. The PRSA and the academics who try to shape the profession invoke a higher ethical standard than what is often seen in practice . . .

 

First of all, this is a great thread.

When I first read the article I thought to myself "Well this is no big surprise, every manufacturer does this." Case in point was the now infamous Nissan GT-R Nurburgring lap time.
And then I thought to myself that Ferrari is taking this way too far.
But now, after reading all the posts and thinking deeper about this, I see nothing wrong with what Ferrari is doing.

I think every manufacturer should be allowed to "tune" their cars to perform at its very best for a given test. And by "tune", I don't mean by adding horsepower. I mean making stock adjustments to the stock factory setup (not by adding or subtracting parts, with exception of tires). Very few consumers will put their F-car on a track, yet we do track tests anyway. Why? Because we want to see how one car's performance is relative to another. So you are doing a slalom, skidpad, and braking test between a Lotus Exige and a 430. Well, the Exige comes with R-compound tires that are basically street legal racing slicks. Why should Ferrari not be allowed to put R-compounds on the car it submits for the test.

Next you do a test where you are measuring lap times.
The track happens to be a tight technical track. Why not allow for dialing in more negative camber? I think that it is a fair assumption that most customers will do this anyway if they take the car on the track. If it were a Porsche GT3, adjust the rear wing to allow for maximum or minimum downforce, depending on what that specific track dictates.

What I am trying to say is that every car comes from the factory with a "default" setup. It has to be set up with a series of compromises to appeal to all customers. I think that it is perfectly legitimate that Ferrari, as well as all manufacturers be allowed to properly "tune" their cars away from that default setup in order to compete at its best for the test on hand.
It just so happens that Ferrari is more strict than other manufacturers in making sure that their cars are represented in the best light possible.

Ok, I am done now.

 

No wrong? Do you work for them?

I absolutely do NOT agree that the manufacturer can change tires, geo, etc. before a press review (its radically changing a cars behaviour.. hell why not use a racing driver in place of the press guy too... ) because they'll NEVER give these secrets of setup out to the general public.

... **If** they offered dealers a track setup service, thats all fine and dandy but they don't so it doesn't make sense to essentially 'doctor' a car just to make it look better in 'road car' tests.

Sorry, the idea is a concept FRAUD, its a FAIL...

 

Great post!
As a die-hard F40 man, I was left with a little smirk near the end of the article.

 

I have always enjoyed Chris Harris's journalism and was happy when i saw he had started writing for EVO, as it's been by far my favourite magazine ever since the 1st edition.

But I can completely understand Ferrari's side of there accused media dealings.

Ferrari know a lot of the motoring media and auto world in general are out to try and knock them down, and they have much more to protect then any other performance car makers/racers.

When Ferrari send out test teams to "over see" data testing its purely so the can be sure that the maximum has been extracted from there cars, and to try and reduce as many variables as possible. Worn tires or tired brakes can easily reduce a lap time by many seconds, and Ferrari know how much people wrongly rate cars due too pointless lap times and performance figures.

If Ferrari really are highly tuning there Press car engines, why are more owners not reporting that there cars are falling short? The internet is full of GPS performance figures from various sources for all the modern Ferrari's and they are all personally owned (let alone the countless videos of 1/4 mile runs and side by side acceleration tests with other marques), and they always get very close too, match or even beat published magazine figures.

Ferrari's discomfort with journalists using owners cars for reviews makes perfect sense to me. As Ferrari has no idea how these owners cars have been treated in there lifetime, and what condition they are in while being tested.
A good example of this was when EVO took a bunch of supercars to the Ring to set laptimes, including a customer owned Enzo. The car had technical problems with its suspension while lapping, which resulted in the car not posting as fast a laptime as would of been possible without the technical issues. We will never know if these problems were down to previous abuse, maintenance, faulty parts etc, but the recorded time stands, and was still printed, and is often quoted (without explanation) on many sites and data-basis's.

Has anyone also thought that Ferrari's reluctance towards Chris Harris (and other journalists) is due to there own previous behaviours and bias's. Harris is one of the biggest Porsche fan's writing for any major publications today. He not only owns a GT3, but as others on this thread have pointed out, he often races for the Porsche factory teams.

 

No, I don't work for Ferrari.
You are entitled to your opinion, as am I.
Unfortunately, most of the buying public is only focused on numbers, and I would guess that a large part of the Ferrari buying public never brings their car to a track.
They are much more interested in which car has the most HP, which one laps the ring faster, which is faster from 0-60.
Just to they can brag about it in their social circles.

So if Ferrari knows that one of their cars is going head to head with the competition to see which is faster around a certain track, then they should be able to set up the car to extract maximum performance for that track. I am not talking about engine tuning here. But a GT3 with sport cup tires is going to have an advantage over a 430 equipped with tires more geared for the street.

And allowing a customer's car to be involved in a test is just utterly stupid.

 

It's kind of like belt changes every 3 years, or die!

 

You obviously haven't read his stuff. His videos on the 458 and the Scud proclaim how brilliant they are.

 

He does proclaim there brilliant, right up to the point where he proclaims how much more brilliant the Porsche in the same test is !

 

After having read this entire thread of drivel, I realize two things:

1. I need to get out of the house more, and

2. Who cares? At the end of the day they are just cars, bought mostly by people who are more interested in the best valet spot, than hunting for the correct apex. The only thing these magazine numbers are good for are chest thumping at Starbucks.

As for me, I'll go put some more canyon and track miles on my CS and not give a hoot what nonsense Ferrari, Porsche, et al are doing with press cars. Nor will I care if 'God forbid', a few more miles on my car might depreciate it.

At the end of the day, life and these cars are about creating memories and experiences.... not magazine stats.

 

Anyone who has ever dyno'ed a Ferrari knows how inflated their numbers are.

I do think Ferrari probably does it worse than the others. For example, the SAE has a very strict horsepower test method. If you follow it, your numbers will be quite a bit lower than they would be if "tricks" were used (like dynoing on a cold engine in cold weather, etc).

I felt really bad for a few guys who brought their Ferraris to a dyno day we did once... the numbers were shocking (in a bad way).

 

+1

Sadly US cars always seem to be held back with lower hp (at least 430 and before) than officially quoted and I believe this is attributed to two things, emissions and fuel quality when compared to cars destined for Europe. More modern engine electronics can do clever things such as more accurate ion sensing knock sensors (as fitted to Scud) so its becoming less of an issue for the ECU side of things particulary with fuel quality and compression ratio's, the car will just adjust itself to fuel quality accordingly without loosing too much hp.

The significantly increased back pressure from all the extra emmissions kit is partly responsible for strangling the engine compared to the Euro cars. On the 360 Euro cars they did not have cold start air injection, have any header cats and its main cats where smaller and had better flow through. Couple this with US's lower octane rated gas and retarded ignition programming in the ecu's (to handle the poorer quality fuel without detontion) and you have a reciepe for significantly reduced performance compared to non US cars.

I have always been amazed how low the hp ratings on US 360's where compared to Euro cars. Huge differences with essentially the same engine. Ferrari obviously didn't want to strangle their cars performance with all this extra red tape required for the US but one obvious consequence of all of the above is definately a loss of power. Not to mention the extra weight added to which further blunts performance.

Should they have officially quoted lower power for US destined cars? Probably yes as there are significant differences in power.

No way is a Stock US car as quick as a stock Euro car... Back to back dyno's prove it yet officially they are identical acceleration times. Even when Euro 360's where dyno'd they tended to be much lower than 400hp, most around 360-380hp. Most us cars must be 340-360 @ wheels (guessing)..

Guess they could always argue the 400hp figure is bench tested result vs rwhp....

Hmmm...

 

Just checking

I have absolutely no problem with them setting up the car for a track or to extract the best possible figures out of it but it must be stuff people can do themselves to their own car and achieve the same or similar results.

If Ferrari disclose what modifications have been done (so people can replicate their times) thats great but if they do all these changes without telling you what they did, how can you believe it? Blueprinted engines, revised ecu's, ultra sticky off one tyres. Hmmm getting rather silly, sounding more like a GT car than a Road car.

They should be more transparent, describe the geometry used, they should only use 'off the shelf' tyres that the public can buy not some special one off tyres made to last 50 miles of the test without melting, they should be upfront. Transparency is key and it would build confidence then.

As already stated by CH himself Ferrari do amazing cars and they just don't need to be doing this as it could be seen as underhand and misleading.

 

If a car will not rack-up its numbers as advertised in magazines RIGHT OFF the Showroom Floor ....


It is FRAUD.



Plain & Simple.

 

I agree with your sentiments.

However, your point about Ferrari's published horsepower figures not matching up on the dyno is not accurate because it is an apples to oranges comparison.

Ferrari, as does virtually every manufacturer, reports both horsepower and torque figures measured at the flywheel. On a dyno, power is measured at the wheels. As a rule of thumb, a vehicle loses about -15% from the flywheel to the rear tires due to parasitic loss. This means a vehicle with a published horsepower figure of say 500 will dyno at only 425.

And there are many other factors that can have a detrimental effect on dyno numbers, especially with naturally aspirated engines--temperature and altitude being two main variables. The same car will post considerably different figures if it is dynoed in Daytona or Denver. Moreover, there can be a great disparity between one dyno and another. In the muscle car world, a dyno brand called "Mustang" is known for being the most accurate and generally having the lowest horsepower/torque figures.

But, again, I agree with your sentiments. The people who dismiss the kind of duplicity and manipulation that Mr. Harris exposed as "just part of the game; everybody does it; why 'persecute' poor Ferrari?" place a very low price on integrity. And, sadly, that says more about them than it does Ferrari.