THE F70 (LaFerrari) Thread

Rules have changed now, but that MC12 did a pretty decent job I reckon.

Other than that, in short races without a fuel limit and need for refuelling you could run a V12. Wasn't that what Lamborfghini ran in the back of those racing Murcielagos?

Not that the new Enzo will ever be raced. It makes no sense for a privateer to race a 2 million Euros collectible hyper-exotic.

 

There are V12s and there is V12 royalty, you are lucky enough to have quite a lot of the latter!

Trust you are well.

 

That doesn't make it any less than a great car (possibly).

Ferrari has clearly changed their approach to their halocars. The main focus is now the road, not the track. It is not about making racingcars for the road, it is the other way around.

And I don't mind that.

 

Ask Jaguar about how putting a "lesser" engine configuration in a super car can effect sales.

 

Jim, am I fairly safe in assuming your opinion of the F70 is that it should have been a kick-off point for the new F1 drivetrain? So, V6, perhaps 3.5L, single turbo, KERS, and the car weighing not more than 1300kg? THAT would be an amazing machine. And they could call it a Dino. Gives me goosebumps.

 

I think a lot of you guys are over thinking this. The Enzo replacement will have a V12 engine and it will be a great car. Would it be better with a smaller engine? Maybe. Would it be a better track car with a smaller engine? I suspect so. Do Ferrari street cars typically make good track cars? Typically not. Can Ferrari make a super car with a V8TT engine? Of course they can.

Ferrari had, and will always have, a lot of engine options for it's cars, super models included. And just about all those options would satisfy 95% of their customers. And the other 5% will be replaced by those who couldn't get on the list in the first place.

-F

 

True. They've already bailed on the gated stick-shift.

 

And, aside from the turbos, the car was in a completely different zip code from those competitive in Group B at the time platform-wise. Would've been fun to see a 288 (AWD?) airborne in anger - though possibly a bit of a "marketing effort" as well in reality?

Yet, like the 599 Goat, still a cool one!

 

The guys who couldn't get on "The List" can buy all the FF's they want.

 

agreed ... the 288 GTO already "diluted" the GTO moniker. The factory is NOT in a position to "approve the car for racing" (aka, homologate) ... only the sanctioning body can do that (as in the first generation of GTO). And yet, the factory alone decided to call the 288 a "GTO" ... presumably, for marketing (successful marketing!) reasons.

The "O" in GTO does not stand for "designed by the factory for racing" ... it stands for "approved for racing by the sanctioning body" (at least, that's what it meant in the first generation).

yessss ... back on topic indeed

 

Buy enough of those and a spot on the list might just open up.

 

huh? Since when isn't the factory the one that decides how the cars are called and why they are called a certain way? The 288GTO was meant to be a homologation model, so it makes perfect sense to call it a GTO, even if the homologation never materialized. No homologation whatsoever for the 599GTO, but still these three letters are a perfect sign the car is something special. There is no sense in Ferrari nomenclature. Never was, never will.

 

And still both the FF and the F12 seem to be regarded as truly exceptional cars in both handling and performance. And some have even gone on record as to describe the F12 as a gorgoeus car. The FF is more of a required taste, but that has nothing to do with the engine.

Mind you, Ferrari isn't Lotus.

right.... Somehow I doubt Jean Jacques His would be impressed.

 

That was exactly my point.

Jaguar made the mistake of building a prototype (after hours and un-officially), then for production sticking in the V-6 unit from an Austin Metro 6R4 rallycar. Even if it was more powerful, clients wanted the V-12 with the attached bragging-rights, not a V-6 without any provenance to them whatsoever.

I am not advocating a 'lesser' engine. It has to be a V-12, but smaller, in a much lighter car. I'm also not saying the engine couldn't be super/turbocharged. As long as it is a V-12.

Performance-margins at the very top have become very narrow, and competing over top speeds with a difference of 5 km/h on the far side of 300 is utterly pointless. The attraction has to come from either a racing-equivalent/development, or desirability because of the 'jewelry'-factor.

 

Be interesting to see if there'll be an F12 GTO, or what they'll call a more sport-focused take on the F12 if not, if and when.

 

In that any of these cars have more performance that will (or even can) be used specs and image tend to trump.

 

It's not as simple as that. The economy collapsed and because of the specification change many were able to contractually cancel their orders. If the tree had continued growing to the sky the 220's would have sold out even with the different engines.

Even though classic's are selling for record prices the market for hypercars isn't infinite.

Bugatti is still flogging Veyrons long after the first one came out, Porsche had hoped to sell 918
918's and so far I hear they've sold 200.

One step down 5K 458's 5K McLaren's, 5K of the new P "458"?

So far Ferrari sales are strong but FF's are being stuffed to dealers in the US. The days of buying 458's, driving them for a year, flipping them back to the dealer at what it cost you against a 458 Spyder and the dealer being able to flip your 1 year old coupe over msrp. are long gone. There are 5 599GTO's for sale in the US and hundreds of 430's,360's, and 599's for sale. I still believe that racing improves the breed and that race on Sunday sells on Monday. I think McLaren's huge sports car racing program in many series is smart and I think
MB, BMW, Audi, Jaguar, Aston, Bentley (who will race at the Ring in 2013), McLaren and Porsche realise this and that's why they race sports cars. Ferrari uses F1 and it does sell Cancer and a lot of tee shirts but I doubt that I'm the only one who wishes they still raced sports cars in the top class at Le Mans.

 

Harry Metcalffe of EVO Magazine touched on this very subject in his column in the current issue. He seems to think, however, that as far as brand recognition is concerned, Formula 1 is the (only) way to go. And that makes sense. Allthough I prefer endurance and/or sportscarracing over F1 myself (endurance racers are the true motorsports heroes), the audience in F1 is much, much bigger. Enduranceracing at the Ring is hardly televized to begin with.

But apart from that, what do you mean by McLarens 'huge' sportscar racing program? I haven't seen them at Le Mans for instance. Ferrari was and they won their class. I have seen Ferrari in ALMS, where they almost won their class at Sebring (as a WEC-entry), and again, no McLaren was present. Same goes for Daytona, Ferrari yes, McLaren no. So in all the truly big endurance events, McLaren is absent. I have seen McLarens in GT3 racing, but so are a bunch of 458's. How does McLaren have a 'huge' sportscar racing program (or any of the other manufactures you sum up) but Ferrari does not? Surely the 458 get's tracked like there is no tomorrow at the highest level of GT enduranceracing. And being quite succesful too.

 

Based on the number of GT3's they've sold. GT3 is big and getting bigger. I believe they will soon be building GTE's for the seris you mention.

In GT1 they are beating Ferrari.

http://gt1world.com/pages/results?season=2012&team=&type=team

 

Very true, ever since the 360, Ferrari has payed big attention to gt racing. During a big part of the 70s and than 80s, Porsche rulled in the gt class, they had very litle oposition but, ever since the 360, Ferrari started to enter in many many gt races and also started to win. I think the 430 was the best GT in it´s years, and the 458 is also doing very well, probably the biggest competition comes from audi r8. Truth is Ferrari won in Le mans with both the 430 and the 458 so this shows gt racing is also important to them.
As for the Mclaren calling v12s dinassours, i would very much like to see them or anyone else to put a road car with a normaly aspirated engine, with the same capacity as an f458 with the same amount of power. It´s easy to make powerfull engines using turbos but normaly aspirated engines it´s another deal....it´s almost like comparing an automatic watch to a quartz one. The second might work as well as the first, it´s a lot easyer to build and all you have to do is to change battery every couple of years....but we all know wich one is the "real deal ".

for example:

aventador-6.5 cc and 700 hp -hp/cc - 0107

F12-6.3 cc and 730 HP -hp/cc - 0115

458-4.5 cc and 570 hp -hp/cc - 0126

I would very much like to see Mclaren make a normaly aspirated engine, than we could really see how good they are!!

 

Why would they make a normally aspirated engine today?

F1 will soon be turbo's.

The cars that finished First overall at Le Mans are turbo's.

I understand that Ferrari for marketing and heritage reasons is sticking with a V12 but a V8TT New Enzo would be lighter and faster than the V12 one and one with a road version of Ferrari's 2014 Turbo F1 engine would be even more lighter and faster and would show that F1 matters to road cars as Luca showed with the Enzo's F1 inspired style. I understand that the new Enzo will have fewer F1 styling cues and more curves but as F1 is so important to Ferrari why not showcase it in the new Enzo with an engine like their coming F1 cars?

 

You can't know that. Also a V8 TT will never have the revviness, the high RPM crescento and the aural pleasure of a N/A V12. That is one of the reasons that the 458 is said to be the better car over the MP4 12C. Tiff Needel said that the Italia has the better engine when he compared them, most people said the same.

 

F1 will be turbos but at present they are not...remenber that when the f40 was released in 87, F.1 was due to change to normaly aspirated engines, in 89, still they made a turbo why? because it was the type of engine Ferrari used in f.1 and so, the car could be related to f.1,( after all f.1 is suposed to be ultimate thing, from whom tecnology derives to road cars) same thing hapened with the f50 and than the Enzo....now, if the new car is to be launched this year it makes perfect sense for it to be normaly aspirated, as current f1 cars.
If Ferrari made it a v8 turbo ( i think they will never put a v6 in a hypercar) before F.1 reached that stage it would seem tas if f.1 tecnology (at least for the engine) is not being used at all...In the same way, i wouldn´t be surprised if by the time of the f80, if f.1 is still turbo, it´s engine would also be a turbo. Basicly i think it works this way..first f.1, than supercar, not the other way around.