Yesterday Ferrari showed off its brand new FF luxury sportscar for the very first time live at a special event in Maranello. The presentation was broadcasted live on the firm’s website, so we all could follow it. The official public presentation is scheduled for the Geneva Motor Show next week!
To refresh your mind we can tell you that the FF has a 660hp-strong V12 in its nose converting the power via a four-wheel drive system to the road. For now enjoy the gallery below and please stay tuned for live pictures from Geneva next Tuesday.
Like anyone with half a brain, I’ve been willing to cut Ferrari some slack because it is, well, Ferrari –- the most famous fast car brand of all and the maker of cars that everyone wants to know about. Bang out a video of yourself drifting a new Jag XKR on YouTube and 17 people watch it; do the same in a 430 Scuderia and the audience is 500,000 strong. As a journalist, those numbers make you willing to accommodate truck-loads of bullshit, but I’ve had enough now. I couldn’t care if I never drive a new Ferrari again, if it means I never have to deal with the insane communication machine and continue lying about the lengths to which Ferrari will bend any rule to get what it wants. Which is just as well, because I don’t think I’m going to be invited back to Maranello any time soon. Shame, the food’s bloody marvelous.
How bad has it been? I honestly don’t know where to start. Perhaps the 360 Modena press car that was two seconds faster to 100mph than the customer car we also tested. You allow some leeway for “factory fresh” machines, but this thing was ludicrously quick and sounded more like Schumacher’s weekend wheels than a street car. Ferrari will never admit that its press cars are tuned, but has the gall to turn up at any of the big European magazines’ end-of-year-shindig-tests with two cars. One for straight line work, the other for handling exercises. Because that’s what happens when you buy a 458: they deliver two for just those eventualities. The whole thing stinks. In any other industry it wouldn’t be allowed to happen. It’s dishonest, but all the mags take it between the cheeks because they’re too scared of not being invited to drive the next new Ferrari.
Remember the awesome 430 Scuderia? What a car that was, and still is. One English magazine went along with all the cheating-bullshit because the cars did seem to be representative of what a customer might get to drive, but then during the dyno session, the “standard” tires stuck themselves to the rollers.
The previous post omitted to quote Chris Harris:
http://jalopnik.com/#!5760248/how-ferrari-spins
or maybe he’s rayman89.