"You'd be unlucky to do more than £100,000 worth of damage to it," said GTO owner and Pink Floyd drummer Nick Mason laconically, handing over the keys. I was so nervous about damaging it that when I saw a car coming the other way I stopped and parked.
The second GTO I drove was grand prix driver Eddie Irvine's 288 GTO, and the alligator snap of the sliding rear tyres as the IHI turbos chimed in and out mid‑corner is a drive I will never forget.
Right now, sitting in the third and latest GTO, my heart is beating eight to the bar. It's one of just 599 models that will be built (they are all sold) and I'm about to drive out onto Ferrari's Fiorano track, an unforgiving circuit where even the crash barriers look hungry.
The GTO is the road-going version of the incredible 599XX, the most effective device yet dreamt up to separate a rich man from the contents of his wallet.
The price of this plutocrat's trackday car, about £1.3 million, includes a factory-supported testing programme; Ferrari maintains all 29 cars in-house, fettling them and interrogating the telemetry.
The most useful piece of feedback is the mapping of how amateur drivers get it wrong. This feeds into the mapping for the damping, stability and traction control systems of the current 458 model and, in a more advanced version, the new GTO.
It means the GTO chassis is set up in a neutral state so it turns into bends hard and fast, but the traction, stability and damping electronics dial out most of the scary tail-out moments that such an extreme balance extracts in revenge.
On the steering wheel switch, you can select chassis set-ups ranging from Wet to Sport, Race, CT and CST, which in the parlance is "everything off, or workshop mode".
That's the hi-tech bit. The rest of the 599 GTO comprises gratifyingly old-school tuning and weight saving. The V12 has twin six-into-one exhaust manifolds and revised intakes for better breathing, with aerodynamic crankshaft counterweights that look like pizza knives, micropolished camshafts, graphite-printed pistons and slipper-coated valve tappets, which reduce internal friction by 12 per cent.
So it revs faster and higher than the standard 599 GTB and delivers 60bhp more, but is also more economical (at 16.1mpg Combined, that's relative) and emits less CO2. The six-speed automated gearbox is remapped to change up in just 60 milliseconds and the short-ratio rear differential cuts overall gearing by six per cent.
With thinner aluminium and carbon-fibre panels, a stripped-out interior with fabric-covered race seats, thin-gauge exhausts and windows, and weight saving in the transmission, carbon-ceramic brakes, hollow anti-roll bars and wheel rims, the GTO weighs 220lb less than the 599 GTB.
The cabin is almost austere, especially in the unremitting grey of the test cars, which had just a yellow rev counter and red stitching to relieve the gloom. Still, the seats are reassuringly embracing and there's just room for a suitcase on the rear shelf behind them. The driving position is, naturally, perfect.
There's also a display of the chassis set-up that warns of over-cold (or hot) engine, transmission, or tyres and a Vehicle Performance Index designed to give you an idea of how hard you are trying.
It's nice to see a man so enjoying his work as Ferrari's test driver Dario Benuzzi, who could drive around Fiorano in his sleep, but he's a hard act to follow. Pull gently out of the pits and the V12 feels far from docile. Modern fuel injection and individual cylinder ignition timing means it will pootle, albeit grudgingly, but what it really wants to do is shriek up to its 8,400rpm red line.
Carbon-fibre paddles behind the steering wheel react instantly and the gear change verges on brutal. The GTO is capable of lapping Fiorano in a road-car record of 1min 24sec. Even driving way short of that, it is clear this is a seismically rapid machine, capable of warping the senses with its acceleration and giving you seat belt bruises with the sheer violence of its stopping.
Unlike a lot of ultra-powerful rear-drive supercars, the GTO rewards precise and accurate driving, and isn't happy being just thrown around. On the public road it feels like a fish out of water, with the neutral handling giving an impression of a cataclysmically slippery road surface, so you tend to drive on tippy toes.
In the end, however, you spend most of the time searching for a clear straight, where the rush of acceleration is intoxicating.
The ride is just bearable and the chassis hovers and bobs over washboard surfaces and crashes into bumps, although some road/race Porsches can be worse. The cabin is not well soundproofed, so you can hear the gears clanking, shafts whirring and the thump of tyres, but the sense of occasion is overwhelming.
Dinosaur the GTO might be, but you wouldn't want to say that to its multi-vented face. I felt quite maudlin driving this amazing car, which, due to CO2 emissions legislation, is one of the last-ever V12 Tarmac rippers that Ferrari will ever produce.
Only £299,300? It's a bargain.
THE FACTS
TESTED 599 GTO with 5,999cc V12, 6-speed robotised manual gearbox. Rear-wheel drive
PRICE/ON SALE £299,300/now, but sold out – wait for used ones to appear
POWER/TORQUE 661bhp/457lb ft
TOP SPEED 208mph
ACCELERATION 0-62mph in 3.35sec
FUEL ECONOMY 16.1mpg (Combined)
CO2 EMISSIONS 411g/km
VED BAND M (£950 first year)
ON THE STEREO Little Red Rooster by Howlin Wolf
VERDICT Absurdly quick, louder than Metallica live and stupefyingly good to drive, this is one of the last great V12 Ferraris and they're all sold, sob
source : telegraph.co.uk
No comments:
Post a Comment