Despite our gaffer tape, the 599 GTB is stunning; underbody downforce can reach 419 pounds.
The Fiorano's shape-sort of like the Keep-On-Truck'n guy stance-has one foot stretched way in the future, the other resting in the past. It's obviously a child of the 575M Maranello and a descendant of the 365 GTB Daytona, with a long nose and a stubby stern, a rakish profile, and a cockpit worn like a tight baseball cap. It's simultaneously an aerodynamic white paper on how to make a fast car (205 mph) stable without a single feather of rear-wing plumage. How? The 599's bottom-side venturis' vacuum can exceed its bodyworks lift by up to 419 pounds, and this is thoughtfully proportioned according to the static axle weights. The drag, meanwhile, is minimized by those free-standing (look closely) flying rear buttresses that pinch the air laterally around the car's curved and, dare we say, Corvette-like rear glass. Truth is, to our American eyes, the car has more than a few Corvette cues about it (the hood power dome being one too many). But all of them are Vette in a thrilling, cape-over-the-shoulder Italian way.
Standing up, I rested my hand against the fender and felt it flex a bit. Unlike the basically steel 575 Maranello, the 599 is an aluminum job like every regular production Ferrari since the F430 (the Enzo being a limited-production deal). Though a much bigger car, it's crucially 90 pounds lighter than the Maranello. Manager of road testing Nicola Porciani commented that despite its size, the Fiorano was intended to be a sharper knife than even the F40 while keeping the 575 Maranello's butteryness in casual cruising. "A devil and an angel at the same time."
Climbing into the Ferrari's passenger seat, Raffaele De Simone, Ferrari's wiry young new-road-car test driver (see Page 4) started the engine-whompf, errrrrr-and glanced at me. "Let's do a few laps to record the car's performance with the race mode on and then shut it off to see how they compare." Raffaele nodded. This would be an interesting comparison; Ferrari claims its highfalutin' Formula 1-derived F1-Trac stability is the ultimate solution for fast driving while hanging onto a software safety net. How good is it? I squeezed tight on the armrest.
I should've squeezed tighter. The 5999cc, Enzo-inspired V-12 feels a lot faster than 612 horsepower. These are biting, kicking horses, every 0.1-second F1-superfast gearshift another chiropractor appointment. It's fortunate smoother shifts are selectable for normal driving, but when you put the stick to it, Ferrari's superfast shifts can firecracker through the gears every bit as quickly as the much-lauded DSG approach. Indeed, fast enough that when I later tried my hand at acceleration runs, the car staggered sideways at each 8000-rpm, flat-foot, pulselike shift. (Patiently, Raffaele showed me how it's done by hopping in and nailing a 3.2-second 0-to-60 time after the U.S.-traditional one-foot rollout.) On Pista Di Fiorano's longest straight, Automobile Fiorano was touching 137 mph, its engine's variable camshaft timing helping it pull like, well, a prancing mule.
Overhead lighting unit used by the Formula 1 mechanics.
In the middle of one corner, I strained to ask Raffaele how the front-engine 599 handles compared with the mid-engine F430 or Enzo. "But the 599 is mid-engine." And he's right. It's front-mid-engined, with physics that are almost "engine behind the driver." "It was strange for me, too, in the beginning. The front axle is lightly weighted." De Simone is talking as much to himself as me. Weight distribution is rear-biased (47/53), due to the shoved-back engine and transaxle, with 85 percent of the Fiorano's girth captured between the wheels. While the steering wheel's manettino switch also can select between ice, low grip, and sport settings (all employing conventional reactive stability control), it's in race mode that it consults with its sophisticated, predictive vehicle-dynamics model, letting you dance closer to the flames. The tail drifts wide enough for maximum speed, but no more.
The engine sits low in the 599 due to its dry-sump lubrication and smaller-diameter dual-plate clutch-good for handling and necessary to keep the hoodline svelte while accommodating mandated pedestrian crush-space. With the magnetorheological shocks firmed, the 599 pulled 1.08 g in the slower corners and about the same in braking (equivalent to 105 feet from 60 mph). These Pirelli PZeros are flypaper tires: When we inadvertently rolled over a download cable, the tire's stick picked it up and tried to wrap it around the suspension.
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