Zafiro
Supreme Roadmaster
"Blisteringly fast but beautifully behaved on the road, the Ferrari 599 GTB is a near-perfect supercar" say TopGear magazine as they award Ferrari's latest GT car the title of Supercar of the Year in their annual awards.
"The Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano was always going to be very, very good. Strapping the Enzo's 6.0-litre V12 into a car that could be used every day, on any road, was such a good idea that it could barely fail," comment TopGear in their summary. " Our only tiny worry was that the 599 would just be a little too refined. With Ferrari's absolute mastery of all the F1 gubbins - magnetorheological dampers, aluminium spaceframe, blindingly quick gear changes - we feared that the furious, feral supercar heart might be drowned in a sea of electronic trickery.
"And then we found the button on the centre console marked 'LC'. That's LC for Launch Control. Press this and the 599 emits a truly brain-splitting howl, followed by a stomach-turning lurch forward, a scream of tyres and enough smoke to mask the entire car. Oh, and a pair of neat black lines running 100 feet up the road behind the car. Yes, it's a gimmick. But a seriously cool gimmick, and one that shows Ferrari didn't forget the fun when dreaming up this astonishing supercar.
"It's not just the Launch Control that makes the 599 epic to drive, though," continues the TopGear summary. "Give the left-hand column-mounted gear paddle a flick and the 599 shifts from being a long-legged, smooth-cruising continent swallower and moves into the twilight zone. It is, by any standards, absurdly fast. It'll keep pace with the Enzo on just about any road, and drift with the best of them. The noise from the V12 is simply immense, too - an operatic boom climbing to a ballistic yowl at the 8,400rpm redline.
"But the 599 isn't scary to drive - just brilliantly intuitive. It's utterly comfortable with its own performance, and keeps you perfectly informed every step of the way. Is it beautiful? Even now, we're not quite sure - and we've taken every possible opportunity to get up close and personal with the 599. With its slashes and gashes, the 599 is no instant classic, but like the 575 it's definitely a grower. And with such incredible and useable performance, we'll happily give the 599 GTB all the time it needs to grow on us. Especially if we can press that LC button just one more time. Please?"
>>> www.topgear.com/content/features/stories/2006/12/stories/08/1.html
"The Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano was always going to be very, very good. Strapping the Enzo's 6.0-litre V12 into a car that could be used every day, on any road, was such a good idea that it could barely fail," comment TopGear in their summary. " Our only tiny worry was that the 599 would just be a little too refined. With Ferrari's absolute mastery of all the F1 gubbins - magnetorheological dampers, aluminium spaceframe, blindingly quick gear changes - we feared that the furious, feral supercar heart might be drowned in a sea of electronic trickery.
"And then we found the button on the centre console marked 'LC'. That's LC for Launch Control. Press this and the 599 emits a truly brain-splitting howl, followed by a stomach-turning lurch forward, a scream of tyres and enough smoke to mask the entire car. Oh, and a pair of neat black lines running 100 feet up the road behind the car. Yes, it's a gimmick. But a seriously cool gimmick, and one that shows Ferrari didn't forget the fun when dreaming up this astonishing supercar.
"It's not just the Launch Control that makes the 599 epic to drive, though," continues the TopGear summary. "Give the left-hand column-mounted gear paddle a flick and the 599 shifts from being a long-legged, smooth-cruising continent swallower and moves into the twilight zone. It is, by any standards, absurdly fast. It'll keep pace with the Enzo on just about any road, and drift with the best of them. The noise from the V12 is simply immense, too - an operatic boom climbing to a ballistic yowl at the 8,400rpm redline.
"But the 599 isn't scary to drive - just brilliantly intuitive. It's utterly comfortable with its own performance, and keeps you perfectly informed every step of the way. Is it beautiful? Even now, we're not quite sure - and we've taken every possible opportunity to get up close and personal with the 599. With its slashes and gashes, the 599 is no instant classic, but like the 575 it's definitely a grower. And with such incredible and useable performance, we'll happily give the 599 GTB all the time it needs to grow on us. Especially if we can press that LC button just one more time. Please?"
>>> www.topgear.com/content/features/stories/2006/12/stories/08/1.html
