Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano - A brilliant Ferrari I won't prefer buying

Very simply put, it’s the most powerful V12 Ferrari GT car ever put to production. It’s got 620bhp under its bonnet, does 0-62mph in 3.7 seconds and 125mph in 11. These figures, coupled with the fact that it’s a Ferrari are good enough for a billionaire to buy it without even wanting to know how it looks.

The Fiorano then, is a car built by Ferrari for a purpose. It’s a Ferrari which is meant to widen people’s eyes with amazement and excitement as much as the legendary F40 did. And the company wants it to be sane, civil and useable at the same time. Dah! Any car with such properties isn’t a Ferrari. It has to be a savage, deadly, vile thing - draped in lust and libido. It has to be laden with all the technology in the world and still it should be uncontrollable and rough to an extent if it ever wished to justify the marque’s emblem on its body. I mean for heaven’s sake, let the Porsches and the Daimler Chryslers and the Toyotas of the world keep worrying about petty things like vibrations, refinement and harshness. A Ferrari to a true enthusiast means involvement. The sound doesn’t bother him, it delights him. The F40 was the most undiluted Ferrari ever produced, and it still is revered like none other. The fact that the Enzo and the 575M Maranello could never manage to conjure up even a quarter of the love that the fearsome F40 amassed in the hearts of car lovers worldwide within no time should be a lessongood enough for the blokes at Ferrari.

The Fiorano doesn’t even look like a proper Ferrari, forget it feeling like one. Just have a look at

the 575M Maranello…

and the F40...

…to know what I am talking about. If it’s a Ferrari, it should gather attention instantly. There isn’t any excuse if it doesn’t. There’s just no excuse. There’s just a fact then – it’s not a Ferrari.

The Fiorano as a car looks elegant, civilized and suave. The fact makes it a better car, but not a better Ferrari; it in fact pushes it a step further away. A Ferrari is a spaceship that’s supposed to drive through roads. It’s supposed to look like an aliens’ aircraft that has been transformed somehow into a car. There should be gasping mouths wherever it goes. People should keep looking at it till the time it’s visible and sigh when it isn’t. That is how it should be for a Ferrari. The Fiorano looks like a 60’s car being worked upon with a hammer to look modern. Yes, I so hate that design –especially since it’s being badged a Ferrari.

It’s quite a performer though. At the heart of that car is the same engine which powers the brutal, brash and clinical Ferrari Enzo – meant only for the track. The new car is slightly less powerful with just 620bhp in comparison. Forty horses less. But then, the peak torque of this car is delivered at 5600rpm, making it a car that you could drive everyday. Ferrari again trying to do a Porsche here, and setting foot into a potentially perilous territory in the process.

Along with the blazing performance figures of the Fiorano, there are a couple of other interesting bits which make it special. It takes the 599 GTB an unbelievably meagre 100 milliseconds to shift ratios. That pedal shifter behind the car’s steering wheel is as close to an F1 car as one could ever get on a road going machine. This, for a layman like me, should mean that by the time I start contemplating shifting a gear in a fast car, the gentleman in the Fiorano would already have shifted and vroomed away in the distance. My usual supercar car would only bee seen as a small point on his rear view mirror by the time I actually carry out the process of shifting through a gear.

Another thing that forced me to write about this car even when I loathed it for its design is something that Ferrari's prefers calling the 'SCM' Magnetorheological dampers. It’s a suspension system, which I am told by blokes in white aprons has dampers which use a fluid, the viscosity of which is modified by applying an electronically controlled magnetic field. So while the dampers could act like an iron rod on a tight curve, they can almost instantly transform themselves into a soaked sponge if they happen to encounter a severe undulation the very next second. Talk about saving egos and asses at the same time. Brilliant!

So, all you billionaires, who’ll never have the time to visit my blog – if you ever wanted to buy a car which was almost there at the absolute pinnacle of automobile technology, the £170,000 price tag is not too hefty. But if you actually want to buy a Ferrari and not just a performance car, you’re wasting your time.

IF YOU BUY IT

You’re cool because

You’re driving a Ferrari

You’re driving the most powerful road going Ferrari

You’re driving the best handling road going Ferrari

You’re driving the most useable and practical road going Ferrari

You’re a fool because

You don’t perhaps know what Ferrari stands for

There are plenty of cars which are faster than yours on the road and on the track

All those who love the Ferrari F40 will kill you for your choice

If you wanted a civilised car which went fast you could have bought a Porsche which was better at the job for half the money

If you wanted a real Ferrari, you could have bought a F40 for three quarters of the money