| Published
on 17 Jun
2011 |
All rights reserved.
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One strange
thing I observed in the past 25 years is: the largest
and most luxurious Ferraris are also the least commercially successful.
Take the 456GT for example, despite of its beauty, it sold only 3,200
copies in 11 years, which is half the number 550/575
Maranello managed. We don't have the final production figure of 612
Scaglietti yet, but judging from its rarity on streets, I bet its sales
could be even slower. That is sad for a car so good to drive. The 612
had few flaws – although some disliked its looks and some said it was
no faster than AMG CL65 – it was a truly amazing combination of GT
comfort and sportscar dynamics, feel and inspiration. Unfortunately, it
was a Ferrari. When it sits on the same showroom floor as 599GTB, its
excitement turns pale. People who enter Ferrari showrooms expect to
find the highest performance / excitement regardless of price. If they
look for ultimate comfort and luxury, they would turn to Mercedes or
Bentley. After all, those can afford a top-of-the-line Ferrari
should have plenty of wealth and garage space to swallow another
Mercedes /
Bentley / Range Rover / Rolls-Royce. Few find the need to compromise
between a supercar and a luxury car.
Having said that, Ferrari just won't let its luxury GT line die. If it
can raise comfort level significantly, no matter passenger
space, luggage capacity or ease of control, it might have a good chance
to lure customers from the luxury brands camp. The success of
Porsche Panamera tells us that is possible.
Consequently, we see the first ever "shooting brake" body wearing the
prancing horse badge. This is Ferrari FF. Its shape is clearly designed
to optimize luggage space and rear seat headroom. It also helps hiding
the fact that the roof line is 35 mm taller than that on 612
Scaglietti, so the shooting brake shape actually looks less compromised
than it would have been in a tall coupe form. Give it some curvy
fenders, 20-inch wheels, aggressive air scoops, large diffusers and
458-style LED headlamps, the overall visual effect can be even
head-turning ! Well, it's not 456-beauty, but it is definitely more
striking than Panamera.
Shooting brake,
4-wheel-drive and the FF name: a tribute to Jensen ?
Apart from the shooting brake body, another thing distinguishes the FF
from any other Ferraris until to date is a technology Maranello
called 4RM, which stands for 4-Ruote Motrici in Italian or simply
4-wheel-drive in our language. This is Ferrari's first 4-wheel drive
system. It explains why the car is called FF, an acronym for "Ferrari
Four", and why coincidentally it has the same name as a famous 4WD
classic, Jensen FF,
although in the latter case it means Ferguson Formula. By the way,
Jensen FF was also a shooting brake design. Is Ferrari paying tribute
to it ?
When Ferrari develops a 4WD system, it would be different to others. To
Ferrari, rear-wheel drive is always the most desired configuration
except in extreme cases where the car is struggling for traction.
Conventional permanent 4-wheel-drive systems are just a waste of mass
and energy for most of the time. Ferrari designed its 4RM to be a
part-time 4WD system. In other words, in normal running conditions the
FF is purely rear-wheel drive. Only when it struggles for traction the
front wheels will be engaged quickly for very short moments to sort
things out. Even then no more than 20 percent of power will be assigned
to the front wheels, so the rear-drive characteristic is largely
maintained. Because of the light requirement for front-wheel drive,
Ferrari can adopt a very simple design that does away center
differential, front differential and complicated
drive shafts altogether. Instead of them is a Power Transfer Unit (PTU)
which
contains a gear set and a pair of multi-plate clutches. The compact PTU
is installed just in front of the engine, taking power directly from
the
crankshaft
and transferring to the front wheels through its two clutches.
It also doubles as a torque vectoring device. (More details of its
construction and theory can be found in Technical
School.) Compare with conventional 4WD systems working with front
engine and transaxle gearbox, such as the one serving Nissan GT-R, 4RM
cuts 50 percent weight and saves the need for a bulky transmission
tunnel.
The 4RM and Ferrari's FR drivetrain is a match made in
heaven. The PTU can only be fitted to a car whose engine is mounted
completely behind the front axle line. No problem to Ferrari, as the
existing 612 and 599 are already so engineered. On the FF, the
front-mid-mounted engine and rear-mounted gearbox results in a perfect
weight distribution of 47:53 front to rear.
4RM and Ferrari's FR drivetrain is a match
made in heaven
Compare with the 612, FF has about the same
length and width, whereas wheelbase is stretched by 40 mm to just under
3 meters. This a large car indeed – nearly as large as Porsche Panamera
– but Ferrari's aluminum spaceframe chassis and 4RM system help it to
undercut a Panamera Turbo by 100 kilograms, let alone Mercedes CL65 AMG
(+290 kg) and Bentley Continental GT (+440 kg). The large body packs
not only four adult seats and 450 liters of luggage space but also a
lot of technologies we have expected, such as new 5-link rear
suspensions, magnetorheological adaptive dampers, Brembo ceramic disc
brakes and 7-speed dual-clutch transaxle. They have all made
appearance on the smaller California, but they are not exactly the same
on FF. For example, the magnetorheological damping is now the third
generation (versus first gen on California and second gen on 458), and
the Getrag 7DCL750 gearbox is a high-torque (max 553 lbft) version to
take on the V12
engine.
The 6262 cc 65-degree V12 is derived from the Tipo 140
unit of Enzo and 599, but enhanced with direct fuel injection, 12.3:1
compression and
automatic stop-start, not to mention the additional 300 cc of
displacement. Ferrari is not going to give its luxury GT engine the
highest possible tuning. Even so, this one is still capable to produce
an Enzo-matching 660 horsepower at 8000 rpm, or 120 horses up from the
5.75-liter engine on 612 Scaglietti. Furthermore, its maximum torque
breaks Maranello's own record, with 504 pound-foot reached at 6000 rpm.
As a GT engine, its torque curve is tuned to be flatter than those on
Ferrari's sports cars. From as low as 1750 rpm there is at least 80
percent of peak torque, or 403 lbft, available for disposal. If you
don't understand what it means, think about a Lamborghini V10 has its
peak torque brought forward from 6500 rpm to 1750 rpm !
As a result, the FF is capable of 0-60 mph in 3.6 seconds, half a
second quicker than its predecessor, and its top speed is lifted by 12
mph to an astonishing 208 mph. Yes, it is once again the fastest
4-seater in the world !
208 mph guarantees the highest place in the
4-seater world
Meanwhile, fuel consumption and emission have
been cut by 25 percent, thanks to the direct injection, automatic
engine stop-start as well as the new 7-speed gearbox whose top gear is
an overdrive.
On the Road
Once you settled in the front seat, you will be amazed for its
spaciousness. Up front, there is abundance of room in all dimensions.
Headroom is surprisingly generous for a Ferrari. Facing you is an
environment familiar to modern Ferraris – lots of leather and alloy,
multiple round air vents, a cheap sat-nav on the center console, an
instrument pinnacle consisting of two analogue dials and a TFT screen,
and a video-game-style steering wheel with an awful lot of functions to
control. It's neither the most tasteful nor the highest quality cabin,
but since it is a Ferrari, you can forgive it.
The rear seats might look snug and are more difficult to access, but
they are truly adult seats, unlike the case in Bentley Continental GT
or even Aston Martin Rapide (and that's a four-door !). Six-footers
will have no problem to spend hours at the back of FF. Luggage space is
equally impressive. With rear seats in place it measures 450 liters,
more than that on Porsche Panamera. Fold the rear seats and it will be
expanded to 800 liters. You will hardly need more.
 
Six-footers will have no problem to spend
hours at the back
Fire the V12 and you won't be disappointed.
Just like any Ferrari V12s, it has a very wide spectrum (8200 rpm) for
you to access, and the power delivery is creamy smooth. Its low inertia
is evident from the sharp response to throttle. Its linearity is the
greatest companion to keen drivers. Moreover, the engine makes
beautiful sound. It could stay behind the background when unstressed,
or turns insane when it screams to redline – that thundering howl is
more 599 GTO than GTB. In other words, a huge improvement from the
civilized 612.
The FF is fast, unquestionably. It might not topple a Panamera Turbo S
from rest to 60 mph (due to the limited front-end traction as well as
the lack of turbocharged torque), but once it is up to speed it keeps
rocketing to the horizon with its endless power. It arrives 124 mph
(200km/h) in 11 seconds flat, almost 2 seconds ahead of the Porsche.
The higher the speed, the more advantage its unrivalled top end power
shows. However, if you expect the same sense of speed as 458 Italia or
599GTB, you might be a little disappointed. The extra weight here
dampens its low-gear explosiveness to a certain extent. This mean while
the FF is comfortably the fastest 4-seat GT in the world, it still
trails Ferrari's
pure sports cars for sensation.
 
The thundering howl is more 599 GTO than GTB
The FF is a perfect tool for cross-country
blaze. Its dual-clutch gearbox might be less incisive than that on 458,
but is smooth and fuss-free. Its ride is absorbent for country roads.
Its steering, geared to a super-quick 2.3 turns lock-to-lock, makes it
incredibly nimble on twisty roads, just like a much smaller car. The
4RM system provides bags of traction regardless of road conditions. Not
even thick snow surface can have it caught out. Such an all-weather,
all-road versatility sometimes lead you believe you were driving a
rally car !
Nevertheless, on dry roads the 4RM is not always welcomed. In slow to
medium speed bends, you can feel the intervention of 4RM introduces
understeer, straightening the nose and killing the chance of power
oversteer. This sudden change of character is at odds to the otherwise
rear-biased handling of the car. It makes the chassis less predictable
and less intuitive to exploit than 599 as well as its predecessor.
As a result, the FF is probably not as thrilling to drive as you would
expect a Ferrari to be. It trades some dramas for security and
versatility. That might split opinions. While it still possesses a
clear dynamic edge over Porsche, Bentley or Mercedes-AMG, whether it is
worth double the price is not so clear. Anyway, Ferrari will be content
if it can sell 800 cars a year. That is only a small fraction of its
cheaper alternatives.
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Verdict:  |
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