Car
of the year: Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano
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| Runner up: | ||
Porsche 911 Turbo & GT3 The beauty of 911 Turbo is the combination of astonishing speed and handling with an easily livable manner. Apart from Ferrari 599GTB, I can't think of any other cars have such ability. Nevertheless, it lacks the sharpness and driver excitement that you can find in the (slightly uncompromising) GT3. Porsche 911 Turbo report Porsche 911 GT3 report |
Citroen C4 Picasso / Grand One of the finalists in ECOTY. Although finally beaten by Ford S-Max, C4 Picasso is actually more stylish, better built, more comfortable and more flexible. The latter two can more than compensate the dynamic weakness against S-Max. This is the best MPV / MAV of this generation. Citroen C4 Picasso report |
BMW 335i Coupe Refusing to increase capacity, BMW opted for twin-turbocharging its 3.0 inline-6 and this became 335i Coupe. It's very fast yet refined and frugal. A junior M3 at no costs of practicality. BMW 335i Coupe report |
| Past
winners: 2006 Bugatti EB16.4 Veyron 2005 Ferrari F430 2004 Ford GT 2003 Mercedes-Benz E-class and E55 AMG 2002 Mercedes-Benz SL 2001 Alfa Romeo 147 2000 Ferrari 360 Modena 1999 Ford Focus |
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Ferrari
599GTB was clearly the most impressive road
car introduced last year. At first, we were a little worry about its
front-engined grand tourer layout, because 550 and 575 Maranello were
never fast and exciting enough as a Ferrari flagship performance
model, and sometimes even eclipsed by the V8 line. However, Ferrari this time
successfully combined the benefits of front-engined GT with supercar
performance and handling. The result was so good that, it rocked our
traditional believes that supercars must be mid-engined. Not even the
ultra-expensive Mercedes SLR McLaren could do that.
The chassis of 599GTB is another engineering masterpiece.
Switching to aluminum spaceframe construction cuts 40 kg from its
predecessor even though the car is much longer and offers more space
inside. Although a dry weight of 1580 kg is not exactly lightweight, it
is 85 kg lighter than its closest rival, Lamborghini Murcielago LP640.
The weight distribution is 47 percent front and 53 percent rear. Yes,
this front-engined GT has slightly more weight at the rear than the
front because Ferrari deliberately pushed the front axle forward and
mounted the gearbox at the rear axle. As a result, the car has
unusually good traction at the rear wheels. In addition to a
F1-Superast gearbox (really as fast as its name suggests) and a
sophisticated launch control, no wonder the Ferrari front-engined GT
could better Lamborghini LP640 in acceleration. It goes from zero to 60
mph in merely 3.4 seconds and then passes the 100 mph mark at a
mind-blowing 6.8 seconds. Unbelievably, it is vritually as quick as the
Enzo supercar !