Table of contents for Issue 12 in Enzo

AS WITH MOST CLUBS and event organisers, the Ferrari owners’ club has had to rethink its events schedule for 2020. The club had postponed or cancelled several of its fixtures for the year as this issue of Enzo went to press, but all is not lost because at the time of writing it was hoped there would still be plenty to look forward to later in the season. It all depends on how the coronavirus situation develops, of course. The sad news was that one of the club’s flagship events, the National Ferrari owners’ Day that was set to take place on June 6, would now not be happening this year. The good news is that the club has already scheduled a date for next year and the event will…

Leonardo Fioravanti dreamed, as a young man, that one day he would design a Ferrari for Pininfarina. He did rather better than that, ending up personally designing 11 Ferraris for the celebrated design house, a further four when he opened his own company, Fioravanti srl, and managing the design process for 14 more while general manager of Pininfarina. But the 308 GTB has always had a special significance for him. He owned one himself: ‘Enzo Ferrari allowed for a very generous discount,’ he tells me, ‘and I got my glassfibre car, chassis #20275, a wonderful car that I loved to drive. I’m happy that today it is in a Japanese collection, perfectly cared for. Some years ago, it spent three months in a museum in Nagoya, for a show named…

The fact that modern supercars can be placed in the hands of merely competent drivers is all down to chassis electronics. What would once have been wildly excessive amounts of power and torque can now be very finely controlled, and, such is the sophistication of their modelling, they can even help well beyond the limit of grip. Given time, a chunk of space and an inexhaustible supply of tyres, we could all probably master the art of drifting the 789bhp, rear-wheel-drive 812 Superfast. In its regular mode, the Superfast will save you from mishaps in everyday situations, inhibiting wheelspin to maintain traction no matter how clumsy you are with the throttle, and keeping to the steered line if you come into a turn a bit too fast or find reduced…

We found it in a small shed just outside Brescia, close to the scene of what was meant to be its greatest victory, though it didn’t quite turn out that way. It shared the space with a vintage Italian tractor and some rusty old bicycles: inauspicious surroundings in which to find one of the legends of Ferrari racing history and Aurelio Lampredi’s role in it: the 375 Plus. You can read the story of this particular car and its sudden, violent exit from the 1954 Mille Miglia in the accompanying sidebar to the right, but as a model (of which a single-digit number were built, some say as few as five, none more than eight) the 375 Plus was only ever a works factory racing car and had a contemporary…

The 1988 Italian Grand Prix was notable for a few things, not least the genesis of an all-new supercar the likes of which the world had never seen. Waiting for a delayed flight at Linate Airport, the technical director of one the world’s greatest race teams, his team principal and sundry other executives sat around mulling over the idea for a road car with three seats and a central driving position. And were this magazine called ‘Ron’ rather Enzo, I might be tempted to extemporise further on the story of Gordon Murray’s McLaren F1 that, six years later, changed the supercar rules for good. But even in this story Murray, McLaren and Ron Dennis are essential components because, with a few others including chief designer Steve Nichols and engine supplier…

SUSPENDED All road car production & racing activities WITH ITS PRODUCTION LINES closed and motorsport activities suspended, Ferrari continued to find itself in uncharted territory in early April amid the Covid-19 outbreak. The pandemic has affected carmakers and suppliers worldwide, but Ferrari’s Maranello headquarters is right on the doorstep of the European epicentre for the coronavirus, and the effects have been profound. At time of going to press, Lombardy, which neighbours Ferrari’s home region of Emilia-Romagna immediately to the north, had accounted for the majority of Italy’s 115,000-plus cases and 14,000-plus deaths. In Bergamo, a city just over 100 miles from Maranello, the Italian army was helping to clear a backlog of coffins and enforcing a lockdown that extended nationwide and included a ban on social gatherings, non-essential business and…

Giorgio Scarlatti photograph by Jesse Alexander £POA | faheykleingallery.com One of the most dramatic images captured by the camera of trackside shutterbug Jesse Alexander, this shows Scarlatti leaping from his burning Dino 246 S at the 1960 Nürburgring 1000km. The blaze, caused by fuel splashing onto the exhaust, gutted the car, but Scarlatti escaped with minor burns thanks to a quick-thinking official who tackled the flaming Italian and wrapped him in an overcoat. Tamiya 312T4 box art signed by Jody Scheckter £199.95 thesignaturestore.co.uk Given that it helped him win the F1 drivers’ title, Jody Scheckter probably remembers the rectilinear 312 T4 more fondly than we do, but not by much. This signed artwork takes us straight back to 1980 (Tamiya’s model came out the year after his title win) and…

308 GTB (Vetroresina) YEARS BUILT 1975-1977 NUMBER BUILT 712 ENGINE V8, 2926cc, 16 valves MAX POWER 252bhp @7700rpm MAX TORQUE 209lb ft @5000rpm TRANSMISSION Five-speed manual, rear-wheel drive, limited-slip differential SUSPENSION Front and rear: double wishbones, coil springs, telescopic dampers, anti-roll bar BRAKES Vented discs, 272mm front, 277mm rear WHEELS 7.5 x 14in front and rear TYRES 205/70 VR14 front and rear WEIGHT c1250kg POWER TO WEIGHT c205bhp/ton 0-60MPH 6.7sec TOP SPEED  157mph UK PRICE WHEN NEW c£9000 VALUES TODAY £110,000-£130,000 ‘THERE’S A REMARKABLE RIGHTNESS TO THE 308 THAT SETS IT APART. HAS THERE BEEN A BETTER LOOKING FERRARI SINCE?’ WAS THE 308 GTB SUCH a huge success because they anointed it with Ferrari badges instead of calling it a Dino? Branding the Evoque a Range Rover, essentially a Freelander in a party frock, was the making of it, but – badge…

AN 812 SUPERFAST, a stack of fresh Pirelli P Zero Corsas and a race track all to ourselves. Life doesn’t get much better than this. Especially when the day’s task is setting a lap time and doing a bit of showboating for the cameras. The 812 has been supplied by the factory, accompanied by two technicians. Being Ferrari they have run simulated laps of Anglesey, but won’t tell me what the target time is until I’m done. Rotters! By way of compensation, they give me some advice on the best manettino settings. Apparently, on tighter circuits ‘race‘ can confer a small advantage, but for most tracks – Anglesey included – ‘Ct Off‘ is best, for it allows generous slip angles and wheelspin but will intervene if you have a complete…

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I THINK I ALWAYS KNEW that, when the time came, the first Ferrari I ever drove wouldn’t be an f40 or 512tr. What I didn’t predict was that my first Ferrari would turn out to be one of the rarest, quirkiest and arguably most technologically influential models of the modern era. But that’s a mondial, I hear you cry. Nothing special about that. Except is wasn’t just any old mondial. Oh no. It was a mondial T ‘Valeo’. Yep, the one with the classic open-gated gearshift, but no clutch pedal. To say it was an unusual driving experience is something of an understatement. In fact, looking back, it was a really rather odd contraption full-stop, yet the Valeo was a tentative first step towards Ferrari’s revolutionary f1 paddle-shift. According to…

ONLY A COUPLE OF MONTHS back, even the gloomiest market forecast would not have factored in a global pandemic and a resulting recession, and yet here we are. Indeed, as recently as a few weeks ago it was business as usual for the auction houses, with Gooding & co, Bonhams and RM Sotheby’s all enjoying fruitful trips to Amelia Island at the beginning of march. There was less traffic in the marquees than in years past, but the sell-through rate for all three auctions combined was 87 per cent, and 22 of 26 Ferraris found a new home. Of those, 11 made the expected money and eight more sold within 10 per cent of the low estimate. a 1993 512 TR reckoned to be worth $150,000-200,000 brought $229,600, and a…

On another day, or in another world, these words would have described what it was like to drive another near-1000bhp hybrid Ferrari hypercar. But then Covid-19 reared its corona-crowned head and the already-once-postponed launch of the SF90 Stradale was kicked into the run-off area once more. Even so, it is hard to imagine how that hybrid could even have come into existence had it not been for this one. Without wishing to sound like a Blue Peter presenter hastily whipping out some pre-prepared pie from the oven and announcing ‘here’s one we made earlier’, the legacy of the LaFerrari in the SF90 is clear to see. In the seven years that now separate Ferrari’s first two hybrids, the lessons learned from the first project have turned a £1.2 million, 950bhp…

Unlikely rally cars. I know someone who forest-rallied a Triumph Spitfire and have interviewed the bloke who built the Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow that tackled the 1970 World Cup Rally. Both cars spark cognitive dissonance. But for years the one that really got me was the 308 GTB. How carelessly rich did you have to be, I thought, to throw a beautiful Ferrari at the scenery, with its expensive bodywork and fragile mechanicals? All the same, what I wouldn’t have given for a ride. Well, today is the day. I’m pulling down the belts in the passenger seat of the only right-hand-drive Group B-spec308 in the world. It’s one of just five genuine cars, the other four having been built for Ferrari by Michelotto in Padua, Italy. This one was built…

When you buy a Ferrari, you are paying for the engine. The rest you get for free.’ Did Enzo ever say that? Maybe, maybe not, but on a patchily damp, bumpy B-road, if there’s a current Ferrari that will cause those words to scroll across your thoughts it’s the 812 Superfast. Every time I give the throttle a decent squeeze I get the feeling we’re not far off an outbreak of pandemonium at the rear wheels. Ferrari says it has no plans to drop the V12 engine, but I can’t help thinking that it won’t build another car like this: a non-hybrid, rear-drive GT with a naturally aspirated, 6.5-litre V12 that revs to almost 9000rpm and delivers as near as dammit 800bhp. Just writing that sends a shiver down my…

For many Ferrari fanatics, collecting model cars is a substitute for owning the real thing. But Geoff Batterbee is an exception to the rule: he sold a full-size 360 Spider to fund a home extension to house his ever-expanding Ferrari model collection. The result: a shrine to Maranello on a quiet street in Greater London. There are few clues to Geoff’s passion for Ferrari when you arrive at the family home; in fact a seaside theme throws you off the scent initially. Neither does he seem at all socially awkward in a way the obsessive collecting might suggest. Now 65, he retired a few years ago as managing director of a security company because he’d grown to hate the city; he has a lovely wife, Janet, who entirely supports and…

‘The engineers worked their way through the 360 Modena, stripping out weight where they could’ If ever a car was a nailed-on classic from the moment it was launched, that car was the 360 Challenge Stradale. Here was a Ferrari that harked back to the berlinettas of the 1960s, cars that were equally at home on road or track. Inspired by the 360 Challenge one-make racers and the N-GT 360s that competed in the FIA GT Championship, the Stradale seemed to crackle with old-school Ferrariness. In fact no actual parts were carried over from the race cars, only their flavour, their attitude. The engineers started with the regular 360 Modena and simply worked their way through every aspect, stripping out weight where they could, and tuning both chassis and powertrain…