ROBERT COUCHER
The Driver
All Ferraris are marvellous, even the duff ones. Enzo Ferrari set about constructing his cars with absolute passion. First and foremost, the racing cars were built to win at all costs, those costs being met by the manufacture of sports cars for the road. And Ferrari has not deviated from its ethos of building cars that go as fast as possible from A to B while making the most delicious noises.
Some might argue that the current Ferrari Portofino is somewhat mainstream, akin to a moderately quick BMW, but it is proving to be a success and to make Ferrari SpA a lot of loot. At least the company has not (yet) moved into manufacturing thousands of fast lorries like some other sports car manufacturer now does in Stuttgart. The Portofino really is as easy to drive as an Audi. So, too, is the LaFerrari hypercar, even if its
950bhp ultimately requires some concentration. You can just purr about on its electric motor as long as you keep the revs below 5000.
In Cape Town, many years ago, I had an Italian girlfriend (highly recommended) whose uncle had a white 308. I’d never been in a Ferrari before because my tight-fisted father would never buy ‘us’ one, preferring those sensible hooligan slingshots from Zuffenhausen. What struck me on this Ferrari initiation rite was the 308’s sense of highly strung alertness and mechanical busy-ness. It felt tightly wound, alive, constantly on the boil even from the passenger seat. The engine buzzed and zinged and revved like a banshee. I couldn’t believe how it revved, on and on as ‘uncle Renzo’ clacked through the gears and the V8 screamed.
When we started Octane in 2003, naturally the first cover featured a Ferrari – a 250 GTO, no less. The generous owner allowed us a day with his steed at the Bruntingthorpe track where our test driver, multiple race-winner Mark Hales, pitted it against an alarmingly thunderous Bizzarrini. Of course, as the then-editor I had to attend and pitch in to do the donkey work on the shoot, which included several laps of the course in the GTO to determine the best camera angles and all that.
Our previous columnist and useful drummer, Nick Mason, has purported in the past that his GTO is eminently usable on the public highway, but I found it to be very hot, extremely noisy and it exhibited a muchheightened version of the 308’s trembling nervousness.
Maybe its insane value had something to do with it, too. Which leads me to affordable Ferraris.
As well as pure sports cars, Ferrari has manufactured a few grand tourers including the 365 GTC/4 – effectively the ‘soft’ Daytona of 1972 – and the later 412 of 1989. These are Ferrari’s bigger 2+2 GT cars, which, let’s be honest, went through a ‘banger’ stage a couple of decades ago so there are not many left. The two examples I drove (see Octane 192, June 2019) were immaculate and I was amazed at how good they really were. With its carb-fed V12 engine the 365 is pure Ferrari drama, Pavarotti-style, while the automatic 412 is Maranello’s answer to the Mercedes-Benz 560 SEC. I know because I own a ‘big block’ Merc, the epitome of quality Benz engineering. The Ferrari stands comparison, except that its V12 is a whole lot more charismatic than the Merc’s stolid V8.
This month we feature a very special 166MM Barchetta. I have to admit that a friend recently let me drive his example through the Swiss Alps, and what a glorious little motor car it was. Absolutely sweet to look at, and the dinky V12 engine delivers the beans even if the drum brakes are not quite able to keep up. The solid rear axle makes itself known over rough surfaces, so I had to be quick not to let the lively tail get away, but otherwise the 166 was a joyous experience.
While those less-loved Ferraris GTs exceeded expectations, one of the most valuable Ferraris didn’t. The cover of our December 2013 issue trumpeted: ‘£17 million Ferrari. The full story of the world’s most expensive road car’. It was a 275 GTB/4 NART, one of ten chopped 275 GTBs. Another good friend of Octane let me drive his drop-top NART and while very pleasant, it was ultimately underwhelming. An Alfa Romeo Duetto will do 85 percent of the job without the worry.
Ferrari Tour de France models of the 1950s are superb. I’d love a 550 Maranello, 456s are exceptional value and when I drove Nick Mason’s Enzo on a shoot, I discovered you can’t see much out of the rear three-quarters so a 458 is quicker on real roads. Kevin O’Rourke’s V8-powered Dino is the maddest Ferrari I have driven, but a standard 308 driven fast along the open D-roads of rural France remains my best Ferrari driving experience.
That car was beautiful, subtle, fun, sophisticated and engaging. Much like my Italian memories of years ago…
‘MY FATHER WOULD NEVER BUY US A FERRARI, PREFERRING THOSE SENSIBLE SLINGSHOTS FROM ZUFFENHAUSEN’