Ferrari Mailing List: WSJ: 599GTB review, "Just Off the Boat From Italy"

[Dennis Liu (BigHeadDennis]

Just Off the Boat From Italy

We Jump the Waiting List For the $265,000 Ferrari; Easier to Drive in a
Dress

By CHRISTINA BINKLEY
October 27, 2006; Page W1

Full disclosure: Both my vehicles have kids' car seats strapped into the
back. So, when offered the chance to drive the new Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano,
the first person I called for advice was Elaine Wynn, wife of casino mogul
Steve Wynn. She buys a new Ferrari every year.

"Wear pants," Mrs. Wynn suggested firmly. So, clad in my favorite blue Elie
Tahari slacks, I've slipped down into the low-slung,
carbon-fiber-and-leather driver's seat of the 599 with my dignity intact.

 
Power up: Ferrari, in a big change, puts the engine of the 599 GTB up front.

My heart is thumping. I press the brake, punch the red ignition button on
the steering wheel and the engine revs with a roar that has literally been
composed by sound engineers to purr and growl differently at each setting. I
go first with the automatic-transmission choice -- yes, there's a choice --
and we glide into Beverly Hills, Calif., traffic.

Then, I venture into the six-gear manual transmission and the car mothers
me: It downshifts when it sees fit. There's no stick shift and no clutch to
push -- just two finger-operated paddles by the steering wheel that serve to
shift down (left paddle) and up (right paddle). An LED panel on the steering
wheel flashes a warning if the revolutions-per-minute near the 8,400 red
line.

I'm driving with James Del Pozzo, the 33-year-old general sales manager of
the local Ferrari dealership, who says shifting with the paddles is "like
playing a videogame." We ascend the Santa Monica mountains and hit curvy
Mulholland Drive.

Ferrari buffs say this car is groundbreaking, with its 620-horsepower V12
engine installed up front to more evenly distribute weight. This is an
innovation over the rear-engine Ferraris that I'm told make driving in
Beverly Hills traffic much like guiding a bronco through a rodeo chute. The
engine placement allows the car to sit up higher off the ground, making it
easier to get into and out of -- in a skirt (though I felt more comfortable
in pants). This is supposed to make the 599 the first Ferrari to appeal to
women and less race-oriented drivers. I'm thinking of it as the soccer moms'
Ferrari.

 
But the base price of the 599 is way out of car-pool territory -- $249,034.
This version started at $265,295 because it came with a special transmission
-- and went higher because of options including an $800 iPod hookup and the
$3,500 LED steering wheel. It belongs to Giacomo Mattioli, who is to
Ferraris what Wal-Mart is to Procter & Gamble.

The F-List

Most Ferraris come from Italy by boat. This one was flown in to arrive in
time to do a promotional lap last weekend at the Laguna Seca Raceway in
Monterey, Calif. (Most Americans won't get a chance to glimpse one until
next year.)

With just 14 cars a day gliding off the assembly line, Ferrari can't keep up
with demand. Mr. Mattioli, who was once married to the granddaughter of
company founder Enzo Ferrari, owns Ferrari and Maserati dealerships in
Beverly Hills, Pasadena, Calif., and the Silicon Valley, as well as a stake
in a Ferrari F430GT race car. The marriage to the founder's kin didn't last,
but his grip on the company's U.S. distribution channels held, and the man
now sells more Ferraris than anyone in North America. Waiting lists for a
new Ferrari can be years-long. The more you buy, the faster you'll rise to
the top of the next model's list -- a stroke of marketing genius that
encourages some Ferrari lovers to buy $300,000 cars they don't want in order
to maintain their place in line for the one they covet.

 
Soccer moms' Ferrari; our reporter behind the wheel. 
If you ask Mr. Mattioli how this delivery schedule is determined, he'll
mumble vaguely about complex computer programs. But the truth is that Mr.
Mattioli is the man who manages the F-list in Hollywood. According to people
familiar with the dealership, it was Mr. Mattioli who decided that TV and
filmmaker Michael Mann (who liberally sprinkles his work with Ferraris like
the F430 Spider that Crocket drives in "Miami Vice") will be getting his new
599 before Nicolas Cage gets his. Mr. Cage declined to comment. Mr. Mann
didn't respond to requests for comment.

The 599's maximum speed is something over 205 miles per hour, according to
the sales brochure, which is actually a hardcover book worthy of a coffee
table. I couldn't test this out in Los Angeles traffic, so I called Tony
Marnell, a Las Vegas construction contractor who made enough money building
casinos, including Bellagio and the Wynn, that he now owns 10 Ferraris, give
or take.

Mr. Marnell says he once drove his Enzo Ferrari -- a car so hot that it was
named after the company's founder -- on a Nevada highway at 235 mph. The
trouble with Ferraris, Mr. Marnell explains calmly, is that you can overtake
ordinary cars at such a pace that before you know it, vroom, you've
rear-ended some poor Honda right there in the fast lane.

Rare Kindness

Yet the Ferrari tries to protect drivers from its raw power. At 60 mph, its
sensors read the ground 200 times every 3.2 inches. This is why you can't
burn rubber unless you disengage all the safety gear using the "manettino,"
a tiny switch on the steering wheel with choices for normal driving
conditions and rain and snow, as well as psychological needs like "sport,"
"race" and one that might be named " burn rubber." (It turns off the
stability and traction control.)

This is not the kind of problem I normally face on the streets of Los
Angeles. The cars parked in my Hollywood Hills garage are a Subaru Outback
and a dented Infiniti i-something. I can't get the Crayola marker stains out
of the Infiniti's back-seat upholstery. Nobody eyes my wheels with lust.

Yet most everybody is green with envy about my Ferrari joyride. That
includes the suave gentleman in the white Mercedes sports car who tries to
wave me into traffic ahead of him on Mulholland Drive -- the first kindness
anyone has ever offered me in rush-hour traffic in this city.

Ferraris in Beverly Hills are sold by two salesmen, Mr. Del Pozzo and Bryant
Kreaden. Mr. Del Pozzo says he has seven points on his driver's license,
which puts him dangerously close to riding a bicycle to work. He has
collected these points in other people's Ferraris, because it turns out that
Ferrari salesmen generally can't afford to own a Ferrari, as Ferrari dealers
do. When Mr. Del Pozzo heads home from work six days a week, he climbs into
the seat of his Toyota Prius. Mr. Kreaden drives a Scion, another Toyota
product.

Maybe that's also mea culpa for the gas they use at work. At 11 miles per
gallon in the city, the Ferrari 599 is in league with a Hummer. Still, the
599 is a work of art. It reminds me of my husband's Italian Lotto tennis
shoes, which made his feet look sleek even in dirty sweat socks. Its body is
sculpted to send air over the hood, through a gap in the side-view mirrors,
and behind the "flying buttresses" at the rear. This serves the purpose of
placing roughly 150 pounds of air pressure onto the rear end when traveling
at 124 miles per hour, which helps keep the vehicle on the ground, Ferrari
says.

So just for the record, in case anyone from the Beverly Hills Police
Department is wondering: We did not go zero to 60 in 3.7 seconds in front of
those gated homes along Crescent Drive on Monday. No way. Wasn't us.

Write to Christina Binkley at christina.binkley [at] wsj.com1


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Things That Go Vroom
Here's how the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano stacks up against other expensive
sports cars. Acceleration and base price are from manufacturers:

MAKE/MODEL  BASE PRICE  ACCELERATION
0-60 MPH (SEC.)  COMMENTS  
Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano  $249,034  3.7  Unlike some others in this price
range, the Ferrari 599 isn't built from parts found on less-expensive
models. It doesn't share its engine design with pickup trucks (like the Ford
GT does) or its chassis and drive train parts with Audi models (like
Lamborghini).  
Lamborghini Murcielago LP640  $311,000  3.4  Lamborghinis are for drivers
who think understatement is overrated. For 2007, the longtime Ferrari rival
revamped its five-year-old flagship car, with a single huge tailpipe instead
of two and a bigger front spoiler. It also boosted its 12-cylinder engine to
640 horsepower from 580.  
Aston Martin Vanquish S  $260,000  4.8  James Bond drove one in his last
film, but in the upcoming "Casino Royale" he'll drive a DBS, which is based
on a less-expensive Aston and isn't yet for sale. Most Vanquish buyers own
five to seven cars, the company says, including at least one other exotic
like a Ferrari or Lamborghini.  
Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren  $452,750  3.8  While many cars in this category
are hard to drive -- more suited to track than town -- Mercedes says the SLR
is an "everyday supercar," designed to be comfortable for commuting, errands
or road trips. Traditional automatic transmission makes it more of a highway
cruiser than racecar.  
Saleen S7  $585,000  2.8  The first S7s, built in Irvine, Calif., came out
in 2001, but last year the company boosted the giant 8-cylinder engine to
put out 750 horsepower, up from 550. The car weights 2,950 pounds, about
1,000 pounds lighter than Lamborghini's Murcielago. Its maker says the car
is meant to compete with the $650,000 Ferrari Enzo, not the 599.