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

[JAshburne (JAshburne]

I've become used to some pretty poor car reviews in the WSJ, but this one  
didn't even meet those abysmal standards!  I can't believe that they  thought 
that printing this was a good idea.
 
John
 
 
In a message dated 10/27/2006 11:25:27 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,  
BigHeadDennis [at] earthlink.net writes:

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.