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Dear Italian friends, I am lost in translation.
This story was originally published in our April 2014 issue
Help me with a word or phrase per favore, a word beyond forza and bellisimo and closer to perfecto.Feel free to substitute this word to the title of this story, a word worthy of Ferrari’s F12 Berlinetta.
As the word fails me, how about a suitable numero. Here are a few of relevance: 7.30, 840,000, 911, 28, 8700 and 8.3.
Allow me to explain. Editor Campbell has me fetching a Prancing Horse from its Richmond stable in Victoria for a 7.30am rendezvous to load-up onto the Spirit of Tasmania ferry bound for the twisties of the Apple Isle.
Because this Grigio Titanio (silver) example lists for a cool $690,745, though it burbles down Swan Street, wedged in amongst the taxis and tradie utes, optioned up to $825,245.
The Ferrari King is already seducing me, slowly and gently, by how easily and effortlessly it dispatches the slow commute to Port Melbourne. Graceful styling, which owes as much to 250 hours of wind tunnel testing as it does Pininfarina’s design savvy, has the captivating presence you’d expect from the tree-topping Italian exotic, sans the ostentatious pretensions of – how do I put this nicely – brash rosso-soaked Prancing Horse cliché.
It’s too dignified a device to be hung off its redline in first gear along a South Melbourne café strip.
My mind starts to drift to Stuttgart, of all places. The only other certifiably bonkers car I’ve driven with this much inherent comfort and silken low-speed discipline has had a 911 badge on it. And I remind myself, short of LaFerrari, I’m negotiating the Monday morning tradie crush in the most powerful Ferrari road car ever devised.
Then there’s ride comfort. It’s as supple as a base Carrera. And that’s despite the F12 not so much as offering a switchable Comfort drive mode, per se. Its ‘Bumpy Road’ active magnetic damper setting isn’t necessary around town, while the signature Ferrari ‘manettino’ steering wheel dial – governing the calibration of the powertrain, suspension, E-Diff, F1-Trac traction and ESC smarts – has Sport as its default ‘normal’ setting. And while the F12 drives nothing like a Camry, it’s certainly as easy to commute around town in.
But it’s the near-perfect ergonomics of the seating and touch points that demonstrates how much design thought has gone into getting the F12 right. It’s a personal godsend, too, because, at (well) over 28, I’m the only Gen X among MOTOR’s motley crew of Tassie-bound Y-genners and, thus, I’m the only bloke allowed to drive the F12 over the next four days.
Of course, once I arrive at Port Melbourne for load up, I ask who else wants a drive. Just to rub it in.
HOOLLLEEEEECRAAAAAAP!! A lot can happen in five seconds. Five seconds of blurry physical and sonic ferocity. A few things stand out, mostly the violence of the shove and the sensations, through my spine, of the F12’s tail shimmying about as those 315mm rear Michelins strain against the F1-Trac leash. That I see more than one red shiftlight blink from the tiller rim suggests I get within coo-ee of its 8700rpm cut-out.
And as the Berlinetta can stride to 100km/h in 3.1sec and 200km/h in 8.3sec (from a standstill), a full five seconds of white noise would, of course, mandate a firm squeeze of those monstrous carbon-ceramic brakes. Believe me, when you uncork 6262cc of V12 fury, you’re not watching the speedo, but rather, in this case, the fast looming motorway merge junction.
I dial up 110km/h on the “Pit Lane Limiter” (cruise control to us proles) and the F12 slips into seventh, my mind racing for go-faster reference points. Murcielago? Turbo 911s? GT-R? None are as ferocious as the F12. Its F599 predecessor? Not in its successor’s league. Radicals? Nope. McLaren MP12-4C? Not driven one, but I’d seriously doubt it. Lexus LF-A? Too slow. Aventador…
Ferrari calls its F12 both a grand tourer and sports car. The enormous breadth of its Jekyll and Hyde talents is the true measure of the sheer magnitude of this Italian masterpiece. This depth of talent comes to light as I point the Berlinetta south-west into Tassie’s interior, towards Cradle Mountain.
That last 1000rpm of this lightened, reworked, FF-derived bent twelve, with its insane 13.5:1 compression ratio, is absolute nirvana.And at once it bridges Ferrari’s deepest history, from the marque’s very first 12-cylinder 125 S (1947) through to its heady Formula One engines, with which the F12 roughly matches with its outrageous 545-kilowatt count.
Any flinch of the right foot can lift road speed a good 10 or 15km/h above the posted speed limit. All of this makes the low-rpm response feel dull, yet it’s all relative – the V12 makes 80 per cent of its 690Nm peak at 2500rpm. So it’s super tractable, yet benign enough for the bumper-to-bumper grind. And it does it all without the “drive-mode” swapping seen in in many pricey German cars.
The F12 dual-clutch self-shifts smoother and upshifts more quickly and cleanly than anything else on the market. Its refinement and calibration is such that it instantly transitions from buttery cruise to racetrack ‘kill’. Hover in ‘kill’ mode just long enough, and it always seems to know exactly which shift program is needed.
Sure, a click of the manettino dial to ‘Race’ flexes and firms up the F12’s muscles. But be careful as its potency in Frankly, readers, I’m again lost for words – I’ve used all the usual high-watermarking superlatives for many great cars in my time, but the F12 tops everything. And I mean everything! It’s a super-quick two turns lock-to-lock and it’s electrically assisted with varying assistance according to speed. Simply put, the F12’s steering is perfect.
There’s no sneeze factor off centre and hallelujah for that. Because you discover very quickly the F1’s chassis is so fizzy and agile, yet the car is so confident and comfortable at piling on shocking speed, that its ultra-reactive, incredibly detailed steering helps keep the driver focused.
And thus, the Ferrari responds amazingly once you dig deep and push on at a red-misted pace. The handling package is edgy and aggressive enough to keep you utterly engaged – to feel like a proper hypercar – yet it’s so predictable and almost benign in its balance on the fringes of lateral grip. And it never seems to get overly flustered or too ragged when doing so.
And even after having my bum welded to red Alcantara for a good 24 hours and sampling its myriad talents, I didn’t expect the F12 to be quite as handy in these parts as I’d expected.
Blasting steep climbs between rock face and Armco, separated by impossibly tight hairpin corners, the F12’s front end is unflappable.
I suggest to Dep Ed Newman that if I could punt any car in Targa Tassie, it’d be an F12 Berlinetta. He suggests in return that I’d lose. Perhaps, but I guarantee that I’d be the happiest bloke of the whole circus when it came time to pop the champers at the finish line. Driving the F12 to and from the event would be a pleasure of equal measure.
Five out of Five
Body:2-door, 2-seat coupe Drive: rear-wheel Engine: 6262cc V12, DOHC, 48v Bore/Stroke: 94.0mm x 75.2mm Compression: 13.5:1 Power: 545kW @ 8250rpm Torque: 690Nm @ 6000-8700Nm Redline/Cut: 8450/8700rpm Power-to-Weight: 357kW/tonne 0-100km/h: 3.1sec Top Speed: 340km/h (claimed) Consumption: 15.0L/100km (claimed) Emissions: 350g/km (claimed) Transmission: 7-speed dual-clutch Weight: 1525kg Suspension: double A-arms, adaptive dampers, anti-roll bar (f); multi-links, adaptive dampers, anti-roll bar (r) L/W/H: 4618/1942/1273mm Wheelbase: 2720mm Tracks: 1665/1618mm (f/r) Steering: electrically-assisted rack and pinion Lock-to-lock: 2.0 turns Brakes: 398mm carbon-ceramic ventilated discs, 6-piston calipers (f); 360mm carbon-ceramic ventilated discs, 4-piston calipers (r) Wheels: 20 x 9.5-inch (f), 20 x 11.5-inch (r) Tyres: 255/35ZR 20 (f), 315/35ZR 20 (r) Michelin Pilot Super Sport Price: $690,745 Price as Tested: $825,245* Positives: World’s best drivetrain; incredible ride/handling balance; beautiful interior; exterior styling; everything, really Negatives: Option prices; Ferrari insurance policies
