Gadgetory

how Ferrari isn't like Ford or Chevy they don't build a car for every practical purpose they built a car for every impractical purpose the f12 is a GT Berlinetta let's break that down now we use GT all wrong in America GT is a Gran Turismo in proper parlance that means a grand touring car so take high-performance add spacious room and comfort for 2 adults maybe room for two kids in the back a car you don't mind being in while you're going back now the berlinetta part that's the diminutive form of the italian barlini which is a limousine or luxurious saloon put these two together and you've got a Grand Touring performance car with the luxury of a little limo yeah prepare to write a big check now a blind man could spot this car from a thousand yards on a foggy day because it's got the most distinctive body styling of anything on the road right here this is called the Aero bridge big deep channel on either side of the hood comes into literally a bridge across this gap that opens up on the side of the car and along the door this channels air away from a turbulent pressure zone here they say it's good for up to 270 pounds of downforce at Full Tilt inside this cabin harkens to me back to the early mid 60s 250 GTS which had this kind of protruding eyebrow design like this of course those have now moved to LCD panels replaced by some very handy nozzles big central actual tach and that's your only gauge 2 flanking LCDs the one on the right handles infotainment navigation is up radio is left media right phone is down on this side vehicle settings now those vehicle dynamics settings under the VDA button are tied to this this is Ferraris manettino setup all the way down gets you into wet so it's going to modulate power very gradually for sloppy conditions up one more they call sport that's actually just normal mode up the next one is race that's what most car companies call sport mode it tightens everything up in terms of power delivery shift points and such then you've got C T off this is going to push the car right to the ragged edge before the system's jump in and save you finally rotated hold for ESC off this has turned off stability control and traction control time to call your insurance company and tell them there's a claim coming as you work through the manettino settings you also end up with a series of displays on the left that show you what you're getting into through six different vehicle subsystems f1 track is the traction control Formula One inspired heed if is the electronically controlled rear differential f1 DC that is our automated manual dual clutch transmission ESC stability control ABS obviously anti-lock brakes SCM is the magneto rheological adaptive suspension the fluid in the actual dampers changes viscosity as electrical current is applied you don't drive this car like any other yes you put a key in and turn it but all that does is arm the thing then you start it with an engine start button to turn it off you rotate the key back out again these guys appear under your thumbs are your turn signals similarly non stalk based or your high beams you push this button on/off down here is a shock setting press it once for bumpy road press it again for smooth Road and this little thing here controls your wipers I still haven't figured out how it works no shifter of any kind aside from your paddles you've got these three buttons on this arc in the console are is reverse auto is automatic mode kind of like what you would have in Drive PS don't know what that stands for is actually launch mode quite a few cameras you've got your reverse camera which looks pretty good lots of good guidance lines on it then as soon as you go in to drive or go forward from there it cuts away to a similar forward camera and if you push this button up here you can invoke a wall I view as well as you can imagine this whole cabin is low-slung gives me a lot of headroom I don't believe but I'm not sure that a sunroof is available in this car and I absolutely love this titanium over brown color scheme thank you for not being red but if you think this is gorgeous and it is you ain't seen nothing yet now I'm about to open the hood I don't normally give you warning about this but I did it last night for someone who's seen a lot of nice cars and he almost fainted dead away just know your warrant that's the sexiest thing under sheet metal you'll ever see this is a 6.3 liter naturally aspirated v12 direct-injected of course but no turbos no superchargers no cheats basically one key thing high-compression point five to one you don't run this thing on regular 730 horsepower 509 foot-pounds of torque a big number sure but clearly a river not a grunter the car weighs about 3,500 pounds driven out to the rear wheels only through a 7-speed dual-clutch automated manual only the result is 0 to 60 in three seconds really less than that in anyone's hands it's capable and the mpg 1216 may not sound interesting to you but it's a full 30 percent better than the Ferrari that this guy replaces look where the front of the engine block is it's right about here so your engine's yay that puts it right at the axle line qualifying this is what's known as a front mid-engine design that's key to get this car some nice rotational performance when you're cornering or hanging the rear end out also check these interesting structures that I've never seen these on an engine these are off the intake plenum and there's some kind of an expansion chamber that helps this car breathe and as we're going to find out on the road it really works let's go this is one of the most civilized driving dual-clutch high-performance cars I've ever driven it's really really nice all their this power comes on almost freakishly that's the easy of an engine like this that is so tuned for great breathing it's how they got that incredible power without putting any Augmented intake on it the ride quality is really quite good this is not a great highway I'm on right here but it's it's tamping out all the nasty stuff and the nice sort of laid-back driving position this car there's just you're in the slot when you're sitting on this side because the engine is so responsive because the aluminum subframe and structure this car is so stiff it's relatively light it seems to lose a thousand pounds off its thirty five hundred some-odd pound printed weight the car doesn't feel that heavy Oh what's really going on here is the trend in supercar manufacturer to make these vehicles incredibly fast incredibly capable in their dynamics but also really easy to drive okay let's price our 2014 f12 test for kicks it's about 330 grand there are a few options to get it fully CNET style 8 the cameras are an optional package and a few other things but it doesn't matter you're not gonna swing one of these sooner than I can