If you haven’t yet received a card from Maranello inviting you to cough up a million more or less for the new Enzo replacement you’re out of luck. Only 399 cards were printed and you are obviously not on the ‘A’ list.
Some details have emerged about Ferrari’s long-awaited Enzo replacement, the F70. Smaller, lighter, and faster than the Enzo, the F70 will have a target weight of just 1,000kg (2,204 lbs) as previewed by the ‘Millechilli’ (Italian for one thousand kilos) concept in 2007. This is 807 lbs less than the original Enzo, a phenomenal bonus for performance and handling. To achieve this lighter weight, Ferrari will equip the F70 with carbon fiber body panels, carbon-ceramic brakes, and a spartan race-oriented interior. Think F40.
The F70 is expected to use a twin-turbo V8 (again like the F40). The V8 will produce about 660 bhp (485 kW), approximating the output of the Enzo’s 6.0-liter V12. With a lighter chassis, the F70 should accelerate from 0-60 mph in 3.0 seconds and hit a top speed in excess of 230 mph. Even so, the engine will be relatively fuel-efficient and reduce CO2 emissions.
At a price around £600,000 ($991,800 USD / €657,750), production will likely be limited to 399 units when it goes on “sale” (as usual, Ferrari will select who can buy the car) in 2012. Illustrations are speculative and based in part on the 2007 show car.
Auto Express reports: “a twin-turbo V8 will provide the power. It will be the first use of turbos in a production Ferrari since the 1987 F40, making this the spiritual successor to that definitive hypercar.
Internally codenamed the F70, the newcomer will use knowledge gathered from the FXX scheme. This invited customers to buy a pumped-up and stripped-out version of the Enzo for £1.5million, but allowed them to drive their purchases only on approved track days. Afterwards, they briefed Ferrari on possible improvements.
The philosophy behind this new downsized and lightweight hypercar is derived from 2007’s Millechilli concept. Although little more than a fibreglass model, it demonstrated Ferrari’s aim to increase the performance of future models by shedding weight, not by hiking power. Millechilli means 1,000kg in Italian. It’s an ambitious target for the F70’s kerbweight – a full 365kg less than the Enzo – but Ferrari is ready to apply every weight-saving measure possible.
Rival McLaren is leading the way in lightweight construction, with an F1-style carbon fibre tub forming the basis of its MP4-12C supercar, so Ferrari wants to regain the initiative in this area. An overhauled and shrunken tub, carbon fibre body panels – plus carbon-ceramic brakes and a no-frills cabin – should keep weight to a minimum. Ferrari already heads efforts to reduce CO2, having slashed output by 10 per cent in 2009. It promises further cuts from its current 387g/km average by 2012.
But reducing body mass alone won’t be enough to achieve this. To slash CO2 significantly, the engine also needs an advanced design. The Enzo’s V12 will make way for a new direct-injection twin-turbo V8 – the same layout as in the legendary F40. Output is likely to be on a par with the Enzo’s 660bhp, but that lower weight should put performance on another level. Expect a three-second 0-60mph time and top speed in excess of 230mph.
A twin-turbo V6 is also under consideration, to replace the 458 Italia and California’s V8s. Yet before either unit is signed off, engineers are keen to eliminate turbo lag. The F40 was famous for the delay between throttle inputs and the arrival of a savage wave of torque. But Ferrari claims it won’t resort to turbos again until it’s perfected the technology to give the instant response for which its naturally aspirated cars are renowned.
One option is electric or hybrid chargers. These use a small electric motor to spool the turbos up to operating speeds much faster than in a normal set-up, where exhaust gas has to be recirculated. The result is a virtual elimination of turbo lag and a linear power delivery that will be familiar to owners of current Ferraris.
Just like the Enzo, the F70 will be strictly limited to a production run of 399 examples, adhering to Ferrari’s philosophy of always building one less car than you think you can sell. But not just anyone will be able to put their name on the waiting list. Buyers will need to be personally invited by Ferrari to stump up the expected million (£600,000) asking price when the car goes on sale in 2012.
fill the ever-expanding number of government jobs will be statists – sometimes hard-core Marxist statists, sometimes social-engineering multiculti statists, sometimes fluffily “compassionate” statists, but always statists. The short history of the post-war welfare state is that you don’t need a president-for-life if you’ve got a bureaucracy-for-life: The people can elect “conservatives,” as the Germans have done and the British are about to do, and the Left is mostly relaxed about it because, in all but exceptional cases (Thatcher), they fulfill the same function in the system as the first-year boys at wintry English boarding schools who, for tuppence-ha’penny or some such, would agree to go and warm the seat in the unheated lavatories until the prefects strolled in and took their rightful place.
Alice in Health Care
out of Alice in Wonderland.
What is called lowering the costs is simply refusing to pay all the costs, by having the government set lower prices, whether for doctors’ fees, hospital reimbursements or other charges. Surely no one believes that there will be no repercussions from refusing to pay for what we want. Some doctors are already refusing to accept Medicare or Medicaid patients because the government’s reimbursement levels are so low.
The greatest scandal connected to global warming is not exaggeration, fraud or destruction of data to conceal the weakness of the argument. It is those who are personally profiting from promoting this fantasy at the expense of the rest of us.
