Ferdinand Porsche would be proud of the Carrera GT. The company he founded in 1948 has produced an amazing string of sports cars that was only recently interrupted by—of all things—a truck. If the introduction of that Cayenne sport-ute had you wondering if the folks from Zuffenhausen had gone soft, think again. The exotic $448,400 605-hp Carrera GT revealed here is arguably the finest sports car the company has ever produced.
It is an incredible car, with a plethora of juicy technical details and glorious thrust from a mid-mounted aluminum V-10 engine. We learned about both during a day of testing and driving at Italy's Adria International Raceway.
Remember the Acura NSX, the car that brought family-sedan drivability to the supercar ranks? Porsche has done much the same thing here, but with the performance bar raised to a dizzying height. Let's check the numbers.
The 60-mph run isn't a sprint; it's simply a first stride in this car. It's gone in 3.5 seconds. A scant 3.3 seconds later, 100 mph arrives. By the time your brain has caught up with the ever-increasing velocity, the GT has passed 130 mph—in 10.8 seconds, and hey, was that the quarter-mile marker at 11.2 seconds and 132 mph? The comparison with the $659,430 650-hp Ferrari Enzo is inevitable, so here goes: The Enzo gets to 60 in 3.3 seconds, 100 in 6.6, and the quarter in 11.2 seconds at 136 mph.
So the Enzo is a few ticks quicker, but consider this: Unlike the Enzo, which has an automated manual transmission that automatically operates the clutch and shifter, the Carrera GT has a good ol' six-speed manual and a traditional clutch. Although we tried our best, the Carrera is extremely hard to get off the line cleanly. The 5.7-liter V-10 engine has about zero inertia. Breathing on the gas pedal sends the revs soaring. Likewise, if you lift off, they plummet. And the engine is all too willing to overpower the rear tires.
The clutch operates like an on/off switch and is tough to engage smoothly. Unlike a regular clutch that has only one friction disc, the GT has four and is about two-thirds the diameter (6.7 inches) of a standard 911 clutch.
It and the dry-sump oil system allowed engineers to mount the engine lower (the crankshaft is only 3.9 inches off the carbon-fiber underbody tray) and reap the handling benefits of a lower center of gravity.
The clutch engages in maybe the last inch of the floor-mounted pedal's travel. The best way we found to get the car rolling was by slowly releasing the pedal without giving it any gas. Every time we added some throttle, the car stalled or we smoked the tires. Pulling into dense traffic produces sweaty palms. The Carrera GT is, however, terrifically durable. We saw one car endure about 40 drop-clutch launches with no ill effect on its performance.
The rest of the car is a pure joy. Flat steel rods join the high-mounted shifter to the transmission and provide a satisfying mechanical feel that makes you glad you have to shift the old-fashioned way.
That free-revving engine is unlike anything else we've ever sampled. It's loud, blowing 93 dBA on our sound meter during a full-throttle blast, but the shriek is the kind that prickles your body hair. The power peak is high (605 horsepower at 8000 rpm), as is the torque (435 pound-feet at 5750 rpm), but the engine is quite flexible.
The GT needed only 3.7 seconds to accelerate from 5 to 60 mph. And even in sixth gear with the engine burbling at 1200 rpm, it pulled from 30 to 50 in 4.3 seconds and from 50 to 70 in 4.8 seconds. (We didn't perform those tests on the Enzo, but a $283,600 Lamborghini Murciélago took 6.1 and 5.8 seconds, respectively, and a Corvette Z06 needed 9.5 and 9.4 seconds.)
The engine, the gearbox, and the differential reside in a lightweight carbon-fiber subframe that bolts to a bulkhead behind the two seats. Since the subframe carries the structural load, Porsche used three flexible engine mounts—one in front and two at the rear—to isolate the chassis from engine vibrations.
There's carbon fiber throughout the car. The carbon-fiber chassis is made by ATR, the same company that produces the Enzo chassis. It's formed by placing about 1000 pieces of carbon-fiber cloth on molds that are first vacuum-bagged to prevent air bubbles and then cured under high temperature and pressure in an autoclave.
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"Then why," we asked this car's project manager, Michael Hölscher, "does the 3146-pound GT weigh almost the same as a 3181-pound Corvette Z06?" There are many reasons, but a major one is the removable roof section. Achieving the desired bedrock chassis stiffness Porsche wanted in an open car required adding extra material to the chassis. Hölscher wouldn't quote any numbers but said it's probably the stiffest car on the road today. After our brief drive, we think he might be right. He also pointed to the bank of three large radiators that fill the nose of the car. "It will never overheat," he pledged. Add in about 40 pounds of filler to give the carbon-fiber body a durable shiny finish, air conditioning, and the general beefing up of components to deal with the forces of 605 horsepower, and suddenly you're at standard road-car weight. At least the company didn't skimp in the passenger compartment. There was legroom and headroom to spare for this six-foot-one test driver. The view out is fantastic, with a drop-away hood that seemingly lets you see a dime a foot in front of the car's nose. The shifter is mounted high but not uncomfortably out of reach. And despite the absence of a backrest adjustment, the deeply sculpted, thinly padded seats felt perfect. Makes you wonder why everyone doesn't ditch heavily padded seats for these well-designed shells. The crowning touches are the subtle elbow pads on the center console and door. The cockpit is the perfect place to experience the Carrera GT's handling precision. There are a few concessions to comfort, including vibration-absorbing engine mounts and the addition of air conditioning, but the suspension is all business. For example, the control arms are mounted to the chassis by spherical bearings instead of the usual rubber mounts that filter road noise but allow small deflections to minutely change the positioning of the wheels.
Thoughts of ride quality quickly faded as we barreled into a tight hairpin at 135 mph. Here's where we'd like to brag about our abilities to keep this flailing beast on the track. But we can't—the GT's excellent manners and tremendous grip make difficult maneuvers seem easy. We didn't record any notes on the steering feel. We didn't forget to—it's just that it felt quite natural. There's power assist, but it doesn't vary with vehicle speed. Yet the effort builds with cornering speeds, and you always get a sense of how close the tires are to their cornering limits. Those limits are fantastically high. Although there wasn't a skidpad at the track, our Racelogic VBOX GPS data logger recorded 1.10 g in slow corners and 1.19 g in faster corners, where the car's aerodynamics (the spoilers and the underbody diffusers) likely added enough downforce to enhance grip. Since some of the corners appeared to have subtle banking, we'll have to wait until we get the GT on a skidpad to compare it with other cars. The brakes, too, are wonderful. Stopping from 70 mph takes only 145 feet—six fewer than the Enzo. The pedal is firm, and you can use the anti-lock system to cut down the majority of straight-line speed and then effortlessly ease off to trail-brake into the corners.
The way we see it, a little bit of road noise and a grabby clutch are small prices to pay for a sports car that until now was simply a dreamy doodle in study hall. It's as fast as anything else on the road, but it offers an open roof and an immensely satisfying level of driver involvement. There's also a curious link to the past. The GT is not the first mid-engined, V-10-powered Porsche. Just such a car was designed back in 1939 but never built. Dubbed the Type 114, its two-seat coupe body strongly resembled the VW Beetle. It was no people's car, however, with a water-cooled 1.5-liter aluminum V-10 that bolted to a rear-mounted five-speed manual transmission. The war effectively killed any production plans, and Ferdinand Porsche died in 1951. Yet clearly, his genius carries on.
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The idea, of course, is to save weight. And Porsche engineers are fanatical pound pinchers. Even the seats, like the body, are carbon fiber and weigh about 23 pounds, half as much as each 911 perch. The wheels are forged magnesium and weigh about a third less than conventional aluminum rims. Aluminum was used in place of steel for the upper control arms and front crush structure. The engine designers helped the weight shaving with titanium connecting rods and cast the engine oil tank into the transmission housing. The oil passages that run to and from the engine are internal, so there are no external lines.
The carbon-fiber chassis provides some inherent sound dampening, but you can still feel and hear even small road cracks. Large frost heaves send an alarming crack through the chassis, but over moderate bumps, the ride is firm and surprisingly resilient.
It wasn't the outright speed that floored us. We expected that. It was the easy controllability. Those rigid suspension mounts may be a bit annoying on the road, but on the track they provide a stream of tiny signals that impart confidence. We tried, but we never found a way to upset the chassis. It's simply glued to the road.
C/D TEST RESULTS
As little as the Z06 weighs, it does not feel like a light, nimble car. To accommodate the wider rear tires (325/30ZR-19s versus stock 285/35ZR-19s), the Z06's tail bulges an extra 3.3 inches for a 75.9-inch width; the car fills the width of a typically narrow European back road.
We went for a ride with Corvette test driver Jim Mero to learn the course. Heading downhill to Eau Rouge, he accelerated into fourth gear, or about 130 mph. At the bottom of the hill he flicked the car left, then right, and headed uphill and arced back left as he crested. All this in the blink of an eye. The speed never dropped below 110 mph.
After two laps we lined up for Eau Rouge, determined to duplicate Mero's smooth run, and kept the throttle pinned as we neared the bottom of the hill. We hit the dip, flicked left, then right, and headed back uphill. Somewhere in the sequence, we erred—probably lifting off the gas when we shouldn't have. It's hard to say exactly what happened, but the car got squirrelly. We weren't frightened. Terrified is a better word. In the middle of this bad moment, the Z06's stability-control system kicked in and kept us on track.
But by almost every performance standard, the Z06 is a supercar. A few days after our trip, we took a Z06 to GM's Milford proving ground and tested it. It ripped to 60 mph in only 3.6 seconds, hit 100 in 7.9, and 150 in 17.5. That's on par with or better than the performance of the $153,345 Ford GT (and good luck getting that price) and $180,785 Ferrari F430. Likewise, the brakes are terrific, bringing the Vette to a standstill from 70 mph in only 162 feet. And it pulled 0.98 g on the skidpad. Spending double the Z06's price does not guarantee you'll have a car that can beat it.
As in any long and very successful marriage, the prancing stallion of Ferrari and gracious Pininfarina are bound by ties of convenience and habit. They’ve weathered distractions and dalliances, and their progeny, dating back to the earliest post–World War II Italian grand-touring cars, are timeless. Then along came the 612 Scaglietti. Begun in 2002 and finalized in 2004, its birth was a wrangle between Ferrari and Pininfarina. When early images of the 612 found their way onto the Internet, the Ferrari faithful were not happy. Some said, “Ah, just look — Pininfarina has lost it!”
The Pininfarina Rolodex is bursting with rich classic-car owners. Feelers were put out. However, the classic-car gentry only trust risk-free designs with established value, and few would risk involvement in a secret Pininfarina project that could anger Ferrari. Among world Ferraristi, one particularly wealthy American maverick came to mind — Jim Glickenhaus, 56. The Glickenhaus family’s Wall Street investment firm reinvents money daily. And besides having the wherewithal, Glickenhaus is addicted to owning priceless racing cars, among them a former Donohue Lola T70, a former McLaren/Donohue Ford Mk IV, and three Ferrari racers — a 1967 330 P3/4, a 1967 412P, and a 1947 Tipo 166 Spyder Corsa, the oldest Ferrari in existence. Nice collection.
Glickenhaus is utterly crackers for Ferrari’s voluptuous 1967 330 P3/4, arguably the most beautiful sports-racing car in history, and Castriota’s first drawings of the new car evoked the P3/4. But the design began evolving away from the retro P-car toward an original design that looked forward while also looking back. And Glickenhaus wasn’t sure he liked it. But seeing the new drawings, his son, Jesse, and daughter, Veronica, loved them. (Wouldn’t you like to argue with your dad about the styling of a secret one-off Ferrari?) Glickenhaus took his kids’ enthusiasm seriously. Maybe the car should be more than a homage.
After some loud conversations with Castriota, they agreed. In a Beverly Hills dealership, they tracked down the last unsold Ferrari Enzo in the world — for $650,000 plus. Still in its factory shrink-wrap, it arrived at Pininfarina, and the carbon-fiber Enzo bodywork was stripped away. (Need new-old-stock Enzo body parts? We know a guy.)
For months, Pininfarina and Glickenhaus kept their secret. Not even Ferrari knew! It wasn’t until five months into the project, in January 2006, that Pininfarina invited Ferrari representatives to see the full-size model. They were stunned.
Whatever. Now few can say Pininfarina has “lost it.” The P4/5 is a rolling history of Ferrari-racing DNA — 333SP nose, F1 cockpit profile, 512S rear window, 330 P3/4 NACA side ducts, white-enameled F1 exhaust tips. And in Pininfarina’s moving-road wind tunnel, the P4/5 proved to have more efficient cooling, higher downforce, and better balance than the Enzo, combined with a 0.34 coefficient of drag.
This is an aggressive project for Pininfarina — one that took a risk-taker like Glickenhaus and about four million bucks. (Pininfarina wants you to know not all one-offs are so pricey.) But Ken Okuyama, the styling director of Pininfarina, put it succinctly: “When you do something right, you don’t worry what people think.”
After due consideration, Ferrari decided that rebodying the brutally fast Enzo could profitably be seen as highly flattering to Maranello. It didn’t hurt that absolutely no expense was being spared to make the P4/5 sensational.
Exploiting the 722’s immense performance on winding public roads is, unfortunately, less than satisfying. The stiffer suspension never settles down enough to encourage approaching the car’s limits in an otherwise smooth corner. Similarly, the SLR’s steering has a blend of direct action and high effort that makes it difficult to carve a smooth line or make subtle midcorner adjustments to the car’s path.
Bacchus would check every box. The Roman god of wine, sex, inebriation, and other basic pleasures lives in the 17th-century Palazzo Ducale di Sassuolo, the summer palace of the duke of Modena, where Ferrari gave journalists their first ogle at the F430 Spider. In 1634, Francesco I started converting an old fort into his bacchanalian hot-weather getaway. It's now a military academy. The duke identified with Bacchus so much that his interior decorator, Jean Boulanger, painted one entire hangar-sized gallery with frescos depicting the guzzle god's happiest days. The psychedelic ceiling reminds one of the Sistine Chapel in the Vatican, with its contorted bodies and flowing loincloths, except where Bacchus is trying out the launch control on the F430 Spider.
Because Ferrari designed the F430's cast- and extruded-aluminum skeleton for both tintop and topless duty, just 22 pounds go to frame reinforcement, all in the doors and rocker-panel boxes below the doors. Twisting and bending stiffness increases over that of the old 360 Spider. As the F430 thumps over rough pavement, the steering wheel and the floor are almost as jiggle-free as Francesco's marble columns.
Life is surprisingly quiet at speed. A transparent polycarbonate wind blocker between the seats helps keep hats in place and the conversation two settings below shouting. Automatic exhaust-pipe valves turn up the wail under hard acceleration, but they open later in the spider—4000 rpm instead of 3000—if you set the manettino to "low grip." The manettino is the rotary switch on the steering wheel that lets the driver fit the suspension, traction control, and stability settings to the mood. With the manettino, shift times also vary. In "race," they bang home in as little as 0.15 second for that extra-quick lap time.
Wheelbase: 102.4 in
