CAR: Enzo vs SLR vs Carrera GT

I havn't read the article yet, it's from the UK magazine CAR which hasn't hit Barnes and Noble yet with their current issue. This scan was lifted from another car board:

Porsche Carrera GT v Ferrari Enzo v Mercedes SLR McLaren: The verdict story Jurgen Zoellter
"The Carrera will nail 62mph inside four seconds and that's the slowest of the three"

This is the story Ferrari, Porsche and Mercedes-Benz don't want you to read. Why? Because each believes it has built a supercar beyond compare. Just getting an Enzo, SLR McLaren and Carrera GT together in the Piazza del Popolo in Faenza, near Bologna, has required machinations on a Machiavellian scale. CAR staffers have done a lot of miles around the world in these cars separately, and now we've covered a shorter distance in them together in Italy. Finally we can begin to contemplate the question everyone's asking: which is best?
On paper the angular Enzo tops this trio with the most power, the quickest acceleration times and the highest top speed. But the performance differences between these three are all but meaningless for real-world drivers on real-world roads. For the record, the Enzo is barely 3/10ths of a second quicker to 62mph and just 13mph faster than Porsche's Carrera GT, the slowest of the three. Slowest? It will nail 62mph from rest in less than 4 seconds, top 124mph in less than ten and hit 205mph on a quiet autobahn.
What's remarkable is how three manufacturers have arrived ithin a postage stamp of the same performance envelope in a quite different ways. We have a 660bhp V12, a 612bhp V10 and a supercharged 626bhp V8; two six-speed manual transmission-one a paddle shift- and a five-speed automatic; two coupes and a roadster.
There are striking similarities too. Carbonfibre composites have been used extensively to construct the chassis and body shells; all have double wishbone suspension; and all have carbon ceramic disc brakes. All three also have highly sophisticated aerodynamics packages with movable elements to aid downforce.

OKAY, CRUNCH TIME. ENZO FIRST.
Swing open the beetle-wing door and drop down over the wide sill into the body hugging bucket seat. Thumb the red alloy start button in the narrow centre console and the 6.0-litre V12 barks into life before settling back to a rapid yet muted idle. Pull back on the right-hand lever, squeeze the throttle, and the most potent Ferrari road car ever pulls away with no more fuss than a Toyota, albeit with somewhat more sense of occasion.
All that changes the moment you floor the throttle. A guttural roar explodes in your head, your stomach feels like it's been punched, and lights start dancing before your eyes. All at once. It's like you've woken a dragon with a nasty hangover and a very short temper. Those lights are LEDs telling you its time to grab another gear. Flick, flick, flick. Second, third, fourth. The shifts happen about as fast as that, and the Enzo gathers speed with pure, unadulterated thrust of saturn V on lift-off.
Once you've become accustomed to the sound and fury, the performance is astonishingly accesible. The chassis feels agile and alert, yet the ride is remarkably composed. The front end goes exactly where you point it and not a milimeter further, even though there's a curious lack of feel. The brakes will distort space and time if you have to wash off speed in a hurry.
It's an amazingly confidence-inspiring car to drive, and you quickly feel you could chuck it around like a Lotus Elise. But in that quiet little corner of your brain marked common sense, you remember watching Ferrari hot shoe Dario Benuzzi exploring the Enzo's limits at Fiorano. More specifically, you'll remember the lurid, tyre-smoking spins when he overstepped the mark. Like all mid-engined supercars, the Enzo is good natured only to a point.

"Floor the SLR's throttle and a gutteral roar explodes in your head"

THE MERCEDES-BENZ SLR MCLAREN
tries hard to be the nice guy all the time, from the moment you open the semi-gullwing door. Next to the minimalism of the Enzo and the funcionality of the Carrera GT, the SLR's cramped cabin looks just like something out of a regular Benz, only with a bit more bling.
Mercedes likes to describe the SLR as a 21st century GT. But the more you drive it, the more you realize what an oddly comprmised thing it is. Make no mistake, it is shatteringly fast in a straight line, surfing a fat seam of weapons-grade torque from the AMG-tweaked 5.5-litre supercharged V8 up front. But start throwing the SLR at the twisty bits, and all that effortlessness disappears. It nibbles at corners, the stiff suspension telegraphing every surface imperfection, and in rapid direction changes you're always aware you're in a car weighing 30% more than either the Enzo or the Carrera GT. The trick brakes are difficult to modulate smoothly at moderate speeds, although they do get better the more you punish them. But then the slightly snoozy steering starts feeling all twithcy past 160mph.
We hear there have been huge ructions between the engineering staffs at McLaren and Mercedes over the SLR's chassis set-up. We know the car has been back to the Nurburgring to find a better rid/ handling compromise, and down to Nardo to fix what appears to be a high-speed stability problem. Customer deliveries have started, but at the time of going to press we had yet to drive a revised-spec version. Mercedes has promised us a run in one soon.

"Any supercar is good natured only up to a point"

NEXT TO THE FLAMBOYANT
Ferrari and the baroque Benz, Porsche's Carrera CT seems alomst...nondescript. In truth it's perhaps merely the purest form here. The carbonfibre bodywork is simply wrapped around the bits that make it go, stop and steer, with just enough cues to let you know it's a Porsche.
For all its apparent conventiality the Carrera is the hardest of the three to get along with initally. The tiny carbon ceramic clutch is the culprit: it's either in or out, and combined with the almost total lack of flywheel effect in the free spinning V10, that means you're almos certain to stall it.
Once underway, though the Porsche feels much more user-friendly. the steering is a delight: accurate yet perfectly weighted. Like the Ferrari and the Benz, the brakes work best with plenty of heat in them; they're not quite as easy to modulate as those of the Enzo but we'd guess the rotors are going to last longer than the Ferrari's.
The 5.7-litre V10 zings explosively to its 8000rpm power peak, yet at the same time is remarkably linear and progressive in its delivery. We'ce crusied-cruised!- the Carrera on the autobahn at 175mph. And it demolishes a winding road with the same clinical precision as an Enzo-as long as things don't get too rough. The elaborate racecar-style suspension is supple and sensitive, but short on travel, which means the Carrera crashes and bucks its way through bumps. It's also snappy on the limit, spitting sideways fast enough to make even Walter Rohrl pay attention.

TIME FOR THE MILLION POUND
question, then: which one would we take home? Not the SLR McLaren. It has the performance to make it a player in the extreme supercar club, but not the composed ride, handling, steering and braking needed to make it a winner. Ron Dennis, McLaren boss, insits the SLR is a GT which 'just happened to exceed out performance targets.' But we'd argue Ferrari's Scaglietti- less than half a second slower to 62mph, barely 9mph slower overall, more than 100,000 lbs cheaper and a real four-seater- is a far, far better one.
That leaves the Ferrari and the Porsche, two cars from the two car makers with the purest high-performance DNA in the business.
The Carrera GT has all the qualities we've come to love in a Porsche: searing acceleration, herculean braking, talkative steering and an all-around sense that it's damn-near indestructable. But it's not quite the 24/7 supercar we had hoped it would be- the open top is great for your suntan but causes too much noise and disruption when driving fast; the suspension needs more travel to cope with less than perfect roads; and that on/off clutch would drive you mad around town.
So it's the Enzo, then. Its aggresive angles and edges are defined by aerodynamic functionality as much as a desire t be different, with the welcome result that this is the one modern Ferrari that doesn't shamelessly pillage Maranello's back catalogue in terms of design. Yes, it is the most rapid, the most powerful of this trio. But more importantly, its F1 style paddleshift and razor-sharp chassis make it remarkably easy to drive, fast and slow.
As potent as it looks, and cleverer than it seems, it defines the modern supercar.

1st
Ferrari Enzo
the ultimate supercar bar none. it is surprisingly easy to drive fast and slow, and it defines the modern supercar.

2nd
Porsche Carrera GT
Accelerates, steers and handles brilliantly, but the clutch is a pain.

3rd
Mercedes McLaren SLR
Merc claims it is a GT. Superfast, but handling and ride let it down

-CAR

There is also a comparison like this in this month's Road and Track. I'd imagine that most of you guys have seen that one. Unfortunately, they refuse to give a verdict.
Another British magazine called Auto Express did this test with the same cars, and picked the CGT because they said it had the most tactile and involving road manners.