Ferrari 488 Compared to the McLaren 720s

Lol.....funny and true and I'm 60.


Cars:

2013 Ferrari 458 Spider
2014 Porsche 911 Turbo S Cab

Only 2 that I drive.

 

Who was it that said "I thought aura and mystique were strippers" [emoji4]


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Now you've offended a lot of people ;-)

But seriously all companies, automobiles included, love their history. MB, Porsche, Ford, GM, Bentley, RR...and we could go on forever. It's part of the 'marketing'. Nothing wrong with it. McLaren will have it one day.

 

Yes, McLaren will have it someday. But they don't have it today. Bruce McLaren was a great leader, but the Enzo mystique isn't there.

McLaren makes crazy fast cars, but beyond the engineering, something is missing. It is called History, or Legacy, or Passion. It may come, but today it isn't there.

They have done a great job crashing the exotic car party, I don't know how it could be done better from a product perspective. But many people buy these cars for more than just performance, the story matters.

 

Well said, and precisely my point. I have high regard for McLaren, but that doesn't mean they are in Ferrari's league. The product is fantastic, but you can't design and manufacture history and legacy. I have a new 488 GTB arriving soon but that doesn't mean I don't love the great lineup of historical cars. My reason for attaching the video was to demonstrate the history of vehicles and less about the fancy event.




QUOTE=Clembo;145378681]Yes, McLaren will have it someday. But they don't have it today. Bruce McLaren was a great leader, but the Enzo mystique isn't there.

McLaren makes crazy fast cars, but beyond the engineering, something is missing. It is called History, or Legacy, or Passion. It may come, but today it isn't there.

They have done a great job crashing the exotic car party, I don't know how it could be done better from a product perspective. But many people buy these cars for more than just performance, the story matters.[/QUOTE]

 

Ron Dennis' "image" was never very appealing.

 

For pics follow my instagram ; bayareanady

You'll see that there is a lack of current Ferrari ownership compared to the past from my page.


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Wow you couldn't be further off the mark.

McLaren have plenty of history, winning more races than Ferrari, just not in building road cars. If that's your yardstick, maybe you should buy a Mercedes.

But marketing is a powerful thing, and Ferrari have done a supreme job at that. Perfume, towels, toilet paper holders, it's a very powerful brand no doubt.

 

A fair and true statement. Ferrari certainly has a very high historical value and therefore a corresponding high charismatic power in its brand. This is not to beat, in this regards Ferrari is unique.

And exactly in this regards I see a clear advantage in the McLaren products. Because this brand has not such a brand power in his back I realize a higher innovation power in the products, McLaren is bolder in breaking new ground. Currently I have the impression Ferrari rests too much on his glory of past days. The new Ferrari V8 turbo engine is an impressive step forward, but there must come immediately more from Ferrari. The competition is running ahead.

 

Of course not! Ferrari have both (many) more wins and a higher winning percentage in F1, not to mention GT racing, WEC (Le Mans) etc...


What matters most is that Ferrari have been in competition since their inception and the fact that they hold most motrsport records. The aforementioned, combined with their excellent road cars, built and still maintains their legend. That's what makes them a household name.

 

When I separate out the hype and the "heritage" (for whatever that is worth since they have only recently become independent again) the one thing I appreciate most about Ferrari is ingots of aluminum go in to one end and engines come out the other. Who can boast that objective fact?

 

Apart from adopting carbon fibre for their chassis and independent adaptive suspension, I see no other exceptional technology on the Mclarens. Their repeated use of their laggy turbo 3.8 engine is relatively low tech. Whereas, Ferrari's 458 had a screaming 9krpm NA engine back in 2010 - a feat that even Porsche are only now achieving in 2017 with the 991.2 GT3. The 488 has an engine just voted engine of the year for its superlative power and instant delivery characteristics that is most un-turbo-like. The Spider variants adopted the fastest and lightest roof closing mechanisms in the industry - funnily enough, it was McLaren who copied them by using exactly the same supplier for their subsequent Spider variants of the 12C onwards. The 458 was the first car to use active passive aerodynamics. The F12 adopted aero that has since been repeated by even the latest 720s.

How is Ferrari resting too much on their glory days? All their cars released in the past decade have been unique and pushed the performance/luxury boundaries and been class leading in some way. F12, 458, 612, TDF, 488, Speciale, etc. At least Ferrari models look different from each other, unlike the ubiquitous 540/570/650/675. So all in all, I'd say a Ferrari have been the industry leader in tech for their road cars, compared to McLaren who have traded off low tech and their F1 brand to establish their road cars.

 

Well said, and you didn't even mention the LaFerrari.

Again, I think McLaren in great, but still not the same league. The Marlins won the World Series twice but they're not the Yankees.

 

+488

 

Eh, I think you're mistaking what companies can/can't do with what they care about/don't care about doing.

Porsche could make 9K rpm engines all day if they thought it was important. The 458 active passive aero was simply abandoned even by Ferrari because it's just not that good/important. McLaren may use the same supplier of top mechanical bits, but so what? It's just a supplier. Ferrari uses all sorts of stuff that other companies use as well. With aero in general, there is really nothing terribly new. All aero on road cars is widely known and understood. It's just a matter of whether to design a car to use it or not based on how you want the car to look.

Ferrari, McLaren, Porsche, Lamborghini, Audi... they're all on the cutting edge of every technology because they all use a ton of suppliers and have race teams anyway. They use what they use simply given a business model, regulations, and design choice IMO. No one is really doing anything that the others can't.

 

If you look at their history:

The process of reduced cost CF tub (as Lambo is also doing also) was new technology
The active suspension was new technology
The software for car control adjustment is new technology
The engineering philosophy of reducing weight everywhere across the board for increased performance involved new technology. McLaren even speced OEM equipment to reduce weight.

I would say Mac has advanced the tech of super cars pretty well.

 

I'm going with Mac as well. To me, chassis is very important and the active suspension combined with CF tub and lighter weight gets my vote. I could care less if the 458 revs 500 rpm higher. There's no power up there anyway.

 

Actually in the 458 max power is at the redline. It just has a lot less power than a 650 or a 488.

Ferrari is renowned for their engines and in every McLaren review the usual caveat is that the engine isn't as good as their Ferrari's opposite number.

 

Your opening statement assumes everyone is capable of the same engineering and ease with which to do it. Sadly that is simply not the case. Else, every car manufacturer would be producing cars as capable or performant as Ferrari.

It is important to look at the development and productionisation of the technology of these manufacturers against time. Yes, passive active aero may have been later proven to be of limited value; but it took years to figure that out. At the time, Ferrari were the only ones doing it and willing to productionise it with reasonable effect of what was an elegantly simple idea - at least with the targeted results.

Yes, there are many shared suppliers to the industry. But which manufacturer demanded the fastest hard top folding roof mechanism to be designed for their needs? Yep - Ferrari, not McLaren, whose 12C Spider arrived several years later; and suppliers are rarely bound to single supply.

Porsche have been pushing for higher rev limits demanded on track, but struggled with reliability - hence the massive simplification required when they left the Mezger-6 of the 997 generation. And with the newer 991.2 engines, it's only been now that they could reliably achieve 9k rpm... if it were so easy, they would have with the 991.1... but they didn't/couldn't.

At Ferrari's factory, you see the large number of F1 engine room chimneys dedicated to engine R&D. No other manufacturer in the world, AFAIK, has the same investment at the F1 level. And that R&D is what allows them to produce the magnificent road engines they do. I think many underestimate the engineering required to design and build the likes of the 6.3L V12 with the power, reliability, and power delivery characteristics it has - revving with such free alacrity and immense power, usability, AND reliably. It is, to me, the pinnacle of engine design (today!) that no one else can do, and all because of what they learned from motorsport, not legacy. Truly, you buy the engine, and the rest of the car comes for free...

 

Every company can produce cars like Ferrari if they want to sell cars in that price range. I never said it's free or cheap to produce cars like Ferrari. Ferraris cost $250-400K.

I don't think there is anything noteworthy of the 458 passive aero. I really don't think there is anything going on in road car aero that people in aerospace don't know about. Most active aero is really common sense. I've had the ideas for active aero for years, long before it should up in cars. Why didn't the manufacturers? Well, they did too, but they know that you need to ration you technologies so you have something to improve with each year for future sales. Performance has a plateau and it has to be rationed accordingly. Once cars can get no higher in performance, then it becomes significantly harder to sell new ones. In short, they're sandbagging in order to extend product life. They could give you 750 hp in the 488 if they wanted, but they know they need to stretch the power out over 10 years.

McLaren didn't demand the fastest folding hard top because it already existed by the time they needed it. Why go through the trouble of designing a new one when one already exists? McLaren Automotive probably didn't even exist when Ferrari first asked for it. Who knows if they would have invested the same amount of time into such a thing? Maybe they would have or maybe they wouldn't impossible to say.

991.1 GT3 has a redline at 9K. It's not really that new. And again, this redline number is pretty irrelevant. A few hundred RPMs makes no real difference. Porsche has a business model in which they just don't care or find it important. They have number of criteria they need to meet and a vast number of ways to go about it. Could McLaren have come up with a 9000 RPM NA engine? Sure, but McLaren wanted an engine that could be used in several models with various amounts of power beyond what NA could provide, and they wanted less than 4L for tax reasons. They also had future emissions and regulator things to think about. McLaren went turbo before Ferrari because turbo was the future. Is the 488 better than the 12C engine? Definitely, but it's also 5 years newer, so why wouldn't it be?

Ford just proved that anyone with a big enough checkbook can jump to the head of the pack.

 

Ferrari's aero is lacking on their road cars due to their insistence against spoilers. I have taken the Speciale onto the track several times and drove it hard and found that the car moved around a little too much during hard braking for a car of its league. The rear end felt like it could do with more aero grip. While I'm no pro racer, I do own a couple of high powered go-karts and have a pretty good feel for grip and braking dynamics.

 

...or dislike of ugliness.

 

I agree big wings can look ugly, although I think the F40 looks awesome. The 911 GT3 (esp the RS), look a bit ricer for my liking. McLaren have done a great job with the p1/LT and 720s with a massive rear wing that nicely hides into the body and comes out when it's needed.

 

Yes, agree. Huge wings are down right distasteful and has no place in a Ferrari. However, active aero is not so bad as the wings get tucked in when not in use like in the 720S. I can never stand the ricey wing on the GT3 RS. Static wings can also be palatable if done right. Lamborghini's implementation isn't so bad. Their wings are typically carbon fibre and are lean and lower in profile and carries a more exotic look.

 

The 488 is playing on the level of the 650S. If you compare the two cars really open minded on a pure technology, performance and driving behavior point of view you will recognize a head by head race without a clear advantage for one of these two cars, and this is disappointing for Ferrari.

And if we read the title of this thread, which reflects the new reality for the next few years, let us be honest, the 720S is more than one step ahead against the 488. One can say a McLaren is "ugly" or "I don't like the brand", no problem with that. But on a neutral and technoloy based point of view the McLaren is the superior product. Since the P11-architecture launch in 2011 Ferrari drives a model generation behind McLaren.