Why Shortsighted Criticism of the Ferrari F80 Will Fade Over Time

It won't.

 

Another F80 thread. Applause

 

Someone's trying to protect their "investment".

 

It must be right, it’s in a magazine. But actually, it is right “Tiresome pearl-clutching”

 

If Ferrari keeps on the path they are on and keep making more terrible styled cars with uninspiring power trains, sure, the criticisms around the F80 will dissipate as they become overshadowed by new ones.

For the engine...
I feel like at this point, they knew all of the F80s would sell no matter what. They didn't have to put an exciting engine in there to make that happen. While you can certainly say it's a race inspired engine, I can't help but think it is more of an emissions inspired engine.

For the price and numbers...
The price seems over inflated compared to previous offerings and the higher production numbers dilute how special it is. Usually lower production numbers go with higher cost, but here we are.....

And for the styling.....
Good looking styling doesn't have to be explained. It's pretty said when AI comes up with better looking cars than Ferrari does. Ferrari was know for having the most beautiful cars on the road. How the mighty have fallen.
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They’re way off here, Ferrari aren’t invincible

 

Cant see how a 6 cyl lego car ages well. Sp3 shld have been laf replacement.

 

It doesn't possess the design/packaging required to achieve the performance targets set.

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Regarding the design, what people don't seem to understand is that form follows function and since cars have become so complex both mechanically and aerodynamically, the engineers and aerodynamicists set the parameters and the designers have to work around them. Now, one might argue that they prefer the design of the Valkyrie or the W1, which achieve similar performance and aero levels, but that is a highly subjective matter. What is objective is that performance dictates the overall shape nowadays. Not liking the execution or the details is perfectly understandable, but ultimately a matter of personal taste.

The engine configuration has been discussed ad neaseam. The F140 V12 has reached the peak of its development and putting the same engine with a slight increase in size and a 40-50 CV power bump over the LaFerrari, would not be enough progress 11 years later. Also, for their halo models Ferrari follow the racing trends of each era (turbocharged engines when F1 had turbos in F1 with the 288 and F40, high revving N/A thereafter and now hybridised turbos), thus the high-tech V6 makes sense, as it is the formula used in both F1 and WEC. Other than the race connections, it also makes sense for packaging reasons. Again, one might argue that the Valkyrie took a different path. Ferrari has done such a car before though and since the development of a brand new V12 has not materialised for reasons outside the scope of this mini-analysis, the use of a turbocharged V6, or perhaps a V8, made the most sense. The V6 is en racing vogue, so it got the green light, with the added benefit of the more compact packaging over a V8. Like it or not, that V6 is nothing short of an engineering marvel, with F1-insipired electric turbos and an output of 300 CV per litre. I am afraid that people who dismiss it as "just a V6" don't really understand engineering... At the end of the day what matters is how a car performs and feels. not its mechanical layout. Regarding the F80, clients have already voted with their wallets.

 

Aside from the electric turbos we were doing that stuff in our garages when I was younger to import cars. There was and still are loads of mkiv supras making that power and then some on similar sized 6 cylinder engines. That was all with 15 plus year old technology. As I got older I realized how much cooler a NA high revving engine with lots of cylinders is to me. I'm really not impressed at all with this engine besides the electric turbo part. The Koenigsegg Gemera was a more innovative small displacement engine with similar efficiency and that came out half a decade ago. Also, I do understand engineering as I literally cnc engine parts for a living. You don't have to be involved in the industry to have legitimate gripes.

As for the looks, there really is no excuse even with having to fit a certain profile. They could have done so much better, but their miss to hit ratio in the styling department keeps getting worse and worse.

As for them all selling. It could be all electric and even uglier, but as long as it's Ferrari's halo car, it would sell.

 

Comparing a "tuned" engine, with questionable reliability and no emissions/sound considerations, with a factory engine that is designed to last for hundreds of thousands of miles and be emission compliant world-wide, plus remain tractable and usable from the tick over, is nonsensical. It is not only about peak power, but power/torque curves, tractability, reliability, emissions etc. Ferrari engineers could have built an engine like the one you mentioned on their lunch break... A proper OEM performance engine takes hundreds of millions to develop. Comparing apples to oranges here.

PS: Koenigsegg's small engine has been dropped.

 

The SP3 was also not warmly welcomed at its launch. It didn’t take long to warm people up but I remember many people on fchat talking about how they disliked the slatted rear and other features. It’d be great to revisit the beginning of this and the F80 thread in two years to see what the consensus is. The context of what cars arrive in the future changes how we view the back catalogue. Designers, especially Ferrari designers, have to be fresh and forward thinking. They have to drive tastes rather than respond to them. Therefore by definition we are not accustomed to what their minds have produced when a car is launched - they are ahead of us in their thinking and it often takes us a while to catch up. That’s not suggesting that those who like it straight away are more advanced, probably just easier to please, we’re talking about tastes here and those are very personal and influenced by our own values, experiences and preferences. To me, in any person those are beyond criticism. We are allowed to like what we like. And there will certainly be those who never like the F80. But people who get to pen something like an F80 have to be ahead of all of us in their thinking. I met the guy who did the F80 skin. He was actually from my hometown where there is a famous and well-regarded car design university. He was a really interesting guy and not an Apple employee nor thinking or acting like one. He was a car guy, young, fresh, innovative in his approach.

This same ‘delayed-acceptance’ effect would have been true of the F50 (though that took about 10 years for people to understand why it is beautiful), the Enzo and numerous other Ferraris including 308 Dino, 348, 360, FF, 488, 296 to name just a few. All have had many detractors but, at least for the older cars, they are generally seen differently now. No doubt someone will still say “I still hate the 308/348/FF/whatever”, but the point is how they are generally viewed. F80 will absolutely fall into this category I believe - when we see them on the road, in convoy or parked near to other supercars, as time moves on and fills the roads with smooth, low drag , blob-like EVs, views about a car as dramatic and purposeful as the F80 will be even more favourable than it already is.

 

It´s always hard to predict the future, but if we look at the past, the previous "big five" overcame the initial criticism. The F50 was made to avoid the complains about the turbo V8, but the looks didn´t please everybody, and also it didn´t have the horsepower of the McLaren F1 and others. Enzo´s looks again were very controversial, and had to deal with the gate shifter sect. When LaFerrari appeared, nobody was happy with the V12: many here were saying that Ferrari was getting lazy, that it wouldn´t hold a candle against the McLaren P1. In the end it wasn´t like that, and yet LaFerrari had to deal with the anti-hybrid sect.

Look, these cars are rare: it doesn´t really matter what the majority thinks, there always be a small group of people who likes them and supply and demand will be balanced. Personally, I think that for the F80 the biggest risk is not the engine or the looks: it´s the outrageous starting price and that they will build more, so it will be harder to make a profit with it.

 

F

Finally someone actually using their brain... these "outraged" opinions about the F80 are getting boring.

It is an absolute marvel of race bred engineering... remember it was experts who canned the F50 which for 20 years was the black sheep of Ferrari flagships, now it is the most valuable.

Go figure!

 

The smaller engine was dropped because virtually nobody ordered it. Kind of like how the paddle shift for gma was dropped because virtually nobody ordered it. Had Ferrari offered other engine configurations, I would imagine it would be a similar case. I just don't find a turbo v6 exciting. My buddy has one in his f150 of all things. That's not very special to me.

Yes, it's a bit different making that power on an oem application, however machining has come a long way in 15 years. At work we are currently purging the last of our machines that are that old because they are slower, less reliable, and most problematic, less accurate. My point was making power by turbocharging the **** out of something isn't new or exciting to me, even if OEM.

I'm not saying this car is a complete loss. It sounds like there is some cool new technology like the electric turbos. I think it will also be a formidable track weapon. I sure hope it is. However to say that the very large amount of criticism this car is receiving isn't warranted isn't fair because there are plenty of gripes to be had.

 

And have this thread merged with the F80 thread too, thanks moderators

 

Tom: Rob is founder, owner, admin, and moderator. Just because you have F80 logo embroidered on your panties doesn't mean Rob should change the way threads are managed and have been managed for 25+ yrs. Get over it.

 

I really don't comprehend this argument. A few decades ago, RAM offered a truck powered by a N/A V10. At the same time F1 cars were equipped with N/A V10s. Does this mean that those F1 V10s were not special, because the same cylinder count could be found under the bonnet of a pick up truck? Other than the number of cylinders and natural aspiration the had nothing in common, just like the V6s in the F150 and the F80.

 

I think that engine is cool as hell. Enough so that I own a derivative of that engine
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you wearing panties? You can wear whatever you want, but I don’t have F80 logos on my trousers…

 

Even with all the money in the world, i won't buy this thing.

 

@Eilig and @tomgt:

Nobody wants to contemplate the image of either of you in panties, F80 logos or not. Please desist.

Thanks,
Andrew.

 

Shots fired.

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This applies to all modern supercars and hypercars of course, and it's a fair criticism. Even Damian from TheCarGuys - who just took delivery of his 812C - bought a NA Miata/MX-5 to enjoy a usable sports car at sane speeds.