Ferrari F50 - a poor effort

[chow wei hsien]

Ferrari F50 might be the most exotic Ferrari or a road car ever produced. It is even more exotic and glamorous than the BMW engined McLaren F1( hehe.... Ron Dennis lose out to Ferrari)even though the McLaren F1 is definitely the faster of the two and double F50's price. The shape of F50 is,.... hmmmmm i don't know how to describe it, but to me the looks of F50 looks quite "right".


Somehow, I just feel that something is not quite right about the Ferrari F50. If I am not mistaken it was launched in 1998 or 1997 to coincide with the 50th annivesary of Ferrari,thus the name F50. This is where I believe goes wrong. Its a great idea to have its exclusive 350 units. Its also a great idea to market as the car that gives you the sensation of F1 and uses F1 technology , with modified F1 engine ,..F1 type chasis and so on

but due to the fact that this car has to coincide with the 50th anniversary and low volume for its exclusivity, they can't have the F1 transmission.... the very much talked about semi-automatic gearshift. this thing is supposed to be in F50,the excuse used is no time for development and the 350 units won't make development cost for it worthwhile.
Not a good excuse as F50 is a car that brings F1 sensation to the road. To make matters worse, the other new Ferrari models have all these semi-auto.... and yet,... F50 the flagship model don't have it.
I also don't like the idea of using the 1990 V12 engine, in whic Prost nearly won the title,... but shouldn't the F50 use an engine which is maybe er....based on Ferrari F1 1996.
1990 F1 engine is a bit dated for 1997 car on the road. When the engineers can't find a solution of the noise and vibration produced,.... they say that this is F1 car on road,.. thats the way it should be.


my ideal Ferrari flagship model would be, a car based on the F1-2000 engine, with the semi-auto, and...
Ferrari should have development input of handling characteristics of the car from Michael Schumacher and Luca Badoer.
Then this would be the most exclusive and best Ferrari road car of all time. a car with based on Championship winning model, input from great MS.

I remembered MS saying that the Ferrari 550 Maranello is the best Ferrari road car driven by him, even better than F50

[Dino]

Don't you worry about a thing: Soon we will have the F60, witha 6 liter V12 pumping out something like 620 bhp, semi automatic transmission, and all those good things.

Dino

[neutral]

In terms of aesthetics, I actually liked the F50. In fact, I liked it so much that I devoted half my wall space to it.

[Gt_R]

Interesting topic!~

I read an article which compared the F50 head on with the Ferrari F1 (the year i forgot) car that the F50 is supposed to be based on...and boy, was i impressed

I love the F50 although i did think that its performance specifications were disappointing, compared to the F40 (which is the fastest car in its time) and the Mclaren F1.

Hopefully, the F60 would gain the "KING OF THE ROADS" back to the Italian camp.

Quote: "my ideal Ferrari flagship model would be, a car based on the F1-2000 engine, with the semi-auto, and...
.....best Ferrari road car of all time. a car with based on Championship winning model, input from great MS."

Wow, so is it my ideal Ferrari Flagship! Perhaps a central sitting position, open top, with high exhaust point in a V- 12 based on the 049C engine and a total mass of just 800kg would be brilliant!!!

FERRARI RULEZ FOREVER!!~

[Billy_Hunt]

I'm a bit of a hypocrite here I love the road cars but hate the team .I like the F50, Don't think I'd fit in an F1 car, don't know if I'd want to if it was scarlet but I would'nt say no to the F50 or a 360 for that matter.

[Dino]

Not that anyone will beleive me, but I swear I am tellign the honest to god's truth.

I got to drive an F50 AND an F40, on the same day, actually, one right after another. A very generous friend of the family is a member of the Ferrari Club of North America and is loaded. He has about 15 Ferraris, including a 333SP, two very high horsepower racing F40's (700 hp)(I got a ride around Watkins Glen in one of those) and his road going F40 and F50.

I was so exicted after I got to drive those two cars, that I wrote my friend this long email describing it. It really captures the experience. I would consider posting it here, but there were alot of expletives (i was very excited) and i don't want to give away any personal info about the family friend. Also, its very long. Perhaps with enough convinving, I could edit it...

In a nutshell, I liked the F40 much more than the F50. They both had very kit-car like build quality, but the F40 actually felt more like a solid, real car, as opposed to a giant toy. The F40 felt much quicker, though I didn't really get to rev the F50 as much as I would have if I were driving by myself. When the boost came on in the F40, it wa slike a catapult shot, and it was very intimidating. In truth, driving both cars was actually disappointing, because they are so bad at just going down the road in normal driving. You'd really have to stretch the legs of the car to get the proper experience, and I wasn't able to do so. But still, it was an experience to remember.

Dino

[neutral]

Dino you lucky prick. I hate you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[EERO]

Would one of the Admin's move this thread to the Gravel Trap, please.

[chow wei hsien]

what does that mean EERO?

[EERO]

Chow, not that this isn't an interesting topic, but it really doesn't belong in the F1 Forum any more than it would in the CART Forum. If you visit the "Gravel Trap", you will find that we discuss all sorts of topics there including discussions of Road cars and whatever else. I don't intend to seem too dogmatic, but if you could in the future please post topics in the approppriate forum, it would be appreciated.

I have requested that one of the Administrators, (Gerard, Liz, Invader and Craig) move this to another Forum.