OK, first there were rumors that Jean Todt, he of Ferrari team & upper company management, was going to get the boot (it’s really long and convoluted, but it has to do with the retiring of Schumacher, and a long running battle with Luca di Montezemolo). And then it turned out that those rumors are true.

And now things get even … man, I don’t even know what the word is … imperial I guess.

Because the folks at GrandPrix.com have just put it out there that Jean Todt might end up running The FIA, because Max Mosley thinks he’d make a dandy president of the organization.

Of course, not everyone agrees with Max. As GrandPrix.com put it “There is likely to be much opposition to Todt in FIA circles although the move may not be greeted with much enthusiasm in the F1 world.”

Which is a very understated way of saying: “The British teams will have full blown conniption fits”

Popcorn please!

Oh, and in case any of you uncultured Saracens are wondering what the picture is, it’s Napoléon Bonaparte in the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire by François Bouchot.

Oh really?

This has been floating around for a couple of days, and I’ve got to say, at least it’s a step in the right direction.

Sure, the handling “physics” will be cartoony, and there will be no damage or fatigue models (to be spun with the same tired old excuses of “the manufacturers blah blah blah,” and “It goes against the beauty of the render engine blah blah blah”), but at least Polyphony has an actual F1 car in the game. I have no idea what the performance map will be drawn from, but I bet they’ll at least they get a half way decent engine note from the thing (yeah, I know, it’ll be one sample drawn from one RPM and then just pitched up or down based on throttle position; lazy, lazy, lazy).

Why hasn’t Forza done this?

Hell, why hasn’t Forza come up with some downloadable spectrum of real race cars?

Better yet, how come I haven’t gotten off my butt and gotten Forza yet?

Oh yeah, cause I don’t have a xBox (someone send me one, OK?).

More shiny shiny pictures after the jump.

Continue Reading…

OK, there’s been this story twittering around out there about Ferrari and the Italian Police (con Caribinieri) broke up this “ring” of guys selling replica Ferraris built on Fiero chassis.

In Italy.

Oh sure, no one’s gonna notice in fricking ITALY you morons.

Funny thing is, Ferrari goes kind of ape like that every so often … there was a story a while back that I read in R&T or C&D about this French guy who was making exact copies of 250 GTOs. Everything was metal, he hand formed the bodies out of aluminum, all of the running gear was taken from old, crashed Ferraris, even the V12 engines.

Experts said that they couldn’t tell the real from the copy, even when they were up on a rack.

The guy finished two of them, sold them, and Ferrari came to his shop outside of Milan with something like 50 SWAT guys and 4 or 5 big trucks … took away everything he had; 2 half-completed cars, all of the tooling, shop drawings, the lot.

Sued the living bejeebus out of him too, but before it could come to trial, he was found shot & killed. Continue Reading…

Rumor has it, Ferrari will be ditching their beloved 600 horsepower V12 engine in their next replacement for the Enzo in 2012. What could possibly take the place of the V12? The same thing that powered the Ferrari F40 so many years ago: an all-new Twin-Turbo V8. A forced induction V8 would save a lot of weight while keeping plenty of power, says Ferrari GT technical director Roberto Fedeli:

“If we do a car with the same weight-to-power ratio as the FXX, then you want to save the maximum weight. The best packaging for that kind of car is an eight-cylinder turbo. That would have to be an all-new V8.”

Apparently, Ferrari’s decision is based on them wanting to reduce their carbon footprint. Whether or not they’re getting pressure from environmentalists or the EU isn’t clear, but if that’s the case it doesn’t make sense to me.

While Ferraris may not get great fuel economy or emissions, there are so few of them on the road in comparison to mass-production cars, the carbon footprint of Ferrari is minuscule. I’d say that the thousands of soccer moms in their fuel-guzzling SUVs and minivans have a much larger impact on emissions than a relatively few Ferrari enthusiasts cruising on the weekends. Continue Reading…

Ferrari quietly unveiled their most ultimate Ferrari to date in Italy last weekend. As if the Ferrari Enzo wasn’t extreme enough, in 2005 Ferrari decided to build an “Ultimate Enzo” and named it the Ferrari FXX. The FXX cost owners $2.5 Million, and could only be driven when and where Ferrari said it could be driven. Since the car is not road legal, it could only be driven on a track.

Ferrari has developed the FXX Evoluzione as (as the name suggests,) an evolution to FXX. Power output is now an amazing 860 horsepower, shift times are only 60 milliseconds (down from 80ms in the FXX,) the composite ceramic brakes are made by Brembo, and the Evoluzione includes a 9-way adjustable traction control system. The performance enhancements are assisted by a more efficient aerodynamic kit including a new rear diffuser.

The design of the car is either love it or hate it, but there’s no denying that this Ferrari will kick ass on the track. Continue Reading…

It could be argued that the Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano is Ferrari’s greatest GT car to date. But that didn’t stop design company Vandenbrink Design from making it even better. As a tribute to the awesome 1962 Ferrari 250 GTO, they created a new design which fuses the two great Ferraris beautifully.

In cooperation with Engineering firm EDO Competition, they’ve created a total of two models, both ready to blow your doors off. The 599 GTO features a 5.9L V12 pushing out 650 horsepower, while the higher-powered 630 GTO shows off a 6.3L V12 with an output of 750 horsepower. The 599 GTO runs the 0-62 mph sprint in an impressive 3.6 seconds, while the extra horsepower in the 630 GTO gives it a 0.2 second advantage in the 0-62 mph run. Both models put their power to the ground by way of a 6-speed paddle-shifted gearbox.

Continue reading for a video and more photos: Continue Reading…