Welcome to our first look
at Ferrari’s future. the california t is the first turbocharged road car to
come out of maranello since F40 production ceased back in 1992, but it
definitely won’t be the last.
The T makes its official
debut at the Geneva motorshow in march, and aside from its new powerplant it
doesn’t radically transform the formula that’s made the california a
considerable sales success since it was launched in 2009. Back then the very
idea of a Ferrari powered by a front-mounted V8 engine was anathema to some,
not to mention the fact that it had a retractable hard-top roof and the
company’s first twin-clutch gearbox. Yet the california has proved itself in
the market, bringing many new buyers to the brand and explaining why the new
car’s styling is a gentle evolution of the original’s rather than a radical
reinvention.
The new engine is the result of a collaboration with maserati, although the california’s 3.9-litre unit is substantially different to the V8s that we’ve seen in the maserati Ghibli and Quattroporte. Ferrari’s engine is fractionally bigger, has the brand’s trademark ‘flat-plane’ crank and has fractionally more power and torque. It has also been built to rev, delivering its peak 552 bhp at 7500 rpm, compared to the maserati Quattroporte S’s 523 bhp at 6800 rpm. That’s 69 bhp more than the previous California’s naturally aspirated 4.3-litre engine managed. Peak torque is now 557 lb ft at 4750 rpm – a huge increase on the old car’s 372 lb ft – with Ferrari promising that ‘the torque curve increases constantly across the rev range’ thanks to variable boost. So it isn’t going to feel like a diesel, then. The engine uses two small twin-scroll turbochargers, one for each bank of cylinders, to help ensure ultra-quick responses, and we’re promised ‘virtually zero’ turbo lag (a claim BMW Predictably, the T is quicker as well. The official figures only show fractional improvements – a 3.6 sec 0-62 mph time compared to 3.8 sec for the naturally aspirated car, and 196 mph all-out versus 193 mph. But the new engine will be far more tractable at everyday speeds and we reckon the difference between the T and the old car in real-road pace will be considerably wider than those numbers imply. The turbo powerplant has also cut the T’s official CO2 emissions to just 250 g/km on the combined cycle from 299.
The new engine is the result of a collaboration with maserati, although the california’s 3.9-litre unit is substantially different to the V8s that we’ve seen in the maserati Ghibli and Quattroporte. Ferrari’s engine is fractionally bigger, has the brand’s trademark ‘flat-plane’ crank and has fractionally more power and torque. It has also been built to rev, delivering its peak 552 bhp at 7500 rpm, compared to the maserati Quattroporte S’s 523 bhp at 6800 rpm. That’s 69 bhp more than the previous California’s naturally aspirated 4.3-litre engine managed. Peak torque is now 557 lb ft at 4750 rpm – a huge increase on the old car’s 372 lb ft – with Ferrari promising that ‘the torque curve increases constantly across the rev range’ thanks to variable boost. So it isn’t going to feel like a diesel, then. The engine uses two small twin-scroll turbochargers, one for each bank of cylinders, to help ensure ultra-quick responses, and we’re promised ‘virtually zero’ turbo lag (a claim BMW Predictably, the T is quicker as well. The official figures only show fractional improvements – a 3.6 sec 0-62 mph time compared to 3.8 sec for the naturally aspirated car, and 196 mph all-out versus 193 mph. But the new engine will be far more tractable at everyday speeds and we reckon the difference between the T and the old car in real-road pace will be considerably wider than those numbers imply. The turbo powerplant has also cut the T’s official CO2 emissions to just 250 g/km on the combined cycle from 299.
0 comments:
Post a Comment