Daytona dreaming Ferrari

FEATURE DD Words: Andrew Frankel Andrew_Frankel Photos: Luc Lacey DREAMING DAYTONA The third model in Ferrari’s Icona series, the Daytona SP3, is the stuff of dreams.

DD

The front wings curve and curl. The monstrous V12 bellows and barks behind you. The revs keep rising: 7 000, 8 000, 9 000 r/min. This is getting ridiculous. But it’s hard to back o because there’s just a little bit of me who now thinks he’s Chris Amon, and this isn’t a road in France but a track in America. Daytona, to be absolutely specifi c. And I’m winning the Scuderia’s fi rst 24-hour race in the western hemisphere. Because that’s what he and Lorenzo Bandini did in 1967, and it is that event this car I’m driving exists to honour. Yet back o I do for I am neither Chris nor Lorenzo and much as I’d like it to be otherwise, this is not a 1960’s prototype sports racing car. But it is the fi rst time Ferrari has called a car ‘Daytona’. The 1967 front-engined 365GTB/4 merely acquired this name informally after that famous win. In full, this is the Daytona SP3, the third car in the Prancing Horse brand’s Icona series of spectacularly styled and priced limited-series supercars. The fi rst two – the SP1 and SP2 – were intended to evoke memories of Barchetta-bodied road-racing roadsters of the 1950s. No need to be told which car inspired the SP3… Those voluptuous curves are pure P4.

It's pretty special under that gleaming paint, too. The carbon body fused to a carbon tub cradles the most powerful V12 engine Ferrari has ever made for a road or racing car. It has 618 kW. Just think about that for a moment. Other contenders? Well, the LaFerrari had 708 kW, but only once its V12 had been boosted from 588 kW by an electric motor. The FXX K Evo did have a 632 kW V12 but could be used neither on the road nor for racing.

But surely one of Ferrari’s V12 F1 cars would have had more power than this? Surely not. In Formula 1, its last 3.5-litre car was the 412T in 1994. According to Ferrari, it made 559 kW. A less powerful 3.0-litre V12 followed it before the Scuderia adopted a V10 confi guration. From the sports racing world, the 712 Can-Am car of 1971 also never got past 559 kW. So yes, this is Ferrari’s most powerful V12 for either road or race use ever.

The SP3 is a direct descendant of the LaFerrari. However, it wouldn’t be accurate to say it’s simply been re-bodied because, fi rst, the SP3 runs a di erent, later version of Ferrari’s famed F140 engine, displacing 6.5-litres here rather than 6.3 litres as seen in the LaFerrari, and lacks hybrid drive. You only have to climb into the cabin and note that it, too, has a fi xed seat and sliding pedals. No other Ferraris do this.

The cabin is practical enough. Visibility is impressive thanks to the addition of a camera in place of a rear-view mirror. However, storage space is absolutely minimal. For better or worse, this is a toy, not a tool.

A front-mounted V12 is probably my favourite confi guration, but I won’t deny there’s an additional frisson of excitement hearing one fi re up behind you, especially when it’s so damn big. You look forward to what will clearly be monumental thrust. You know the sound will echo round the chambers of your ears long after you’ve gone home, but there is a touch of good oldfashioned fear here. The weather is variable and at some stage, I will have to drive it fast in the wet…

I should perhaps explain where I am, which is not Daytona, but Le Mans, where Ferrari will return next year as a factory team for the fi rst time since 1973 and where the Scuderia has not won since 1964. It is the weekend of the Le Mans Classic and I have never in my life been in a road car that has attracted so much attention, and for almost exclusively the right reasons.

Which, of course, is precisely what this car exists to do. It’s not a track-day weapon and as if to reinforce the point, Ferrari won’t even pro er a Fiorano lap time. It’s a car in which to be seen, and if you believe the merit of a

vehicle is defi ned by how well it does the job it was designed to do, then it is one of the best cars in the world. As it should be, given that each costs a minimum of R33 909 424. Some will call that outrageous, pointing to the entire stable of wonderful cars half that sum might buy. Although, all 599 units are already sold, so its customers clearly think it’s worth it, which is all that matters.

It's not an easy car with which to fall in love. Not at fi rst, at least. Its value makes you anxious, and its extreme width makes you more nervous still. The steering is old-school Ferrari: light, direct, but not overly endowed with feeling. Also, in this age of instant gratifi cation, it takes a while to dial yourself into an engine that doesn’t make maximum torque until 7 250 r/min. The limiter cuts in just beyond 9 500 r/min.

It is, of course, ferociously fast, but probably no more so than a conventional supercar like a McLaren 720S, which is much less expensive. To look at the SP3 in such objective terms is to almost wilfully miss the point. What matters is the sense of occasion and how it makes you feel when you drive it fast. The former was always going to be o most of the scales. The latter took its time to come but was no less real for that when it did. Banging through the gears, listening to that V12’s voice bouncing around the hills, then slowing for villages and catching refl ections of yourself in windows – this is where the joy of this car lies. That and the undivided attention of every single person who hears you coming.

The SP3 breaks no new ground, nor was it ever intended to. It has the engine from an 812 Superfast installed in the chassis of a LaFerrari with only a body to truly call its own. But even I, a man who doesn’t really understand people who buy cars more for how they look than drive, have to admit to not mind being the centre of attention at Le Mans when aboard something so outstandingly beautiful. And when I went to drive it properly, and once I’d adapted to it, I liked it even more. You could argue cars like the SP3 should not be taken terribly seriously. But am I glad it exists and even happier to have driven it? With every bone in my body. A