Ferrari California, Priority magazine, Singapore Airlines
As Ferrari marked its 70th anniversary, Rod Mackenzie experienced the marque’s incredible power first-hand in Tuscany
Maybe this is how it feels to be Sebastian Vettel, I said to myself. As part of the build-up to Ferrari’s 70th anniversary celebrations, I was being treated to a grand tour of Tuscany behind the wheel of the marque’s new California T roadster. Roaring through the sublime vine-clad hills of the Chianti wine region between Florence and Sienna, the 3.9-litre V8 couldn’t have felt more at home. The power and finesse was unlike anything I’d experienced before, a magnificent 552bhp supercar that’s as simple to drive as a standard saloon.
Most striking of all, however, was how passers-by greeted my arrival in every medieval hill-top village and Renaissance piazza. From sightseeing tourists to traffic policemen, elderly Benedictine monks to school children, every face beamed back with the look
of adoring tifosi.
Passion has been key to the Ferrari success story from the start, but always accompanied by an uncompromising edge that never settles for anything less than perfection. This was witnessed in March this year at the season opening Formula One Grand Prix in Melbourne. Ferrari claimed a tight race, the team's first victory since September 2015 after drawing a complete blank in 2016. Yet with the champagne still dripping from winning driver Sebastian Vettel’s race overalls, a clear message of intent went out: "It is absolutely essential to remember that this is not the destination but the first step on a long road that must see us all focused on improving each and every day," declared Ferrari chairman Sergio Marchionne.
Such a single-minded attitude was established by the marque’s founder, the legendary Enzo Ferrari. He only started building and selling road cars in 1947 to support his Scuderia Ferrari race team. Pushing performance to the absolute limit on the track was his foremost passion, first as a driver and later as a team manager and racing car constructor. “What we do at Ferrari is elite work,” he once said. Buyers who simply wanted to own the Prancing Horse badge for prestige went against all that he stood for.
That first Ferrari road car, the 1947 125 Sport, was powered by a 1.5 litre V12 engine generating 118hp. Now 70 years later we have the range topping LaFerrari, a hybrid hypercar with a 6.3-litre naturally aspirated V12 assisted by a 120kW electric system delivering a combined power output of 950bhp. The engineering might be worlds apart, but the essential DNA remains the same – ground-breaking innovation designed to perform and thrill to the very limit.