Ferrari F50
A top car to drive before you die!
A road, or a racing, car?
When designing the F50, Ferrari took the simple step of copying the design features of a Formula One racing car, and embodying them into a streetcar. These features included the following:
(1) A chassis made entirely from carbon fibre.
(2) A four point seven litre, 12 cylinder engine
(3) A magnesium alloy gearbox housing.
(4) An automatic anti body roll system.
(5) A rubberised fuel tank designed on aeronautical principles.
(6) titanium wheel hubs.
(7)An adjustable suspension system
(8) Magnesium alloy wheels.
(9) Kevlar exterior panels.
Styling was also obviously Formula One; no one could mistake this car for a staid family saloon!
Was it fast?
Was it ever. It's 513 brake horsepower engine propelled it to a claimed maximum speed of just short of one hundred and ninety-five miles per hour; and the 0 to 60 time was a neck jerking 3.7 seconds. Fast enough for most people's purposes.
Was it successful?
Despite its undoubted quality only 349 examples were ever built. It was launched at a time when there was a great deal of competition in the supercar market; and many potential buyers felt that although it was an improvement on previous models, there wasn't sufficient improvement to make it a must – have buy.
What also didn't help sales was the fact that when it came on the market Ferrari failed to make any test vehicles available to journalists from the popular car magazines. Those that did manage to write about it had to borrow a car from an existing owner in order to put it through it's paces and most of these, quite naturally, were not over eager to see their new acquisitions thrashed on a test circuit by an overenthusiastic petrol head! The majority of the motoring press titles wrote little or nothing about it, and so little enthusiasm was generated for this V12 Red beauty.