Ferrari 296 GTS review: crash during my test drive sums up the problem with some Australian drivers
I’d already written an 8000-word love poem to the $668,146 Ferrari 296 GTS, when a ute-loving neanderbogan destroyed this previously perfect car.
Why are some men such irredeemable, huffing assholes, and why do those ones all drive utes? Honestly, I lost large portions of my faith in man-kind when a bloke with a stupid beard drove his idiotic BWU (Big White Ute) into the rear of my previously perfect $668,146 Ferrari 296 GTS.
It is my honest fear that if my son had not been in the car with me I would have killed this dull-eyed moron with my bare hands, possibly by feeding him his own beard. My body was vibrating with fury, like a tuning fork balanced on the precipice of an erupting volcano.
No, it probably wouldn’t have mattered if he did apologise, but when, instead, he mounted the defence that he didn’t see a brightly coloured Ferrari that’s about eight feet wide and more eye-catching than a crocodile dancing Gangnam Style because it was “too low down”, steam actually exploded out of my eyeballs.
All of this horror illustrated the problem with driving something like a Ferrari in a country like ours. Many people behave as Italians or Americans would – they smile and make encouraging gestures – but some Australian men find such cars, such displays of wealth and tall-poppy tottering, offensive.
These men, like the ute-loving, glass-licking neanderbogan I encountered, feel it is necessary to try and cut off anyone who is in a Ferrari, to block their lane, to intimidate, harass and look-how-manly-I-am them. And then, when they misjudge their negligent driving quite badly and ram one, they just jut their chins and pretend to have gone blind.
What made the damage all the worse was that I’d already written a love poem of 8000 words about how beautiful this particular Ferrari is, and how much more I loved it than the Lamborghini I’d just handed back the day before. I was going to contrast the Lambo as being Pamela Anderson to the Ferrari’s Margot Robbie, but then I’d decided that was inaccurate, because the 296 GTS, a convertible version of what I have already declared is the greatest car I’ve ever driven, is more like the Mona Lisa, or Michelangelo’s David with a racing helmet on. You can imagine, then, just how difficult it was to look at the damage. I felt sick, indeed I still do, just thinking about it.
I also had plans to construct a kind of unofficial comparison between the Lamborghini Huracan STO and this Ferrari, but I feel like I’ve made the latter brand angry enough already. Ferrari is famously resistant to letting its cars be used in comparison tests (car mag editors who attempted such a thing woke up with Prancing Horse heads in their beds), but the fact that I had one of each booked back to back seemed too tempting. While I enjoyed the senseless, otiose violence of the STO Lamborghini, however, there are simply far better versions of the Huracan to write and dream about, whereas the 296 is better than all other Ferraris. Indeed, it is head, shoulders and beautiful hair (in this case with wind in it, thanks to the lovely-to-watch folding roof) above everything else I’ve ever driven.
Yes, there are faster cars, and arguably more beautiful ones (not many, although the Ferrari 458 was a looker), but no other vehicle combines a sensational ride with intimate, magnetic handling, supreme steering feel, bounteous acceleration and next-level traction software the way this 296 does. Allowing you to drop the roof simply gives you more chance to marvel at how it’s possible for a V6 to sound as gloriously, rapaciously angry as this 3.0-litre unit does. That sonorous engine is combined with an electric motor via a hybrid system that allows you to drive in fully silent eMode for up to 25km (I made it nearly an entire kilometre before being frustrated by the lack of noise) and produces a frothing 610kW and 740Nm.
Even with the roof down and the wind howling in concert with the engine, you can hit 100km/h in just 2.9 seconds, or 200km/h in 7.6, on your way to a top speed of 330km/h – at which point, helpfully, no ute in existence will be able to hit you. These are all just numbers and facts, of course, and what it’s impossible to distill into figures or even figurative descriptions is how utterly, unbeatably magical the 296 GTS feels from the driver’s seat. It’s not just that this Ferrari is faster than almost anything you’ll ever steer, it’s more than that, it’s the way that it’s better at doing everything, and making you feel every little thing, than any other motor vehicle.
Every time I drive one, roof on or off, I fall a little more helplessly in love, while the rational part of my brain boggles a little more in awe at how the Ferrari engineers have achieved it. The one and only criticism of the GTS is the price, which is roughly $100,000 more than you can pay for the same car with a roof that doesn’t move, which seems excessive.
Not quite as over the top as my current levels of roiling rage, but still.
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Ferrari 296 GTS
ENGINE: 3.0-litre six cylinder, plus electric motor (610kW/740Nm)
FUEL ECONOMY: 6.4 litres per 100km
TRANSMISSION: 8-speed dual-clutch automatic, rear-wheel drive
PRICE: $668,146
RATING: Four-and-a-half stars out of five
