How to drive these priceless Ferraris
The Pilota Sport Classiche at the marque’s HQ in Fiorano is as thrilling as it is terrifying for our motoring editor.
I wouldn’t say I’m riddled with self-doubt – pockmarked perhaps – but in my darkest moments I do fear that the only thing that’s saved me from a career-ending crunch of carbon fibre and shattered glass, repeatedly, is modern technology.
Too many is the time I have felt a hugely expensive supercar of some kind suddenly, savagely stepping sideways, like a coked-up line dancer, only to be reeled back in by an ingenious electronic stability program, or a tricky traction-control system, allowing me to sail on blissfully aware of how lucky I am to live in an era of wonders.
You can imagine, then, the long, dark night of sweaty panic I felt before taking part in Ferrari’s Pilota Sport Classiche program, where the brand’s very best customers are invited to its home track at Fiorano, right next to the legendary Ferrari factory, to drive a selection of supercars seemingly stolen from a museum.
I had only lightly engaged with the idea, watching a YouTube video in which impossibly handsome Italian test drivers teach race-driving techniques on the same track that Lewis Hamilton now calls home. It turned out the “Classiche” part meant we’d be driving four properly old and painfully priceless Ferraris. All of which had left the factory well before the invention of stability programs, or even ABS (anti-lock braking systems, which stop all of us from skidding off roads on a regular basis).
Worse still, one of them was a one-of-a-kind Ferrari Daytona, basically a V12-powered antique on wheels, which was capable of doing 280km/h when it was built back in the late 1960s, when cars still weren’t a lot faster than horses.
The other three were a V8-powered Ferrari Mondial 3.2 from 1986, a 308 GTS just like the one made famous by Tom Selleck’s Magnum P.I. in the ’80s (it was first launched in 1975 and its V8 engine could push it to 100km/h in 5.8 seconds) and a 550 Maranello from 1996, which is unwisely powered by a giant V12 that makes it capable of 320km/h, well before anyone knew how to make brakes that could pull you up from those speeds.
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As I poured wondrous Italian coffee into my mouth and eyeballs, my sleepless fog was blown away by a Ferrari spokesman insisting on explaining just how dangerous all these cars were, showing us diagrams explaining how to “double declutch” and “heel-and-toe downshift” (frankly, the only good news was that all of the cars we were driving were fitted with properly classic manual gearboxes) and extolling the dangers of power oversteer.
Happily, he told us we’d be taught how to save ourselves in the sort of oversteer situations that old, overpowered cars like this were likely to cause. Unfortunately, it turned out we’d be shown these techniques in the afternoon, well after we’d done many, many flying laps of the fast and flowing Fiorano circuit in each of the vehicles. Because it’s Italy, I guess.
I was then pushed outside into the hands of my coach for the day, the marvellous Maurizio Ceresoli.
Like any good driving instructor, Ceresoli knew that the best way to slow down a numpty is not by shouting “Brake!” once you’re in the car. It is to climb into the punter’s psyche before you’ve even finished shaking their hand.
“So, you’re going to be driving a $3 million car between close concrete walls, at speed. In fact it’s more than a car, it’s an irreplaceable work of art, a sculpture,” he fires at me, looking as cool as I don’t feel, before cackling quietly at my disquiet.
“No pressure, eh?”
I had assumed we would build up to the financially imposing, long-nosed and undeniably beautiful Ferrari Daytona, but Ceresoli decided I should take the time machine all the way back immediately. While the car felt old, with its giant steering wheel and seats designed before people realised head rests were a good idea, the gearbox – a five-speed racing transmission with no synchro, meaning that finding gears would be a bit like juggling blindfolded – was archaic.
Yes, I know that, in theory, you shouldn’t look at the gear stick of a car, particularly while driving at pace, but I was so baffled I couldn’t help myself. Driving it felt like pouring very expensive Champagne into a Ming dynasty vase while balancing on a tightrope.
At one point, I went into fourth (which is where third would be in a modern car, helpfully) and Ceresoli scolded me that I’d gone into second, at which point we both looked at the shifter and found that it was, theoretically, in fourth, while the roaring revs suggested otherwise. When it happened again, he shrugged: “So, now we have two second gears.”
While the Daytona was as challenging as it was memorable, the step up to the 308 GTS was like a dream sequence. I’m old enough to remember a time when Tom Selleck’s chest hair was almost a character of its own in Magnum P.I., and this fiercely fine Ferrari was simply the coolest car on the planet.
Modern cars are faster and easier to drive, and getting on the throttle too early out of bends would no doubt have ended in disaster if Ceresoli wasn’t in the car whispering in my ear. But the noise of the V8 was simply glorious, and in this case, the gated manual gearbox was more willing to play ball; as long as you concentrated on your dancing feet, all was well.
The Mondial was a slight step ahead from there, but my final partner – the 550 Maranello – was something else entirely. It looks almost as fast as it is, with Ferrari perhaps unwisely deciding that a V12 engine with 357kW was a good idea.
This thing could accelerate to 100km/h in 4.4 seconds (in the 1990s!) and, after some stern warnings from my mate Maurizio about how tricky it would be to drive, I quickly realised what a quantum leap motoring made around this time. It just felt instantly and insanely more potent than everything else, with the kind of pace and power, unchecked by modern electronics, that made you realise just how properly hairy-chested and brave supercar buyers were back then.
And while the world was going blurry, and shouty, around them, they still had to somehow manage to change gears, via a big, heavy clutch pedal. Despite this, the six-speed gated manual was possibly the highlight of my whole day, with each cog shift feeling like a terrific, tactile event and making a sound like clashing swords in Game of Thrones.
The 550 was almost equal parts scary and satisfying, which pretty much sums up the whole day, in fact. The afternoon session of learning how to catch a drift on a wet skid pan in a big, heavy car, with big, heavy steering didn’t teach me much more than epic respect for anyone willing to buy one of these cars back in the day.
Driving a modern Ferrari might be a lot easier, but after experiencing Pilot Sport Classiche, I can finally understand why people bother with buying classic cars.
This story is from the September issue of WISH.
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