Ferrari F43

Ferrari F43

As the hairpin bend unwinds, you start squeezing the throttle, and the engine note rises from a creamy bass growl to a screaming contralto howl, underlaid by an increasingly fussy backbeat of cams and valve gear. Where the Ferrari 360 Modena sounded like an overgrown motorcycle, the F430 sings a more melodious, more complex tune. It's a delicious, utterly intoxicating engine noise, one that encourages you to use every last one of the 8500 revs that are on tap before you finger-flick the paddle shifter back and engage third gear, just like that. The engine blares, and-bang, bang-you upshift into fourth, then briefly into fifth, before getting on the brakes for the approaching right-hander. On roads like these, you don't miss the manual transmission at all, reveling instead in the way you can drive the car with both feet and delighting in the instant shifts in Race mode. The deep seam of forward thrust, courtesy of a 4.3-liter V-8 with 483 hp and 343 lb-ft of torque, is pretty compelling, too.

You think to yourself, This thing is bloody quick, then nail the left pedal before easing off the brakes to balance the car as you turn in toward the apex. The optional carbon-ceramic brakes have bite and feel and tremendous power, yet their response is so well tuned that left-foot braking seems natural. Hit the left-hand paddle on the steering column twice to go back into third, drive the car through the corner, then floor it again. In contrast to its high-strung predecessor, there are fat gobs of torque available as low as 3500 rpm, so you don't need to use those shift paddles as much.

The F430 rides the bumpy blacktop on the sinuous mountain roads near Ferrari's Maranello headquarters amazingly well for a sports car that has nineteen-inch wheels and rubber-band tires. It's super-stable at all speeds, its only flaw a lack of wheel travel over the sharpest bumps, which occasionally cause the nose to pitch and scrape the underchin spoiler on the deck.

Coming up to another series of hairpin bends, the F430 turns in as eagerly as a kid choosing candy. The steering is so intuitive and so beautifully weighted that placing the car is a cinch, and the chassis is so fluent and poised that it's easy to dial out incipient understeer with power. Once you've switched the traction and stability control off via the steering-wheel-mounted selector, you can even unglue the tail on the exits of these 180-degree bends. The F430 corners flat and true, the fat Bridgestones gripping hard. This is sensory overload, and it's great.

Ferrari 612

Ferrari 612

 oldest current model, the 612 Scaglietti, is also its least desirable, if marketplace demand is any measure. While the F430 and the 599GTB Fiorano enjoy lengthy waiting lists, Ferrari's flagship can occasionally be bought right off the showroom floor. Does that make it a bad car? Of course not - the least desirable Ferrari is, after all, still a Ferrari.

The problem is that the 612's elegant, reserved demeanor is decidedly at odds with the outrageousness that we've come to expect from Maranello. The entry-level F430's adolescent break-dance handling and ghetto-blaster V-8 encourage 8500-rpm upshifts and tire-smoke-drenched hole-shots. That kind of bad behavior seems juvenile in the polished Scaglietti, which feels best when it's cruising gently around town. Its V-12 is quiet inside the cabin, the ride is plush, and the steering is light, offering far less feedback than you'd expect. The interior is flawlessly finished, with beautiful leather on every surface.

But then you accidentally turn the manettino to Sport mode, and the 612's automated-manual transmission cracks off a neck-snapping, 100-millisecond, full-throttle shift. Maybe that's why the Ferrari key fob, which seems totally out of place in this understated coupe, remains arrest-me red. The 612 may be polished, smooth, and refined, but it can still dance the Ferrari dance when the road turns curvy.

Ferrari has made some subtle changes to the Scaglietti for its fifth model year, and one not-so-subtle change to the price. The cheapest 612 you can now buy retails for an almost incomprehensible $318,538. Last year, you could drive out of a dealership in a 612 for roughly $55,000 less. So what do you get for your extra money?

First of all, an updated SuperFast version of Ferrari's F1 automated-manual gearbox is now standard, complete with the aforementioned manettino. A manual transmission is no longer available. If you force it to, the updated 612 will haul its 4100-pound self to 62 mph 0.2 second sooner than before, in four seconds flat. The big coupe keeps accelerating to 199 mph, and it's that figure that is likely more impressive to potential 612 customers.

The updated Scaglietti also receives a Bose infotainment and navigation system and a glass panoramic roof. A center-console-mounted, three-position switch commands electrochromatic elements in the glass to help block the sun's rays and keep the interior cooler on warm days.

And if the sticker price still isn't steep enough, you can make use of Ferrari's new One-to-One program, which allows you to customize your car to your own tastes. Here's how I'd personalize my fleet: I'd buy an F430 for when I needed only two seats, a Maserati Quattroporte for when I needed four, and a diesel VW Jetta wagon for everyday use. And my three cars would still cost the same as one 612 Scaglietti.

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 Ferrari Scuderia 

Your retinas may be reeling from the visual assault of the blinding yellow Ferrari Scuderia Spider 16M, but that optical barrage doesn't pack half the wallop this Italian inflicts on your cochlea. There is nothing graceful, respectful, or restrained about the Ferrari's exhaust note. In response to any quick stab of the aluminum accelerator pedal, the engine-control computer tells valves in the exhaust to bypass the mufflers. I call those baffles valvole di vaffanculo, because to open them is to raise an acoustic middle finger to anyone within earshot. (Valvolein Italian means valve. Vaffanculo, if you have never watched The Sopranos, is Italy's favorite NC-17 way of telling you to go fly a kite.) Luckily, the 503 rambunctious horses under the glass cover provide sufficient thrust to make the car disappear in an invisible cloud of hydrocarbons before anyone has the chance to flip the bird back at you.

Only 499 of these screaming, $313,350 superstars will be built, with about 150 coming to North America. To make a 16M, the F430 Spider gets a weight-saving plan similar to the one that turned the F430 coupe into the 430 Scuderia. The 16M name is a celebration of Ferrari's sixteen grand prix titles. You know, just in case you and the now-deaf peasants around you needed a reminder that Ferrari is at the top of the sports car food chain.

In losing its fixed roof, the mid-engine two-seater gains 193 pounds and loses about a third of its torsional rigidity. The coupe, however, is such a robust stepping-off point that Ferrari insists you won't notice the loss. And you hardly do, save for a wince-inducing shudder that reverberates through the chassis any time the F1 automated manual transmission bangs off one of its brutal - but breathtaking - full-throttle upshifts.

On back roads, the 16M is a ferocious missile with beautifully weighted and pinpoint-accurate steering. The light front end responds instantly to your every command, and the rear-biased weight distribution helps put all the power to the ground. But wheel spin and tail-out antics are to be avoided in this Ferrari. Its creators have infused just enough understeer at the limit to help keep the 16M facing forward, but should you add too much power in a corner, the stability control intervenes smoothly. It's so good that, frankly, there's no conceivable reason to switch off the car's stability control on a public road.

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