farari enzo

Only three years after the Ferrari’s ultimate F50 Supercar was launched, company bosses started work on another ultimate model. The F50 was an attempt to take Formula 1 technology and translate directly into a road car. But many at Ferrari felt that for all its capabilities the F50 had gone too far in trying to mimic F1. As a result, it had suffered badly from noise and vibration, a back of mid range performance from the engine and detailed failing such a roof system that didn’t fit very well. Then Ferrari boss Luca Di Montezemolo, said he wanted Project FX to be really impressive, technically the best we could do and a celebration of our racing success. Di Montezemolo also told styling house Pininfarina that he wanted them to go too far with the first FX styling studies. The resulting design expressed aerodynamics air intakes and had a distinctive nose cone inspired by F1 cars. The underside of what became know as the Enzo is completely flat and sealed in and automatic flaps are fitted under the nose and on tail to help achieve the best aerodynamics performance at high speed. It also has Sky Hook adaptive dampers, which uses sensors to change the chassis characteristics in fractions of a second. Under the skin was a carbon fiber and aluminium honey comb ‘tub’ chassis.

The all new 6.0 liter engine was mounted in an aluminium cradle and bolted to the tub. The engine was hooked up to an F1 style paddle shift gearbox. Ferrari went to an expensive of having Brembo spend three years developing the world first carbon fiber road car brakes and bespoke Bridgestone tyres. Ferrari built just 399 Enzo models and gave the 400^th example to Pope John Paul II.