1997 Ferrari 550 on 2040-cars

Auto blog

Maranello cracks down on rent-a-Ferrari rackets

A crackdown by policy makers in Maranello, Italy, means that visitors to Ferrari's headquarters and museum can't as easily experience the brand's famously sonorous engines for themselves. Several businesses in the city had rented the Prancing Horse's sports cars to tourists for brief drives, but the screaming powerplants got on locals' nerves enough to force new rules to curtail these joyrides. According to CNBC citing an Associated Press report, the various rental businesses had 37 Ferraris and offered a variety of packages to tourists. For example, a 10-minute drive in a F430 Spider was as inexpensive as 80 euros ($87 at current rates). The drivers wanted to get the most from their brief time at the wheel and often sped around the city. While there were no major accidents from the vehicles, the local cops still pulled over 450 of these folks through the first nine months of 2015. The new legislation in Maranello and Fiorano limits the times the test drives can happen and bans the companies from luring customers outside of the Ferrari museum. "We have lost 80 percent of business," the owner of one of these firms said in the report. The rental agencies already challenged the measures in court but lost. It doesn't offer quite the same experience, but Ferrari fans can still get the occasional earful from the brand's engines by staking out the Fiorano test track. We often see the company's future and sometimes classic models there making wonderful noises. Related Video: News Source: CNBCImage Credit: Marco Vasini / AP Photo Government/Legal Ferrari Driving Safety Performance Supercars test drive maranello

The 2017 Acura NSX will cost $156,000

Back in October, when our Editor-in-Chief Mike Austin drove the 2017 Acura NSX for the first time in the Bay Area and at Sonoma Raceway, we guessed that the hybrid supercar would start at around the $170,000 price point. We weren't that far off – it starts at $156,000, and tops out around $205,000. But now that we have a solid sense of what Acura thinks this car is worth, and we know what they benchmarked the NSX against, we can compare apples to apples. Let's be clear: we like this car. Austin described it as "makes you giggle" fast, everyday-comfortable, and chock full of impressive party tricks like seamless shifting – with only a few foibles, like numb steering, to spoil the illusion of perfection. Back to the benchmarked cars. Acura says the NSX will compete with the Audi R8, and was developed to compete with the now-superseded 458 Italia. Let's start with the 2017 R8 V10 Plus – pricing hasn't been released, and a direct Euro-to-USD conversion isn't the whole story, but it starts at the equivalent of $179,000 in Europe. For that, the R8 V10 Plus provides 610 horsepower, a seven-speed DCT, and a 3.2-second sprint to 60 mph. The 458's successor, the 488 GTB, should be more expensive than the $243,000 the old model started at, and provides 661 hp, a seven-speed dual-clutch, and a 0-60 time of around three seconds (official numbers haven't been released for acceleration). For less money than either of these cars, the NSX delivers ... less. Total system output is 573 hp. It has a slight edge in gear count, at nine speeds, and should beat the R8 to 60 mph. But there's no V10, let alone Ferrari's feral turbocharged V8. It'll be up to buyers to determine if the compromises involved are worth a few thousand dollars in savings, if no options are selected. It should also be noted that Acura describes this as its first "built-to-order" vehicle, but the limited external color options and interior schemes don't appear to be much different than the extent to which you can customize an Accord. The configurator goes live on February 25th, if you want to see for yourself. Lastly, in what now seems to be a necessary part of a new high-end car launch, Acura will auction off VIN 001, the first production NSX, at Barrett-Jackson in January. All proceeds from that auction will benefit two charities: the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation and Camp Southern Ground. Related Video: Acura Shares Details of Next-Generation Acura NSX Sales Plan - 2017 Acura NSX U.S.

Ferrari Enzo successor caught testing again

Although we're still not really sure what Ferrari plans to call its long-awaited successor to the Enzo, we're certain that this is going to be one mean car. We've heard that it will be called the F150, F150 Italia and even the F70 over the last year and a half. Regardless of its name, this guppy-faced prototype you see above is Ferrari's answer to the McLaren P1 and Porsche 918 Spyder with a rumored 900-horsepower hybrid powertrain.
Since the last time we saw this car testing, the only difference appears to be that the exhaust outlets now may be closer to production form, with dual pipes on each side sitting up higher in the fascia. Aside from that, these shots are much clearer and at a better angle allowing us to get an idea of what the final product might look like. We do see some of this car's details such as the headlight placement and shape similar to the 458 Italia and the massive brakes with drilled carbon ceramic rotors.
No word as to when we might see the production version of the car, but Ferrari did tease a couple photos of it last month and is much further along than spy shots we saw less than a year ago.