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Ferrari celebrates its founder's birthday

Buon cumpleanno, Commendatore! That's what we'd be saying today to Enzo Ferrari if he were still alive. But the founder of the Prancing Horse marque passed away at the ripe old age of 90 way back in 1988. If he were still with us today, he'd be 118 years old. And we can't help but wonder what he'd think of his legacy if he were still around to see it. Enzo Anselmo Ferrari was born in Modena before the turn of the century – no, the previous century – way back in 1898. He started out as a racing driver, but soon found his real talents laid in preparing the racecars, not driving them. After achieving success running Alfa Romeo's factory team, Enzo struck out on his own - initially under the name Auto Avio Costruzioni (due to the terms of his previous contract) and then under the Scuderia Ferrari name. Under Enzo's leadership and those that followed, Ferrari emerged as one of the most successful teams in motor racing. The Scuderia has scored more championships, checkered flags, podiums, pole positions, and fastest laps than any other in the history of Formula One. And though it hasn't fielded a factory effort in the top tier decades, it's still among the winningest constructors at Le Mans, with nine outright wins between 1949 and 1965 – outscored only by Audi and Porsche. It also won the Targa Florio seven times, the Mille Miglia another eight, and Sebring 12 times. After famously rejecting a takeover bid from Ford, Enzo sold half his company to Fiat in 1969. He retained control until his passing in 1988 – upon which Fiat took over another 40 percent, leaving 10 to the Ferrari family. But now the company is independent again, having split off from the Fiat Chrysler Automobiles empire, and floated its IPO on the stock market. Though his son still serves as vice chairman, Enzo's prodigy and successor, Luca di Montezemolo, is gone. The road car division makes hybrids but no manual transmissions, the racing department hasn't won the Formula One World Championship since 2008, the theme park in Abu Dhabi welcomes more visitors than the factory museum, and the company makes a significant portion of its revenue these days from selling branded merchandise. It's a very different company, in short, from the one Enzo founded back in 1947, but it wouldn't be here without him. The factory is celebrating with a raft of social media posts. For our part down here, to il Commendatore at the big autodromo in the sky: happy birthday, Enzo.

Ferrari 250 GTO could fetch as much as $75 million at auction

Last month we reported on a Ferrari 250 GTO heading for the auction block at Pebble Beach. We knew at the time it would break records and bring in tens of millions of dollars. But now that the gavel is about to drop, it looks like even our projections could fall short.
According to a report on Bloomberg, citing the classic car authorities at Hagerty Insurance, the GTO in question (pictured above) could fetch upwards of $60 million and as much as $75 million when the auction takes place two days from now in Monterey, CA.
Hagerty's reported estimate would not only blow the previous records out of the water, but would eclipse the pre-sale estimate attributed to Bonhams, the auction house handling its sale, which placed its value between $30 million and $40 million.

2020 Ferrari F8 Tributo First Drive Review | Italian warp drive

MARANELLO, Italy — What's in a name? Quite a lot in the case of the new Ferrari F8 Tributo launched at this spring's Geneva Motor Show and on sale this winter at for delivery. Tributo is a tribute to the Ferrari V8 – though to nitpick here, Ferrari's first V8 was actually a Lancia, designed by Vittorio Jano for the 1950s D50 grand-prix cars, which were handed over to Enzo for a song when Lancia faced financial collapse. That said, the first road-going V8 Ferrari was the Dino GT4 of 1973. Either way, just four years after the launch of the 488 GTB, Ferrari felt it had license to produce a new version.   “There was space to do a new 488 for the customers of the 488 GTB,” says Raffaele de Simone, FerrariÂ’s chief test driver, “there were enough new parts and know how. We had an opportunity to open a gap in which we can work and use.” In fact, the F8 sits somewhere between the 488 GTB and the limited-run 488 Pista. Consider it a stiffened-up version of the former, or a softer version of the latter; Take your pick.  All told, the F8 is the most powerful production mid-engined Ferrari, and at the heart of the matter is the F8Â’s F154 twin-turbo V8, criticized for its weedy exhaust note and not much else. It's won three handfuls of awards since it was introduced in the 488 GTB. Peak power is 710 horsepower at 7,000 rpm and peak torque is 568 pound-feet of torque at 3,250 rpm. ItÂ’s almost a straight lift from the 488 Pista, and thus makes 49 hp more than the 488 GTB. However, Ferrari shaved a remarkable 40 lbs off of the engine for duty in the F8, thanks to bits like a lighter flywheel and titanium connecting rods. The engine drives the rear wheels via a Getrag seven-speed, twin-clutch transmission and Ferrari's own electronically controlled limited-slip differential. This is likewise nearly unchanged from the Pista, although its gearchanges have been made less abrupt than that carÂ’s. Ferrari engineers referred to them as “gunshot changes”. Top speed is 211 mph, with 0-62 mph in 2.9 seconds and 0-124 in 7.8 sec. A warning note, however, is that these performance specs are predicated on a reduction in curb weight of 88 lbs over the 488 GTB (to 3,163 lbs), and this number includes optional lightweight parts, of which 22 lbs are derived from a set of carbon-fiber wheels that are not currently available and donÂ’t have a price tag yet.