Ferrari 296 GTB review

When you’ve finally got the darn thing straight and you can actually stand on it, you ready yourself for an octo-plus shove in the back as the V6 shrieks up to 8500rpm and the small battery sluices its energy through the 163bhp electric motor. So, what’s that like?

Blimey! There’s an impression of tarmac sucked under the nose and spat out from under the Kamm tail, ions crashing into cathodes, electrons heating copper wire, con-rods whirling like Dervishes and thousands of tiny fires flaring and dying in a trice. Yet not much sensation of gathering speed, none of that freight-train torque you get in this car’s less powerful predecessor, the F8 Tributo. It all feels more like Looney Tunes Road Runner taking off: ‘Meep, meep, pschow!’ Gone…

No sense of jeopardy, either, on this rapidly deteriorating track, so bad the instructors’ car is wearing mud flaps (‘No, they’re not an option,’ says the pro-driver). Elsewhere on this circuit, Ferrari’s new 296 GTB tests its Michelins’ grip to meltdown on some sections and not a lot on the next, which means you’re concentrating like a juggler using lit dynamite sticks on a tightrope.

Of course, there’s no need to do this, since if left in Race mode the 296 GTB will apportion torque from motor and engine, brake each wheel if runaway wheelspin threatens, do clever stuff with its electronically controlled limited-slip differential and use the hybrid system to feed your excess exuberance back into the battery pack. In other words, you’re being managed, even if it is with all the subtlety of P.G. Wodehouse’s famous comic butler, Jeeves, as he dissuades his master from wearing a hideous new hat.

In CT Off, the systems only claw you back from the brink of clanging into the barriers. At one point I squeeze the throttle too early on the exit to a corner and the back flings itself outwards like a cricketer diving for the catch. The steering’s so fast I almost over compensate, but it’s a warning not to abuse the privilege. It would be nice to get this quarter of a million pound car back in one piece and roughly the same shape it was when I started out – have you ever signed a Ferrari insurance waiver?

Of course, I get it back in one piece and it’s there in the pits, with only slightly trembling hands, that I make notes on this, the first-ever Ferrari-badged V6-engined car and its second plug-in hybrid, though with rear-wheel drive alone and not the four wheel drive of the SF90 Stradale.

Don’t mention the Dino here, for that 1967 to 1974 V6-engined series didn’t carry Ferrari badges and the company’s first V6, the 65-degree, 1.5-litre unit was in a race car, the Dino 156 monoposto of 1957.

So, what you get here is a 2992cc V6, with cylinders inclined by 120 degrees to match the 120-degree crankshaft spacing. Inside, the steel crank has a short stroke with the twin alloy-iron turbos nestling in the hot vee of the cylinder banks and the inlet plenums on the outside of the engine.

The plug-in hybrid system weighs a total of 170kg and consists of a 6kWh net, 73kg lithium-ion SK Innovation battery running across the back of the seats, with a potent Formula 1-derived electric motor sitting between the engine and the eight-speed twin-clutch transmission. The motor has a clutch to allow it to drive the car on its own and the all-electric range is 15.5 miles at speeds up to 84mph. Recharging the battery on a 7.4kW home wall box will take one hour.

Top speed is quoted at 205mph, with 0-62mph in 2.9sec and 0-124mph in 7.3. Fuel consumption is 21.7mpg on the combined WLTP cycle and CO2 emissions are 149g/km, which even on the ludicrously optimistic PHEV test cycle is high. You can’t help thinking that the plug-in system is there for performance rather than any sort of economy.

Put the spec sheet down alongside that for the new McLaren Artura and these look like the same cars, with much the same set of solutions to the same set of technical obstacles. Mind you, the McLaren’s price of £185,500 looks quite tempting against the Ferrari’s list price of £241,550, plus Assetto Fiorano pack at £25,920 (fitted to the yellow and silver car in these images). Both cars will of course have an insanely expensive options list, but some folk just can’t help themselves, can they?

If the styling reminds you of something, look no further. In 1963 Ferrari’s 250 LM became rather notorious when Enzo was twice refused homologation for this barely concealed race car; one report suggests he went berserk at what he saw as a slight and he handed in his race licence and ran his cars in North American colours for a while.

Enzo had wanted to go racing in the GT category with the car to follow the success of the 250 GTO, but didn’t really want to build the required 100 since, at $22,000 at the time, he’d have struggled to sell them all. Yet in 1965 a NART-run 250 LM driven by Jochen Rindt and Masten Gregory won the 24 Hours of Le Mans after all the factory prototypes wilted, with another example coming in second. This 3.3-litre, V12 mid-engined rocket was an effective if controversial race car.

So much so that Ferrari’s usually resolutely forward-looking design department has borrowed some of the 250 LM’s styling tricks for the 296 GTB. Look around the all-aluminium bodyshell (except for the carbon-fibre engine covers and other tricks bits in the Fiorano pack) and you can see the resemblance in the cutoff cabin, the Dr Wunibald Kamm-inspired tail and those curvaceous rear wings, which Ferrari’s design chief Flavio Manzoni describes as: ‘not the usual romantic and sinuous curves, but instead muscular and functional.’

To be honest, you can also see resemblances with the Alfa Romeo 4C and Ford GT; again, it’s the same set of technical problems that throw up similar solutions…

The blub says the 296 GTB is compact because of its short wheelbase, although, in fact, it’s only 46mm shorter and 21mm narrower than the V8 F8 Tributo. It’s also, lest we forget, almost half a metre longer than the 250 LM, which is more about modern safety regulations than any design profligacy.

It’s a bit of a struggle to climb into the beasty, but once you’re in place it seems reasonably comfortable apart from the over eager lumbar support on the optional carbon-fibre backed seats. After generations of mid-engined Ferraris with all the spare space of a Japanese Haiku, this is more practical with a 113-litre shelf behind the seats above the battery and a 201-litre front boot, big enough for a couple of airline carry ons, which is more than you can say about the SF90 with its driven front axle.

There’s a big glassy panel in front of the driver and a huge central rev counter. You can fiddle about with what you see in the way of instrumentation and the touch buttons seem to be reasonably easy to use. There are a couple of slider-type switches to control the transmission on the centre console (which aren’t that intuitive) and of course the manettino (sexy Italian name for switch) on the steering wheel to select the chassis settings and a new one, the e-manettino, to set up the hybrid system.

This has settings: eDrive for pure electric drive; Hybrid blending electric and combustion power for maximum efficiency; Performance where the engine is always on and the battery will charge; and Qualify, which provides maximum performance at the expense of the battery state of charge.

The rest of the cabin is finished in that multiple-surface-changes, high-quality materials way of Ferrari. It also introduces the improbable luxury of a tan leather floor, which is a measure of how little a Ferrari owner’s shoes touch anything other than pristine pavement. Vision out is fine to the front though the windscreen pillars are quite thick, but the door mirrors are filled with rear wing air intake and the rear-view mirror is far from panoramic.

In Hybrid mode, the 296 GTB pulls away on electrical power, which is the right thing to do as it utilises the e-motor’s torque, but the battery power doesn’t last long and the engine is soon started. You need to run it in Performance to get the engine to fill the battery, which isn’t the most environmental option.

Fast? Of course it is. Yet, as on the track, there’s an electrifying sense of simply dialling some more scenery. You squeeze the throttle and the world changes, though best not look at the speedometer while all this is taking place. This car does make you wonder whether it might be better to hand your licence in at the cop shop before you take delivery, just to save time later. Not sure about that engine note, either, which at times is just plain noisy and annoying.

As for the 818bhp, while there’s little doubting that peak, since the systems are monitoring the drivetrain effectiveness, even how much grip you have from the tyres, and the battery capacity is so small, the full beans are seldom attainable and then not for long.

The steering feels light and darty but supremely accurate. On the Michelin Cup 2 tyre option this would be too much for the road, but there’s another calmer set of covers for public roads. Even so, the steering means you can’t relax in this car as it snouts out every seam, dip and bend like a quartering spaniel. Julien Levray, Michelin tyre engineer, explains that during the development of this car, the front tyre carcasses had to be softened and the rears’ hardened to calm the responses.

For those more used to the tail-happy reign of terror of the Eighties mid-engined supercar, reducing the grip of the rear tyres seems counter-intuitive, but it gives an astonishing balance to the Ferrari’s chassis, if not much feedback other than a sense that the calm you are feeling is an electronically orchestrated illusion. Happily the ride is far from eyeball rattling, especially in the Bumpy Road damping setting.

With what GT simulation engineer, Andrea Giacomini, calls ‘an evolved grip estimator’, the new Ferrari will even look after you if you do that racing driver’s trick of steaming into a corner at almost full tilt, then bang on the anchors to the apex and power out. None of the cars I’ve ever hillclimbed had the handling or the brakes to allow this and when Marc Gené, charming former F1 driver, Le Mans winner, race commentator and Ferrari test driver, took me round the circuit to show me how to do it, my face turned the colour of an unpainted Airfix kit.

‘It’s simple,’ he said, twirling the wheel, wiping another couple of millimetres off the Michelins and chatting away. ‘This is a racing driver’s Ferrari.’

And so it is, but while you’d need a pro’s eye and talent to wring the best out of the 296 GTB, the electronics get you within a decent margin. But here’s the thing: while dynamically the car has lost nothing in the process, somehow the systems have edged their way between you and the car. At times driving the 296 feels more like a computer simulation than a real-life, fire-breathing automobile requiring seat-of-the-pants skill, courage and deft balance to give its best. Some folk won’t know what they’re missing, others won’t mind at all, but I do know and I do mind and I’ve got a feeling I’m not alone.

For getting on for a third of a million pounds, I don’t expect to be able to match a Grand Prix driver’s lap times; all I ask is for something beautiful, which makes me feel really special and which rewards in equal measure the effort and skill I put in. Extraordinary it might be, but the 296 GTB feels more disconcerting than desirable. Perhaps that’s just me getting old.

Ferrari 296 GTB

Power unit: 2992cc V6, twin-turbo, PHEV

Transmission Eight-speed dual-clutch, RWD

Max system power: 818bhp @ 8000rpm

Max system torque: 546lb ft @ 6250rpm

Weight: 1560kg

Power-to-weight ratio: 542bhp/tonne

0-62mph: 2.9sec

Top speed: 205mph

Fuel consumption: 21.7mpg

Price: £241,550, plus Assetto Fiorano pack at £25,920

Ti rating 7/10