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Ferrari 458 Tech Bits

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This week, what’s under the skin of the new Ferrari.

What we know so far about the new Ferrari V8

By Wallace Wyss

Technically the new Ferrari 458 Italia advances the art of the road going mid-engined car by making it almost as fast as the Enzo at a much lower cost.

The 458 Italia is going to be marketed with an automatic, seven-speed dual-clutch transmission designed to increase performance and still deliver very smooth shifts even at full throttle. The engineers have developed specific, sportier gear ratios to match the power and torque curves of the new V8, knowing that high torque is the key to acceleration even at lower engine speeds.
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A Guide to the Monterey Historics 2009

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Charlie Shalvoy, 1926 Bugatti T-39A s/n 4810.

Great in 2008, even better in 2009

By Wallace Wyss

Photos by Dennis Gray

To many enthusiasts on the West Coast, August means only one thin–Monterey car week. It has different titles, related to some specific events but the once weekend-only event has now mushroomed into a full week of activities, and even more if you count the pre-race event the weekend before which receives no publicity.
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Qvale’s Mangusta

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“And here’s another fine mess you’ve gotten me into…”

A tale of intrigue from the 1990s
By Wallace Alfred Wyss

Back in the 1960s, when mid-engined was becoming all the rage, Giorgetto Giugiaro, then a designer at Ghia, penned such a car for Iso Rivolta.

Not that Iso, a car builder making sports cars with Chevrolet and Ford V8s, wanted the car. The owner of Iso, Renzo Rivolta, liked front-engined cars. He had no intention of making a mid-engined car.

But his two top engineers, Dallara and Bizzarrini, did like mid-engined cars and hoped they would talk Renzo into it once he was knocked over by its beauty. It used styling elements from the Iso Fidia, a four seat, front-engined car that Giugiaro had already designed. But Rivolta said “no” in a way they could understand and Alejandro de Tomaso, at the time owner of Ghia Carrozzeria, picked up the design himself to use as a Ghia show car. He put it on a backbone chassis he had designed for a race car he was building with Carroll Shelby until Der Snakemeister dropped out of the project.


The car, if it was really styled by Gandini, will not be remembered as much as his Countach and other Lamborghinis.

The result was the mid-engined Mangusta, which soon went into production. While the 302-cu. in. Ford powered version that came to the US was anemic compared to the car’s potent looks, the car is still revered for its purity of design. Few production cars look so much like the prototype.

Flash forwards a few decades to 1996. De Tomaso rolls out the Bigua prototype, a front-engined car using more than a little Ford Mustang input including the engine and transmission. The chassis was a box section steel chassis and the suspension independent all the way around.


Independent rear suspension and a steel box section chassis made the Qvale handle.

The designer credited is Marcello Gandini, famous in Italy for doing the Miura (although Giugiaro hints he designed that at Bertone) the Countach, and many other Lamborghinis.
It is a blunt car, somewhat reminiscent in general shape of the Trumph TR7/TR8 and its only claim to uniqueness is a unique top that rolls up out of a well, similar to the top in a roll top desk.


The best thing about the DeTomaso/Qvale Mangusta is that you can obtain engine parts at any auto parts store in America–a similar advantage by those who own Jenson Interceptors, Isos, and Monteverdis.

The engine was a 4.6 liter Ford V8 a quad cam version also used in the Mustang Cobra. It was a lot more powerful, at 320 hp than the 230-hp the 302 used in the original mid-engined US spec Mangusta. (Another source lists the Ford 4-cam as having only 305 hp.) The Mustang engine had 314 ft-lbs. of torque. Transmission choices were a Borg Warner 5-speed manual or a computer controlled 4-speed automatic. Gas mileage was 17 mpg in the city and as high as 28 mpg on the highway.

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The Monster

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Wyss:

Wyss: “This is my oil painting of my car, once I switched it from International Harvester Green to Rosso Corsa.” Art by Wallace A. Wyss

By Wallace A. Wyss

Monster though it may be, the C4 Wyss paid $19,000 for is now worth about $150,000.

The man’s wife, an actress who looked Scandinavian, called it “The Monster.”

“You’ve come for the Monster,” she said.
“Yes, I have,” I said, while trying to figure out why she would call one of Pininfarina’s most beautiful Ferraris–the GTC/4– “The Monster.”

I say “most beautiful” but the Italians, with their ever more refined eyes for body shapes (both women and cars) called it “the hunchback with clown lips” because it had an ever so slight rise to the center of the rear deck lid, and up front there was a rubber bumper surround. Neither feature hurt the car’s looks but you know the Italians. They wanted things just right or they would find something to criticize.

I found out later on, once I took the car, it ate money. It wasn’t the cookie monster, but the money monster.

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RM Ferrari Maranello Auction set for May 17th

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fiat
1962 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder (SWB)
Photo credit: Shooterz.biz

By Wallace Wyss

RM Auctions will return to Maranello next month for the third annual Ferrari: Leggenda e Passione. It will be an event “that celebrates the automotive legacy of Enzo Ferrari and the passion of the Ferrari enthusiast.” The single day auction will present a diverse range of Ferraris. A number of the cars will be “coachbuilt” which refers to the cars custom built by coachbuilders such as Ghia, Bertone and Touring, as opposed to the mass produced models.

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