- The Ferrari 296GTB is now the fastest rear-wheel-drive car we’ve ever tested, dispatching 60 mph in 2.4 seconds and finishing the quarter-mile in 9.7 seconds at 150 mph.
- Its ultra-short 70 mph stop of 130 feet takes that crown away from the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS, which formerly held the record at 132 feet.
- The plug-in-hybrid powertrain fuses a 654-hp twin-turbocharged 3.0-liter V-6 to a 165-hp electric motor for 819 horses of combined output.
Welcome to Car and Driver’s Testing Hub, where we zoom in on the test numbers. We’ve been pushing vehicles to their limits since 1956 to provide objective data to bolster our subjective impressions (you can see how we test here).
While prepping the Ferrari 296GTB for testing, an interested bystander asked the obvious question: “What does it have for an engine?” When we said it had a twin-turbo 3.0-liter V-6 mated to an electric motor, the eye-rolling was nearly audible. “A V-6 hybrid Ferrari? Not interested.” Oh how their tune would have changed if they had seen it break our rear-wheel-drive acceleration record by reaching 60 mph in 2.4 seconds and storming the quarter-mile in 9.7 seconds.
Massive Power
The heart of the beast is a 2992 cc V-6 engine, and this combination gives the 296 its name. Why not 306, because 2992 cc rounds to 3.0 liters? In a word: China. Tax-wise, 3.0-liter engines are taboo over there, and Ferrari wanted to underscore the fact that this engine lives on the happy side of that milestone.
The part our bystander should have been interested in is the 120-degree bank angle, which gives this V-6 the firing cadence of a V-12. The result is incredible, especially as the eight-speed dual-clutch automatic transmission cracks off shifts at the 8500 rpm redline. That broad vee is also a handy place for two turbochargers to live, and it all adds up to 654 hp of internal combustion oomph amounting to some 219 horsepower per liter.
But that of course wasn’t enough, so there’s a 165-hp axial flow synchronous AC electric motor sandwiched between the engine and gearbox. It’s connected to a 6.0-kWh battery pack that’s bigger than a typical passive hybrid battery so that it can be plugged in. The EPA says it’s good for 8 miles of range, but after testing this car we think its true purpose is to ensure the added 165 electric horses always stand ready to insinuate themselves and raise total combined output to 819 horsepower.
Launch Control
We made two modifications to our test sequence because of the 296’s powertrain. The first was typical of any plug-in vehicle: we test acceleration first to take full advantage of the electricity. The second was in deference to the 296’s traction-control system, which learns the slip characteristics of the test surface. We scrapped the usual east-west-east-west alternating cadence that saves time and instead made all our eastbound runs before facing the other way for the westbound ones.
Launching the car is simple, but the procedure has one counterintuitive quirk. After selecting Qualifying mode, you slide the adorable shift toggle to manual, press the brake, then floor the throttle. Revs will rise to 3000, then the ready light comes on and you release the brake. The weird part is this: even though you selected manual mode to arm the system, you don’t manually upshift. Launch control does that bit for you.
Down to Business
Our consecutive same-direction runs got steadily better as the system adjusted to the start-point friction, but progress leveled off at the third pass, so our best-run data comes from that point on. The same was not true of runs in the opposite direction, which were quick right away. I guess our test asphalt is more consistent than we imagined. In the end, the 296GTB’s two-way average results were incredible for any car, let alone an 819-hp rear-drive one that must put all its power down through a pair of 305/35ZR-20 Michelin Pilot Sport Cup 2R tires.
The GTB’s 60 mph run of 2.4 seconds puts it ahead of the Lamborghini Huracan STO and the McLaren Artura, a pair of rear-drive exotics that ran 2.6 seconds. Next up is the Porsche 718 Cayman GT4 RS, which managed 2.8 seconds. But the gaps grow wide after that, with the Ferrari’s 4.7 second run to 100 mph nearly a second clear of the McLaren and Lambo, and a full 2.0 seconds up on the Porsche. At the quarter mile, the 296GTB’s 9.7 seconds at 150 mph is well clear of the next-fastest Artura, which crosses in 10.3 seconds at 140 mph.
Them’s the Brakes
On the issue of electricity preservation and needing to run acceleration first, we needn’t have worried. The 296GTB has massive regenerative braking capacity, but it’s not obvious because all brake triggering—regenerative and friction—comes via the wonderfully communicative brake pedal. Ultimately, a chunk of the electrical energy expended during an acceleration run returned to the battery under braking, such that the battery charge percentage dropped quite slowly. It’s almost as if Ferrari has experience with racing cars built to harvest and deploy energy within the context of a single lap.
This regenerative system here only works off the rear drive tires to which the motor is connected, of course, so ultimate braking power still relies heavily on the massive 15.7-inch ventilated and drilled carbon-ceramic rotors, 10-piston front calipers, and the grip of the 245/35ZR-20 Cup 2R front tires. The 269GTB also has an active aerodynamic device that rises up from between the taillights to generate drag and downforce, but its deployment timing didn’t seem to be optimized to act strictly as an air brake, so I’m not going to call it one.
Still, the friction brakes aren’t going it entirely alone on this car, which weighs 3532 pounds on our scales. Perhaps that’s why the Ferrari was able to stop from 70 mph in a scant 130 feet and wrest away the stopping distance title from the Porsche Cayman GT4 RS despite weighing 290 pounds more. Then again, the extra weight and momentum may be why the Porsche retains the 100 mph stopping distance advantage, with a score of 242 feet to the Ferrari’s 245 ft.
Fun fact: The Ferrari SF90 Stradale holds the overall crown of 2.0 seconds to 60 mph on account of all-wheel drive and 986 combined horsepower. That initial 0.4-second 60 mph advantage over the 296GTB shrinks to two-tenths of a second at the quarter mile, at which point the SF90’s trap speed has sagged to 148 mph, which is 2 mph slower. In the end we saw 190 mph in 17.8 seconds in the 296 before we ran out of room and called it a day.
Technical Editor
Dan Edmunds was born into the world of automobiles, but not how you might think. His father was a retired racing driver who opened Autoresearch, a race-car-building shop, where Dan cut his teeth as a metal fabricator. Engineering school followed, then SCCA Showroom Stock racing, and that combination landed him suspension development jobs at two different automakers. His writing career began when he was picked up by Edmunds.com (no relation) to build a testing department.
Source: Motor - aranddriver.com
