From the June 2000 Issue of Car and Driver.
The Ferrari Challenge is a racing program staged by the company for its paying customers. It gives them the chance to compete against their fellow plutocrats whilst simultaneously putting their porky wallets on the Atkins Diet. Limited to race editions of late-model cars, the Challenge series will race at eight tracks in the United States in 2000. Worldwide, there are five regional championship series, with global bragging rights to be settled in the fall in Mugello, Italy.
In addition to the races, Challenge weekends typically include lots of track time for local club members to flog their vintage and streetable Ferraris. “It’s very important in the U.S.,” says Carlo Fiorani, Ferrari’s courtly press agent in this country. “Because of the strict, strict laws here, the Challenge gives U.S. owners a chance to drive the cars the proper way.” Which is to say fast.
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This year, 51 odiously lucky individuals, having ponied up $175,000 apiece, will field North America’s allotment of the new 360 Modena Challenge car, a full-race version of the berlinetta Ferrari. For the 2000 season, Challenge races will include the 360 and the previous Challenge car, the 355, racing together, although in separate classes.
Whereas the 355 Challenge was a retrofit of the road edition that involved uprated suspension bits, a roll cage, and little else, the 360 Modena Challenge is purpose-built at the factory and includes such earnest competition gear as a 100-liter vented fuel cell, ducted brakes, and an integrated fire-suppression system. (Note to readers: For concision, we will henceforth refer to the 360 Modena Challenge car by the unofficial and wholly ad hoc designation 360MC.) From the time the all-aluminum body arrives on a truck from Carrozzeria Scaglietti, just a few miles outside Maranello, Italy, it takes the staff a month to build one (see, that was easy).
In the interest of weight saving, all traces of luxo-exotica have been scourged from the 360MC. Gone are the leather seats, carpet and upholstery, the brushed aluminum consoles, the ghoulish-green instruments. They are replaced by a single OMP racing seat, a righteous roll cage, a fire bottle where the passenger seat would be, and a simple suede-trimmed bulkhead hosting a Magneti Marelli LCD instrument panel wired with onboard telemetry.
Behind the three-spoke racing wheel reside the F1 automatic gearbox’s paddles. The upshift paddle on the right has been extended an inch or so to facilitate shifting while cornering (the stick-shifted six-speed is not available in the 360MC).
Other lightening measures include skipping the sound-deadening materials, the airbags, the hand brake, air conditioning, and door and window mechanisms. The windows have been replaced by fixed Lexan panels with F40-style slide openings. Carbon fiber trims the doors. The engine cover is also Lexan.
A few vestiges of the production interior remain. The steering column is reach-and-rake adjustable; the T-shaped lever engaging reverse remains in a center console, between the big kill switch and the I-believe-I’m-on-fire button.
Ferrari claims the 360MC weighs in about 250 pounds lighter than the standard 360 Modena and more than 300 pounds lighter than the 355 Challenge car.
Compared with all the kilo-conscious belt tightening, the powertrain mods seem pretty minimal. The DOHC all-aluminum 3.6-liter V-8 remains unmolested, as it’s a pretty hot mill to begin with, sporting titanium connecting rods, a dry sump oiling system, and an 11.0:1 compression ratio. The software controlling the Motronic ME 7.3 fuel injection, the drive-by-wire throttle, the variable intake runners, and the exhaust-valve timing remains the same.
Among the hardware changes, the 360MC is down to one catalytic converter, and the engine sings through an open muffler, thereby eliminating the need for the variable back-pressure system—Ferrari’s urban-noise-abatement program. This change alone accounts for an increase of about four percent in horsepower, the factory says, to 410 ponies. The effect is not decisive on the exhaust note, which remains warm and reedy, like the 355 played through a trumpeter’s mute.
A transmission-oil cooler—ducted through the Lexan engine cover—takes the place of the water-to-oil gearbox intercooler. Stiffer engine mounts and a racing clutch round out the hi-po massaging.
The racing clutch gets a workout. In the street 360 Modena, upshifts below 7000 rpm are softened by the engine management system, which momentarily feathers the e-throttle. Such tokens to smoothness are dispensed with in the Challenge car, and it upshifts with crisp, authoritative whacks.
Ferrari claims the 360MC transits from zero to 62 mph in 3.9 seconds (0.6 second quicker than a stock 360 F1 to 60 mph), and a cavort around Homestead gave us no reason to doubt that. Out on the front straight, the 360MC accelerated with glycerin smoothness into truly heartening triple-digit speeds, trailing belle canto engine notes in its wind vortexes that would make Verdi weep.
Yet for all the full-race gestalt, what is most striking—carbon fiber and roll cage notwithstanding—is the 360MC’s close kinship to the street car.
Like the road car, the 360MC is effortlessly, blithely easy to drive fast, thanks to the F1 gearbox and the Bosch ASR anti-lock-braking and traction-control system, neither of which was deployed on the 355 Challenge car. Downshifting for a tight corner, you need only tap the left paddle for the desired gear—the F1 gearbox automatically blips the throttle like Eddie Irvine showing off for a new girlfriend. Heel-and-toeing is so outré. The clumsiest of dilettantes cannot zing the valves because of the gearbox’s self-preserving software.
Feel like performing a little threshold braking? Dive into a corner with the ABS on fire. It will happily stutter the four-pot Brembo brakes (14.0-inch rotors in front, 13.0 inches in back, up from the stock 13.0-inchers all around), slowing the car as if it had hit a wall of pudding. Exiting corners, the traction control permits enough wheelspin for tail-out throttle steer but intervenes discreetly when things become too interesting.
The ASR system is defeatable, but it enhances performance so seamlessly and judiciously that we suspect many Challenge weekend warriors—after they get over their own vanity—will gladly opt for the computer assist. Of course, some might lie about it.
The early editions of the 360MC will sport a more understeering chassis setup. Firmer springs and less stiff front anti-roll bars will soon be made available. In the meantime, the car is flawlessly neutral at high speed with a pronounced low-speed push in tight corners, particularly before the new Pirelli P Zero slicks build up heat. Once hot, they hang on like bad grades around a presidential candidate’s neck.
With up to 400 pounds of aerodynamic downforce available at high speeds, Ferrari expects the 360MC to achieve greater than 1.50 g of peak lateral acceleration. Turn-in is scalpel-sharp, and the steering is, with apologies to My Cousin Vinny, dead-on-balls accurate.
A factory Ferrari racer is a beautiful thing.
Some Ferraristi may sniff at all the electronic driving assists that have made their way to the Challenge car. No question, the 360MC is, ahem, accessible to a more diverse clientele, which means a high wank quotient. What would Enzo think? Still, shed of 250 pounds and wearing grippy racing slicks, the world’s best sports car makes a damn fine race car. Nobody is going to want a refund.
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Source: Reviews - aranddriver.com
