Published : Dec. 14, 2014 - 21:19
The Ferrari FXX K Hybrid
Last week in Abu Dhabi, Ferrari unveiled its newest hybrid supercar, the FXX K.
Yes, the name looks like an expletive.
That’s a fitting reaction considering its $3.1 million price tag and 1050 cv, V12 engine.
Executives at Ferrari declined to comment on the FXX K for this article, and I don’t blame them. When you make a monster machine for the world’s top 40 Ferrari collectors, you don’t owe anyone anything. Least of all an explanation.
But I must admit that when I saw the photos and the numbers for the car, my first reaction was a casual shrug. Here’s another design exercise meant to placate the environmentalists and the Ferrari fan boys, I thought. It’s not even street legal. It won’t come to the United States. It has no relevance to the real world.
I spoke too fast. Turns out the beauty part of this whole enterprise ― and its dirty little secret ― is that hybridization does as much for improving track performance as it does for saving gasoline. It just sounds better to say you’re doing it to save the planet.
“Ferrari gets a double win here, because if you set up hybrid technology correctly you can actually make a car have better performance because of the instant torque hybrid provides,” said Karl Brauer, the senior editor at Kelley Blue Book, via email. “So basically Ferrari is able to add to the performance of its cars and make it look like it’s very earth-conscious as well.”
It’s a common theme for luxury automakers, actually. Build a killer supercar that runs on electricity and gasoline. Win some races with it or set a few speed records. The fact it’s a hybrid almost becomes beside the point.
Porsche has been testing its electric technology on the mid-engine plug-in hybrid 918 Spyder since 2013, with great results. Last year a 918 fitted with Porsche’s optional racing package became the first series production car ― hybrid or not ― to break the 7-minute barrier on the infamous Nurburgring racetrack.
McLaren’s P1, model year 2014, followed suit, offering 375 hand-chosen buyers the chance to own the twin-turbo V8 engine/lithium-ion motor. Consider P1 the hybrid version of McLaren’s own conventionally powered track star, the McLaren F1. It had the same clout.
More recently, at the Paris Motor Show earlier this fall, Lamborghini showed off the V10 Asterion plug-in hybrid. That, actually, is probably more of a tree-hugging hat-tip than anything else. For starters, it’s purely a concept, not even ready to race on a track. And Lambo chief Stefan Winkelmann tellingly couldn’t wait to stop talking about it during the show. When we spoke then, he mentioned the Asterion’s design heritage and cool factor considerably more frequently and fondly than he did its powertrain. Or its prospects for a viable future.
At Ferrari, meanwhile, the FXX K provides another significant benefit in addition to technological progress.
This year hasn’t been the smoothest at the office. The Maranello-based brand saw its head of 23 years, Luca di Montezemolo, depart under vaguely political circumstances. Its fourth-place finish in the Formula 1 team standings this year would most certainly fall under what di Montezemolo described in Paris as “a tragedy.” And just yesterday reports surfaced that it‘s considering moving its fiscal base out of Italy.
So the fact that it has produced something even more astoundingly manic than the LaFerrari ― something with the silencers removed in order to completely unfetter that engine scream ― conjures some timely critical and popular adulation.
Of course the car has been in development for years, noted Jesse Toprak, the chief analyst at Cars.com. But the fortuitous timing certainly provides a nice diversion.
“It puts the focus back where it counts ― on the cars,” Toprak said via phone. “And with a name like that, it’s kind of saying what Ferrari thinks of everyone else: They’re Ferrari. They can do whatever they want.” (Bloomberg)