First Drive Review
So, your stock portfolio is in the crapper, your spouse has found a younger flame, and your standard $326,730 Ferrari 599GTB Fiorano isn’t doing it for you anymore. Might we suggest that you order a new 599? This time, however, check the box for the $30,095 Handling GTE, or HGTE, package. With it comes a retuned suspension consisting of stiffer springs (17 percent in front and 15 percent in the rear), a thicker rear anti-roll bar (1.0 inch versus 0.9 for the standard 599), retuned adjustable shocks, and slightly wider front wheels. The 599 HGTE also sits 0.4 inch lower than the regular version, has a retuned exhaust note, and is fitted with stickier Pirelli P Zero rubber. Inside, each HGTE-equipped 599 includes every possible carbon-fiber option.
The twin-cam, 6.0-liter V-12’s power is unchanged at 612 hp and 448 lb-ft of torque. There are two options for the transmission, both of which offer six speeds: a traditional three-pedal manual or Ferrari’s F1-Superfast automated manual. The latter is the primary choice for buyers, evidenced by a quick jaunt past the company’s assembly line, where none of the partly assembled 599s were fitted with a manual gearbox.
Improving One of Our Favorites
We have praised the 599 before for its neutral handling, fade-free carbon-ceramic brakes, and grown-up manners over broken pavement. Yet a few hot laps around Ferrari’s Fiorano circuit left us star struck all over again. Brakes? They haul you down from speed with ease and remarkable precision. Power? There’s plenty of it all the way to the 8400-rpm redline. (Indeed, while on an orientation lap, Maserati MC12 racing pilot Andrea Bertolini was so entertained by the engine power, he blurted, “The torque of this engine is amazing!”) Steering? It’s a hair on the overboosted side, but it loads up nicely and communicates the tires’ distress level well. A 599 with the HGTE package is as neutral as the standard car, if not more so, thanks to the lower center of gravity and slightly wider contact patch in the front.
The ride is slightly compromised, although it isn’t a deal breaker. The car still has magnetorheological shocks that adjust their damping on command with a twist of the manettino—the steering-wheel-mounted switch that also varies stability-control intervention thresholds and transmission shift speed. It is not until the manettino is set to “Race” that the new bits come to life—and pound the life out of you if the road turns from glass to chop. It is in this mode that the suspension is at its firmest and the gearshifts shrink to a bang-it-home 85 milliseconds versus a still-astounding 100 milliseconds for the standard 599.
Still, the HGTE package, available on 2010 599s in the U.S., will not make the car any quicker in a straight line. The best times we have seen in a 599 are downright scary, as quick as a Ferrari Enzo. Sixty mph comes in 3.3 seconds, and the quarter-mile is traversed in 11.2 seconds at an astonishing 131 mph—fast enough to require a roll cage for runs down the local drag strip. However, the package likely will improve on the 0.98 g skidpad performance. We did not have a chance to strap our test gear to an HGTE car, but we wouldn’t be surprised if lateral grip ends up eclipsing 1.00 g. (Ferrari says it will be happy to upgrade your existing 599 to HGTE specs, but expect to pay a serious premium over the package itself.)
There’s no carpet inside the cabin, and plastic is used only for the ashtray and air vents. Alcantara, however, has been rolled out by the yard: The headliner, the center sections of the bucket seats, and the floor are lined with the synthetic suede. There are airbags in front and on the side, but if you wreck your 599, you’ll be crying more about the looming repair bill than any possible bump on your head.
A Formidable Package
Front-engine, grand-touring machines have a fairly specific pecking order, and the 599 is already on top, trumping most of its competitors in power or handling, if not both. The Aston Martin DBS uses the same front-mounted V-12 format, but it already has lost a head-to-head comparison test to the Ferrari. The V-8–powered Maserati GranTurismo S suffers from a 178-hp handicap. The large-and-in-charge Mercedes-Benz CL65 AMG loses in switchback agility, even if it only has eight fewer hp than the 599. As such, there’s not a soul in this office who would turn away a 599—or the opportunity to drive one—for something from any other marque. There are some here who would opt for the 599’s mid-engined stablemate, the F430, a sports car that’s arguably a bit better on back roads and racetracks.
A 599 with the HGTE package, however, makes that decision harder. The enhanced 599 moves ever closer to all-around handling mastery while retaining the sizable trunk and better rearward visibility of a front-engine grand tourer. (Of course, if Ferrari would just cut loose an example of each car for our long-term fleet, we’d certainly be able to give you a definitive answer.) Suffice it to say that if you’re in the enviable position of shopping for a 599, the HGTE will have you forgetting your stock losses and cradle-robbing ex. Buy now—if you can.
