Prancing Horse promise

FERRARI has made a surprising declaration that it will not build an engine with less than eight cylinders.

While the Italian supercar manufacturer confirmed that it is looking at turbocharging for the future, the company has rejected our speculation last week that this may involve a V6, based on comments that a turbo engine would be smaller and more compact than the company’s traditional V8 and V12 engines.

A Ferrari spokesman said that “Ferrari may investigate engines of a smaller capacity, but they will not have fewer than eight cylinders”.

The last turbocharged car produced by Ferrari was the legendary F40, which was the last car commissioned by company founder Enzo Ferrari before his death and is generally regarded as the first street-legal production car to break the 200mph barrier (322km/h).

Built from 1987 to 1992, it came from the era of turbocharged Formula One cars and was powered by a compact V8 engine with a capacity of 2.9 litres that produced 352kW of power and 575Nm of torque. This engine was a development of the 2.8-litre V8 from the 288 GTO, which developed 298kW and 496Nm.

The F40 was replaced in 1995 by the F50 with a normally-aspirated 4.7-litre V12 that pumped out 383kW/470Nm and the Prancing Horse has remained true to V8 and V12 ‘atmo’ engines ever since.

Ferrari may be protected from the 2012 European Commission fleet average emissions standards that were drafted late last year by being included under parent company Fiat, which is just as well because Ferrari’s most efficient 2008 model (the F430) rates an average 345 grams per kilometre, which is almost three times the EC target of 130g/km.

Nevertheless, the engineers at Maranello are pursuing various alternatives to meet the company’s own long-term objectives, beyond the immediate goal of reducing its 2007-level fuel consumption and CO2 emissions by 40 per cent by 2012.

Ferrari is now working on the next generation of engines that will power its cars from 2013 and beyond.

“Turbocharging is a possible solution, but the key figure Ferrari is looking for is the power-per-litre with all solutions,” said Ferrari technical director for GT cars Roberto Fedeli in a statement. “The displacement of the engine may be reduced, but not the number of cylinders.”

Extra, extra!

FERRARI fans now have their own official magazine to read – but it will cost them about $100 to buy a copy.

Following the lead of many other car-makers, Ferrari has joined with a major publisher – in this case, Conde Nast – to produce an official company magazine for its clients worldwide.

Published only in English, the 180-page magazine will come out four times a year and an annual subscription costs 250 euro ($407).

Lamborghini’s bigger (250 pages) Me magazine costs $125 a copy in Australia, but a subscription to Porsche’s long-running Christophorus, which runs to about 100 pages per edition, costs only $46.20 in Australia for six issues.

Read more:

Ferrari to stay red, but think green

F1 helps Ferrari to go green

Formula for success