Ugly Hypercars; dream garage
Peter Stevens, designer of McLaren’s FI,
has written an entertaining piece on the Green Car Design website calling the
“irrelevant” LaFerrari Hypercar “grim-looking”. It’s well worth a read.
I think I know what Stevens means about
irrelevance; this is a 950bhp car, after all, but until it’s been driven I’d
grant the benefit of the doubt. And the look of it? No, if s not my cup of tea,
but neither do I think this is any great surprise.
LaFerrari
has been criticized in some quarters
Ferrari’s hypercars have seldom – I don’t
think it’s particularly controversial to say - been strong lookers. Seems to me
that the Enzo and F50 both suffered from fudged attempts to apply FI design
cues to their noses (see also the McMercedes SLR and Mercedes SLK). And while
the F40 was brutal and pure, was it beautiful? I’d say not. The 288GTO
certainly was, but that car was based on the already pretty 308.
Styling has never been that much of a
priority with these cars, and it has never seemed to matter. There are much
better-looking limited-run supercars that have struggled to sell in anything
like the same volumes.
Looking
for relevance in LaFerrari
If, like me, you are at all prone to
daydreaming, I can only apologize for the time you might be about to waste.
Don’t blame me for this, blame former Autocar road tester Vicky Parrott,
because this is her hypothetical question - a sort of Desert Island Cars.
You can have three cars - any three cars -
for the rest of your life. Their cost is irrelevant, they will always be in
tip-top mechanical condition, taxed, insured, full of fuel and free of rust.
They are permanently at your disposal at any time.
They are, however, the only three cars you
will ever own or drive; once your decision is made, it is final and they’re
yours forever. What would they be?
That there are three cars makes this
particularly difficult If you could have one car, you’d just have to choose a
vehicle that could do everything you needed. If it was two, you’d have one car
to do the daily grind, and another for kicks. But three? Well, there’s a
dilemma.
Ferrari
250 SWB is a fantasy garage contender
Obviously you need one practical motor,
then two for, presumably, different kinds of kicks - maybe track use, maybe
top-down cruising. Me? I need to tow, so I’d go with a modified Land Rover
Defender or a Mercedes G55. And it would be a better man than me who could look
past a Ferrari 250 SWB.
Which leaves one. One more, suitably
different. A Bentley 4½ Liter? An Ariel Atom V8 or McLaren F1? Maybe a Porsche
917 or Honda RA300 F1 car or Rolls-Royce Phantom Drophead? I’ve been thinking
about this on and off for about two years and am still no closer to a
conclusion. And that, I suppose, is part of the fun.
