Welcome to the Ferrari Renaissance. Welcome to the brand-new Ferrari 296 GTB. It doesn’t replace the F8 Tributo, but “complements” the range, according to Ferrari. Unbelievably, its power output matches the V12 812 Competizione. You’re looking at the thick, scary end of 819bhp from a 2.9-litre turbocharged V6 and electric motor. Sheesh. When spooled up, both units send that mammoth power output to the rear wheels to record a 0-62mph time of 2.9s, a 0-124mph time of 7.3s, top speed of over 205mph, and a Fiorano lap time of 1m 21s; that latter number matches up to the Ferrari F12tdf. But there’s a lot more going on under the skin, so let Top Gear Magazine’s Jack Rix be your jungle guide for this new era of six-cylinder Ferraris.
Welcome to a ferrari dealership in egm surrey probably not the place i imagined meeting the new supercar at the moment the ferrari 296 gtb that’s sitting over there looking rather lovely but hey you’ve got to take your opportunities haven’t you because this car is in the uk only for a brief amount of time it’s been toured around the dealers it’s giving customers
And potential customers a chance to poke around it and we’ve been given one hour one hour to make a walk around video so i’m gonna give you as much information as i possibly can but apologies if it doesn’t have quite the normal spit and polish of our videos anyway i better stop talking and just crack on with it and the first thing i want to talk about is the
Way this car looks i liked it when i saw the pictures i still like it in the flesh and that’s a good sign isn’t it but the funny thing is the sf-90 this car’s bigger brother if you like the v8 four-wheel drive plug-in hybrid this is a v6 plug-in hybrid when that was launched yeah the design was a bit meh i’m not saying it’s an ugly car i’m just saying it was
A bit generic maybe a bit forgettable but this just has a little something about it that that one doesn’t it’s got a little pinch of the past this is retro done right because it’s inspired by a gorgeous car the 250 lm from 1963 and you can see the influence of that model here mainly with these big upright intakes that sit on the shoulders of the car and then
You’ve got this lovely arch line that sort of waves along the rear quarters and then these buttresses that cut in like this i think it looks fantastic and there’s a couple of other bits to point out while we’re here the headlights these are the daytime running lights and underneath them is just a big hole it’s something we’re starting to see on a few cars 720s
Um was the first i can remember that and pioneered this technology air goes in there cools the brakes so you’re using the headlights the design elements for aero and for cooling they’re functional as well as fashionable come down the side of the car clean styling we’ve got a bit of a roof spoiler here this just smooths out the airflow over the rear deck and
It’s a very interesting rear deck another 250 lm reference is that vertical rear windscreen back there which leaves this massive expanse of engine cover here which is nicely contoured there’s almost a double bubble look to it and buried under there is the v6 engine but before we get to that couple more things i want to show you around the back this is the
Pop-up rear spoiler so this slides up here this provides 100 kilograms of downforce at the rear end when you’re properly on it the exhaust pipe i’m not sure about i don’t know what’s wrong with just two circles and the same goes for the tail lights now these are undeniably digital futuristic they’re in keeping with a high-tech plug-in hybrid car like this but
I always think circular rear lights on a mid-engined baby mid-engine ferrari is the way to go speaking of the ancestry of this car if you like the name so a lot of rumors were swirling around that this thing was going to be called dino because that was the last ferrari that used a v6 engine but no ferrari sidestep that they’ve called it the 296 gtb the 296
Because it’s a 2.9 liter six cylinder engine and that’s the engine down there so 2.9 liters twin turbo v6 120 degree angle that engine on its own produces 654 horsepower and then you have an electric motor so that’s sandwiched between the engine and the 8-speed twin clutch gearbox same gearbox you get in the roma in the sf-90 and that electric motor’s quite
Clever because it can charge up the seven and a half kilowatt hour battery it can start the engine it can drive the rear axle this car is rear-wheel drive only not four-wheel drive like the sf-90 it can drive the rear axle on its own so put it in ev mode this thing will do 15 and a half miles if you’re lucky and speeds of up to 84 miles an hour but that’s not
Really how buyers of this thing are going to use it they’re going to go straight into qualify mode ask everything from the engine and the motor all together and that gives you 819 brake horsepower which is well it’s a lot of horsepower isn’t it in fact it’s the same amount of power you get in the new 812 competizione and that has a 6.5 liter v12 so half the
Number of cylinders in this thing but the same amount of power as the big special 812 that’s recently been released numbers you want numbers don’t you because this thing will do not 62 when you proper unleash it 2.9 seconds naught to 124 miles an hour 7.3 top speed 205 miles an hour and perhaps the most startling fact is that its lap around the fiorano test
Track is one minute 21 seconds so it’s faster than 488 pista it’s basically the same speed bang on head to head with the f12 tdf and it’s only just over a second slower around fiorano than the laferrari a second slower than the laferrari that’s just bonkers so a v6 ferrari am i worried not really the mid-engine ferraris have never sounded quite as good since
The 488 embraced turbos so there’s not too far to fool in that regard and this v6 has the internal nickname of piccolo v12 little v12 ferrari says it speaks with the force of the turbos and the harmony of the high frequency notes of a naturally aspirated v12 we’ll see about that interestingly the two turbos sit inside the v spin to 180 000 rpm and have 11 lower
Rotating mass than the f8 so they spin up even faster and the f8 had basically zero lag this thing’s going to be freaky okay so we’re on the inside now let me just adjust the seat and the wheel for my tiny human frame there we go and the interior this whole design in here is really rather sparse you’ve got i’ll fire up the ignition you’ve got this enormous
Digital instrument display straight in front of you you’ve got touch sensitive pads instead of real buttons on the wheel your aircon control here is a sort of black panel touch sensitive display this is an extra screen that’s in front of the passenger so they can see by how much you’re breaking the speed limit at any one time and then down here is something
We first saw on the sf90 which is the controls for the automatic the twin clutch gearbox but styled in the way of an open gate manual of old now let’s talk about some of the buttons on the wheel because here you have what looks like a fairly traditional manatino which takes you from wet mode to sport mode to race mode to ct off which is hero mode it lets you
Slide the car around but within certain electronic boundaries and then if you’re feeling really brave everything off and then over here we have the e mandatino so this is how you control your hybrid powertrain how you want it to behave where you want the power source to be coming from at the moment i’m in hybrid but if i press this flag i go into performance
Mode and if i press this stopwatch i go into qualifying which is give me absolutely everything you’ve got and to hell with draining the battery and down here of course is ed so that’s electric drive mode if you really want to slink away silently and not wake up your neighbors at three in the morning and what about practicality because the big thing let’s face
It with the sf90 was it’s actually a very good cruiser it behaves like a gt car if you want it to but there’s pretty much no storage space in here it’s a little bit more useful you’ve got a kind of useful rubberized tray at the front here you’ve got a cup holder various little cubbies for your wads of money and even space behind the seats here for i don’t
Know a couple of squashy bags there’s a net here for putting various things in it’s relatively useful speaking of which let’s check out the front trunk all right let’s take a look at the frunk or the fruit or the front boot whatever you like oh yeah that’s good that’s pretty good you can fit a lot of stuff in there it’s carbon lined this one which is almost
Certainly an option for i will never miss out on an opportunity to sell you some more carbon fiber but compared to the sf90 this is night and day the sf90 of course has the additional electric motor on the front axle for four wheel drive for the traction and that’s why it eats into the space it’s a pretty useless boot that it’s got on his nose but this is
Good it’s basically a family car which brings me to the positioning of the 296. it is not a direct replacement for the f8 tributeo ferrari have told me that several times the f8 will go on sale will carry on being sold rather until next year at which point it will disappear and then this will replace it surely but no i’m told there may be another model that
Sits underneath this one of course this has 819 brake horsepower there is space for something else what it is there is no decision yet but i’m telling you this without the hybrid gubbins v6 650 horsepower super lightweight manual gearbox now there’s an idea either way this car sits in a seriously impressive bloodline of mid-engine ferraris doesn’t it here we
Go 308 328-348-355-360 430 458 488 fh trabuto and then this i cannot wait to drive this car it’s going to cost 230 235 grand unless you go for the assetto fiorano pack which this one has which adds extra lightweight bits a lexan rear screen loads of carbon fiber and it gives you this funky optional stripe across the mouth and up the center line of the car
That’ll set you back another 30 grand look it’s a sensational spec sheet it looks fantastic proper little firecracker this one you
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Ferrari 296 GTB: small engine, massive power! Is this 820bhp V6 hybrid a mini LaFerrari? | Top Gear By Top Gear