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This is one of those days when I'm surprised they pay me.
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With me is Ferrari's ultimate street car ever.
The La Ferrari, following in the lineage of the F40, the F50, the Enzo they only do one of these about every 10 or 12 years.
They're very special, they're very limited and you don't just show up in [UNKNOWN] with a million and a half dollar check and take one home.
You have to own some Ferraris, important ones at that, and then they may deign to sell you one of these.
And when you do bring it home, you've got something more than the latest ultimate Ferrari.
You've got the first one in my estimation to jump fully with both feet into the 21st century.
This car is important.
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The styling of LaFerrari was actually done in-house.
At Ferrari.
Which is actually notable, after 50, 60 some odd years, having Pininfarina pen almost all of their cars.
But, what's happening here is really interesting.
There's not that much left for a stylist to do in the Modern super-car era, the shape is determined by how the car functions in the wind.
There are almost more holes and ports and cutouts than there is positive mass.
What you're seeing here is a carbon fiber skin Drawn tight over the least amount of guts the car has to have.
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And of course this is Ferrari's first street hybrid.
It's HY-KERS technology, hybrid kinetic energy recovery system.
It actually dates back to 2009 in F1, it didn't take that many years for it to hit the streets.
When you got something this pretty, you don't hide it and they don't.
Here's the heart of the beast, starting with a 6.3 liter naturally upgraded V12 underneath this enormous carbon fiber platinum is some band in F1 technology, valuable light intake runner It allows you to have the engine run perfectly at any RPM range, by varying the run, from intake to the cylinder, which doesn't want to always be the same.
And in this car, it isn't.
Then you get to the more modern stuff.
This is the HPU, the hybrid power unit.
Which brings in power from the batteries, and sends it on down to the electric motor, right down there, bolted on the tail end of the transmission.
Up here you see some of the orange cabling, that's a dead giveaway this car is electrified.
It leads up to batteries that live behind the two front seats, down and low, and they each live in their own little hermetically sealed refrigerators.
This electric apparatus weighs over 300 pounds, so it better earn its keep, and it does.
Contributing a 164 horsepower to the massive combined 950, and the best 147 of the total 664 pound feet of torque.
As a result of the electric componentry back here, the traditional engine up here doesn't need to worry quite so much about being a torque motor.
It can do more with breathing.
On high RPM.
And it's redline is 9250.
And the low end stuff is brought in by the electrics.
Where does it all go?
Interestingly, and against current fashion, it goes to two wheels only in the back.
While other super cars are going all wheel drive, this one plants it Just two places through a seven speed dual clutch transmission through one of Ferrari's outstanding F1 gear boxes.
Now in addition to using carbon fiber on the outside, you've got a clear message of carbon fiber on the inside, cuz this is the carbon fiber cabin tub.
It only weighs 150 pounds, the actual shell I'm sitting in.
Part of how they kept the weight down is keeping it small, as you can probably also see.
By having these seats actually be immovable, they're just stationary benches, they were able to make the cabin smaller, because you didn't have to leave room to make the seat track move back and forth.
Instead, you adjust the wheel and the pedal.
Back here is a LCD instrument panel, not their first, but in this case, it's changeable and has different modes.
That is a first for Ferrari.
You've got a more traditional [UNKNOWN] look, and then, you've got one that more speaks to the fact this is an electrified car with a center [UNKNOWN] that has different indications whether your re-generating or spending electric power.
Here's a real crowd pleaser, this sort of, carbon fiber batwing down here has your drive controls, reverse, automatic, and launch control.
The last little trick is over here behind this door.
Here's a usb slot that is different from the one for media and communication.
This one holds a memory drive.
It's gonna pick up recording of video from the forward-looking camera behind the mirror And this one over here in this trick little carbon fiber pod, that's watching the driver.
It puts those two together and records them as you make your lap.
[SOUND] Let's see I'm on the track, in the wet, in a 900.
[INAUDIBLE] [LAUGH] Don't tell my life insurance agent.
One of the first things you notice in this car is the fact that it doesn't present a huge amount of hybridness.
There aren't a whole bunch of electric modes.
There isn't that electric boost button like you have on a V1.
This is a car that really buries the hybrid part, but buries it under the accelerator.
In fact, what you would call technically a mild parallel hybrid.
But of course there is nothing mild about the results.
Now to mortals like us, all supercars feel the same in one respect.
They are all much more than you can exploit.
So what do I find distinctive about this car?
It's really a joy to drive at your Our limits, invoking more grins and less sweat.
And whether on the track, or on the street, asking you sacrifice very little in terms of livability, all while making you feel like a superhero.
Okay, now when you're driving a car, and by the way, it's someone else's car that goes for about $8,000 an inch slice, you're glad for certain technologies that keep it under control.
First of all, Ferrari's remarkable stability control.
This lovely DCT transmission is perfect.
There's absolutely nothing about it in Tracker Street that I don't like.
Big old carbon ceramic brakes are, of course, like driving a nail through this thing when you need it to.
But you also get some nice braking through regen going back into the motor.
That's classic hybrid stuff, but also, when the engine's got too much torque cooking, like when I come in this turn, It'll convert some of that into power back in, and as you can see all around this car you've got active flaps and slots.
And behind me the most fascinating giant emerging wing in autodom.
[SOUND] Pricing [UNKNOWN] Ferrari.
[SOUND] Doesn't matter.
It's about a million and a half or so.
And you can do endless personalization that take it where you want.
The real story in conclusion here is that if you're lucky enough to own or just drive one of these you've tapped in to.
To a lot of technologies and design ethic that are the future of Ferrari.
But also a super car that is a joy to drive, not just a hellacious hammer on the track.
Few super cars can pull off that balancing act.
This one does.
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More cars driven CNET style, standing by now at CNETOnCars.com.
Click On the Road.
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