Looking for a little escape, Dan Neil takes Ferrari’s F8 Tributo—featuring one of the brand’s last V-8 engines—for a spin on the barren highways near his North Carolina home
I WATCHED the Ferrari F8 Tributo roll off the transporter and onto my street last Monday, feeling the heat of temptation. This growling, diamond-eyed panther was arriving in the midst of social-distancing measures in North Carolina, but before a lockdown on unnecessary travel. Within a radius of 30 miles from my house, I knew, were hundreds of miles of suddenly empty freeways and back roads. I also guessed the highway patrol would have better things to do than reel in jackasses in Ferraris, who probably don’t have any friends to visit anyway.
Although it was a hell of a way for it to happen, Covid-19 had brought about a car-lover’s impossible dream, the “Forza Motorsport” videogame brought to life. Here I was being handed the (sanitized) key fob to a tanked-up, murdered-out Ferrari, and loosed in a consequence-free topography with no traffic and no limits beyond those my frail will could impose.
This is so wrong, I thought to myself. With everything that’s happening in the U.S., and with tragedy in Italy still unfolding, how could I even think about exploiting the situation for my own amusement? I was going about 170 mph at the time.
The F8 is a wellspring of moral delinquency: 0-124 mph in 7 seconds. Now that’s social distancing done right.
The name needs some unpacking. Like the LaFerrari hypercar of the 2010s, the name “F8 Tributo” is a cheeky salute to self—specifically the 3.9-liter, twin-turbocharged, flat-crank V-8 engine sitting amidships. Swelling to its maximum 710 hp at a hair-igniting 8,000 rpm, and 569 lb-ft of what-the-hell-hit-us, Ferrari’s wundermill is a four-time winner of the International Engine of the Year Award.
While named in honor of its engine, the Tributo is mostly the same car, the same human-slingshot experience, as the retiring 488 GTB. The saddle-tan leather cordwaining on seats and doors is still gorgeous. The infotainment system remains rudimentary with displays the size of playing cards.
But the Tributo does get the latest version of the 90-degree V8, shared with the track-prepped 488 GTB Pista. This package squeezes out an additional 49 hp with lighter reciprocating masses and freer-breathing exhaust plumbing, including tubular manifolds made of high-temperature Inconel.
At night, in the heat of action, these manifolds can be seen through ventilated rear bodywork, their orange-white incandescence rising and dimming with the engine’s effort. Officer, I’d like to report a screaming witch on a tangerine broom.
Also among the greasy bits, the company’s tough, silk-smooth dual-clutch seven-speed transaxle with multi-mode torque vectoring. The dynamic control system has also downloaded the latest in auto-drift algorithms for your slithering pleasure. The Ferrari Dynamic Enhancer (FDE) helps keep a handle on the car in power-on oversteer situations. If/when the car’s g-meters sense it’s about to swap ends, the FDE will feather the throttle, dab the brakes and vector the torques just so to keep it going where it’s aimed, all while keeping it fun.
The muscled-up Tributo is also leaner, weighing 88 pounds less than the GTB. Much of that difference can be attributed to the Lexan rear window, replacing the 488’s conventional fixed glass.
The assembled pieces comprise a veritable vortex of lapsed judgment: 0-60 mph acceleration in 2.9 seconds and a top speed of 211 mph. That’s social distancing done right.
There was some curiosity mixed with my delinquency. Exotic car makers love to brag about downforce, that is, the manipulation of air pressure to hold a car to the road. But this phenomenon is often oversold and exaggerated in road cars and quite undetectable on your typical country road, unless that country is Qatar.
The shapely hole in the Tributo’s hood, for example, is the so-called S-Duct, channeling pressurized air from bumper level over the bonnet, creating downforce over the front axle. Balancing that downforce in the rear is a “blown” spoiler: A pair of ducts on the shoulders directs airflow to the rear spoiler. These airflows pass through vanes that recompress the airflow hitting the spoiler, increasing downforce while reducing drag. And all without an ugly rear wing.
But how would you ever know for sure, unless somebody shut down the entire country and gave you a hall pass?
Raging down the interstate in a fast, straight line, the Tributo’s aero registers as a sort of planted suppleness, requiring little tending of the feather-light, e-assisted steering. The wishbone suspension, backed with predictive/adaptive magnetic dampers, flexes and recovers purposefully. For as light as the steering is, the Tributo’s brake-pedal effort is high and the pedal stroke quite short, like a competition car. I like that. The carbon-ceramic Brembo brakes are the mightiest of anchors.
The car’s capacity for violence-on-demand is measured in scant milliseconds. Paddle-shift into third gear and give it some rope. Du-whaaa-dum-pahhhh! Gawhhh.
There is a shade of melancholy to the Tributo name, signaling as it does the end of technical development for Ferrari’s volume-production V8s. The next generation of V engines will have six cylinders, not eight; and the package will be hybrid-electric, like the current performance flagship SF90 Stradale.
How time flies. It’s easy to forget the turbo V8 was loathed when it first appeared in the California T (2014). Even though it was power-dense and more efficient than the naturally aspirated V8s and V12s, Ferraristas bitched that the turbochargers muffled the engine’s sound, robbing the cars of their aural presence.
I bet they will miss it when it’s gone.
FERRARI F8 TRIBUTO
Photo: Ferrari
Base Price: $275,780, including gas-guzzler tax and delivery fee
Price, as Tested: $360,796
Powertrain: Mid-mounted 3.9-liter 90-degree DOHC V8, direct injected and turbocharged; seven-speed automated dual-clutch rear transaxle
Power/Torque: 710 hp (SAE) at 8,000 rpm; 569 pound-feet at 3,250 rpm
Length/Width/Height/Wheelbase: 181.5/77.9/47.5/104.3 inches
Dry Weight: 2,932 pounds
0-60 mph: 2.9 seconds
0-124 mph: 7 seconds
Top Speed: 211 mph
Original article by Dan Neil @ The Wall Street Journal
