Photography Courtesy of Ferrari & Patrick Ernzen & Maurice Louche of RM Sotheby’s
You’re looking at one of the fastest road-going V12-powered cars ever built, but not in outright speed, at “just” 211 mph or horsepower, at “only” 769 bhp. No, this must be the world’s fastest car for shredding across a country like France.
If you consider the original Ferrari 250 GT Berlinetta Competizione as a car built expressly for rocketing across public roadways in 1956, then the new F12-based tdf (note the lowercase…) is exactly that car, only 60 or so years in the future.
Fun fact #1: It will do 0-124 mph in about the same amount of time it takes a Scion FR-S to get to 62 mph. And the Scion is about as fast as a ’50s 250-series Ferrari…
Interestingly, earlier in the year Ferrari unveiled the F12 berlinetta Tour de France 64, which was more of a “material”-based homage, featuring trim and details inspired by the earlier cars. The new-er tdf is a wholly different beast, most notably because of its extreme weight savings regime. Its kerb weight is a few lbs off of 3,350, a full 242 lbs lighter than the F12berlinetta.
Fun fact #2: This car weighs about the same as a new Chevrolet Corvette, plus the addition of some 314 horsepower.
A lap time just over a second shy of the LaFerrari around Fiorano, its 8,900 rpm redline, and its 507 lbs of downforce at 124 mph are what will keep the kids up at night, but perhaps more interesting is the new “Virtual Short Wheelbase” system that features an active rear axle. It’s a system developed in-house that is best called rear-wheel steering, albeit likely a quite sophisticated one. The system is said to give the car both more maneuverability on twisty roads and more stability at high speeds—assuming that its rear wheels turn alike (or, with) the fronts on the motorway.
Fun fact #3: The Ferrari website quotes winter tire sizes for the car that can be used with snow chains. How cool is that?
Just 799 will be made of the new F12tdf, and price hasn’t been announced yet. The 1956 recently sold for $13.2 million at this year’s RM Sotheby’s Monterey event.
