Editorial

You can see why Ferrari President Luca di Montezemolo has got a broad grin on his face in the picture below. With the Italian company showing no less than four shiny examples of its latest 599 GTB Fiorano (three on its own stand and one on Pininfarina’s) at Geneva this week, the man has every reason to be happy.

Having had the pleasure of examining the car at first hand I can assure Classic Inside subscribers that it looks utterly fabulous and that the performance from its Enzo-based motor, and additional electro-mechanical trickery, is going to set the benchmark for front-engined supercars. To be honest, it makes the Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren look a little superfluous.

And who would you rather buy a car from? A super-cool, besuited Italian scion of the Agnelli family or a bunch of guys whose idea of style is to wear orange and black lycra on a Sunday afternoon? I rest my case.

Nothing if not contrary, the other company I was deeply impressed with at Geneva was the German M-B tuning specialist BRABUS. Yes, the cars are completely crazy from a performance point of view (730 Hp and a limited top speed of 350 km/h in the CLS ‘Rocket’ anyone?) but what so amazed me was the sheer quality of the workmanship of not only the shiny, oily bits but the hand-crafted interiors too.

It’s your choice of what was the headlining ‘Car of the Show’, and we’ve details on all the important ones below, but my vote goes to the 599 GTB.

Steve Wakefield Managing Editor sw@classicdriver.com