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Michael Taylor13 Feb 2014
NEWS

GENEVA MOTOR SHOW: New California sparks Gemf power struggle

New twin-turbo V8 and sleeker body, transforms Ferrari's California but Lamborghini and McLaren are ready to rumble

Ferrari has turned its ugly duckling into a very fast swan, with the face-lifted California scoring an all-new twin-turbo V8, 50 per cent more torque and even more speed in time for March’s Geneva Motor Show.

Dubbed the California T, the new car retains the same aluminium architecture and folding metal roof, but an all-new, smaller V8 engine and a pair of twin-scroll turbochargers give it another 50kW and, astonishingly, another 250Nm of torque.

The announcement of a turbocharged, 316km/h California T comes, perhaps not coincidentally, in the same year that Formula One cars return to turbo power. Ferrari’s first production turbo engine since the 1992 F40, the California T’s V8 develops 412kW and an AMG-esque 755Nm, helping the two-seater to slash 0.3sec off its 0-100km/h time, now 3.6sec.

That’s just as well, because just as the LaFerrari threw down in a hypercar war at last year’s Geneva Motor Show against the McLaren P1 and the Lamborghini Veneno, the California will confront a faster small McLaren and rejuvenated baby Lamborghini.

On the same day Ferrari announced the California T, Lamborghini announced it had secured a record 700 pre-orders for its own new sports car, the Huracan, after a global VIP buyer tour.

While a more natural competitor for the 458, the Huracan is claimed to be a 3.2sec sprinter to 100km/h and its 5.2-litre V10 helps it to hit 325km/h. And it will be seen publicly for the first time at the Geneva Motor Show.

And, if that wasn’t enough for the supercar buffs, McLaren, in the Mother of all Coincidences, yesterday announced it would be bringing its 650S for a public unveiling in Geneva as well.

Though it is being coy about its offering, the 650S is based around the same core carbon-fibre tub McLaren uses for the 12C and the P1, but it combines with a more P1-ish nose, other styling changes and sources suggest it delivers around 478kW from its fiddled 3.8-litre, twin-turbo V8.

It is also being talked about as a 458 Speciale rival, with a 0-100km/h sprint of 3.1sec. It sits above the 12C, without replacing it, (though it does visually point towards the car that does, which will be shown near the end of the year).

McLaren is still working on its P13, which will target the 911, and the P15, which will slide between the 12C and the P1, but hasn’t released launch dates for either car.

Nuovo California in detail
The new California looks so much sleeker than its predecessor, you’d scarcely credit its shared underpinnings.

The chassis architecture is largely unchanged, with Ferrari using a host of other methods to pull the dry weight down from 1705kg to 1625 -- without affecting the rigidity of the chassis or the comfort when the folding metal roof is fixed in place.

It retains its signature 47:53 front-to-rear weight distribution, largely thanks to the retention of the seven-speed dual-clutch transmission in a rear-mounted transaxle and adheres to its rear-wheel drive heritage.

At 4570mm long, the California T looks far sleeker than the old California without actually being significantly longer, while the width and height figures are similar, too.

The California T gets new springs allround and combines them with a newer evolution of magnetic dampers to deliver less roll and pitch and flatter cornering. It also scores an evolution of the current car’s F1 traction control system and an upgrade of the standard carbon-ceramic CCM3 brakes, with six-piston monobloc calipers up front and four-piston units in the rear.

The T has also been tweaked inside, with a new loading hole to access the boot from inside the cabin and a new 6.5-inch multi-media screen that can switch between touch-screen and normal operation.

The new V8 is based on the Maserati Quattroporte’s all-alloy, twin-turbo unit. At 3855cc it still revs gleefully with its power peak of 7500rpm -- just 250 revs shy of the outgoing California’s naturally aspirated 4.3-litre V8.

Ferrari has personalized the engine by swapping out the Maserati’s cross-plane crankshaft for the more specialized flat-plane crank, and it’s also worked on a new turbo housing to deliver sharper throttle response. It has come up with a three-piece cast exhaust manifold-turbo housing combination that saves weight, reduces complexity and shortens the inlet path.

The Italian sports-car powerhouse is also proudly boasting that the engine note will be like nothing ever heard from a turbo production motor before. The new T also introduces variable boost management, which can be left to adjust itself automatically or be chosen by the driver.

The 90-degree V8 is also cleaner, with Ferrari claiming a reduction from the California HELE (the predecessor’s most economical version) from 270 grams/km of CO2 emissions to 250 grams.

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Written byMichael Taylor
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