Jay Leno thinks the 2001 Ferrari 550 Barchetta is growing older properly, and on this episode of “Jay Leno’s Storage,” he explains why.
Unveiled on the 2000 Paris auto present, the open-top Barchetta was a limited-edition model of the Ferrari 550 Maranello coupe, and one of many final Ferraris launched earlier than the period of smartphones and infotainment. It is from a less complicated time when, as Leno places it, “all you possibly can do was drive.”
With its front-mounted V-12 and 6-speed handbook transmission with gated shifter, the 550 Barchetta recollects basic Ferraris of the Sixties. And like a Sixties sports activities automotive, it was designed primarily as an open automotive, with solely a rudimentary tent-like roof offered for sudden downpours.
The 5.5-liter V-12 options twin overhead camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder, together with dry sump lubrication—every part you’d anticipate from an engine carrying the Ferrari title on its valve covers. It produces 478 hp and 419 pound-feet of torque, which Ferrari says is sweet for 0-62 mph in 4.4 seconds and a 186-mph prime pace.
Past the numbers, the naturally aspirated engine, handbook transmission, and lack of advanced driver aids supplies a purer driving expertise than present Ferraris. It is a real throwback that exhibits simply how a lot issues have modified over the previous 20 years.
Ferrari and coachbuilder Pininfarina constructed 448 of the Barchettas, in comparison with about 3,000 examples of the usual 550 Maranello coupe. The manufacturing run was accomplished pretty rapidly, with the final automotive leaving the manufacturing facility in December 2001. That wasn’t the tip for convertible variations of this platform, although. After Ferrari refreshed the 550 Maranello into the 575M, it launched the 575M Superamerica, this time with a retractable hard-top roof. However that is a narrative for an additional day.