Ferrari GG50: First Look

Motoring Channel Staff - 19/10/2005

World renowned car designer Giorgetto Giugiaro has celebrated 50 years in the automotive industry in style, by creating a more practical modified version of the powerful 12-cylinder $556,000 Ferrari Scaglietti.

"To mark 50 years of activity in the world of car design, I decided to sculpture a Ferrari to the memory of that great adventure and enjoy it with my family," said Giorgetto Giugiaro.

Unveiled at the 2005 Tokyo Motor Show and aimed at giving high end car buyers a more practical sports car choice, the new GG50 offers up more boot space, a finessed look and all the thrills that come naturally to a rear wheel drive vehicle powered by a 5.7-litre V12 engine.

The 5748cc V12 engine has been tuned to rev to high levels, which is where it achieves almost 400kW of power. With 4-valves per cylinder, the Ferrari engine produces 397kW @ 7250rpm and 588Nm of torque @ 5250rpm.

The 612 Scaglietti has a top speed of 320km/h and will sprint from 0-100km/h in 4.2 seconds, and the GG50 is expected to mirror these stats.

Based in Turin, Italy, Italdesign says that rather than being a spellbound step into tomorrow, the ultimate outcome is an expression of today.

Created along the lines of the Ferrari 612 Scaglietti, the Italian design company says it has retained the same basic mechanics (the V12 engine, the same gearbox, brakes, driveshaft etc.), the Ferrari GG50 is a little shorter in length than the original model, with a fastback tail to conceal the underlying hatchback lid.

Retaining the wheelbase at 2.95 meters, the Ferrari GG50 spans 4 meters and 81 centimetres in length versus 4.90 for the Scaglietti. Giorgetto Giugiaro reinterpreted the front just a little, pruning the front overhang by 20mm.

On the other hand, he revolutionised the rear section, reducing the overall length of the car by 90mm.

Although being 9 centimetres shorter than the Scaglietti, the Ferrari GG50 appears instantly to be even more compact than the series-production car as a result of the subtly rounded nose and tail angles.

"In bird's view, all cars look like a rectangle," explains Giugiaro. "As a consequence, the dimensions are perceived optically as being the same as the maximum length."

The bodyside is immaculate. The air intake - providing cool air for front brake system cooling - meanders along almost in parallel with the ground line and creates a bas-relief that fades into the rear.

The boldly tapered rear profile gains form and shape from the side view, in that emerging from the tail-end mirror are the dual tail lamps, which, of course, are round.

With the low-slung Ferrari grille looking as fresh and as ever, the nose flares forward in the center with two generous vertical air intakes unfolding to the side, where the fog lights are housed.

The headlamps are vertical, a stroke of pen that translates into a black crescent moon housing xenon headlight beams and dimmers, and the turn signal indicators.

Likewise simple is the tail, with the lower section that houses the chrome dual exhausts, black-painted to reduce the overall sensation of height.

Incorporating LED technology, the round dual lamps are asymmetric, with those to the side playing a master role, while a photochromic roof also features, allowing varying amounts of light to enter the cabin, creating a seamless transparent surface.

In the Scaglietti, the fuel tank is positioned vertically, behind the rear seating, but for the Ferrari GG50, Italdesign engineers were asked by Giugiaro to concentrate on positioning the new 95-litre fuel tank entirely below the trunk platform line.

The reason for this was to provide a more usable bootspace.

With the rear seatbacks folded down, the redesigned fuel tank layout translates into a flat trunk platform one meter and 40 centimetres deep. Compared to the 240 litre loading capacity of the Scaglietti, the loading capacity offered by the GG50 stretches to 270 litres, which, with the rear seatbacks folded down, increases to 500 litres

In a strategic intent to take full advantage of the bolt-on loading space driven through by the new fuel tank layout, Giugiaro decided to use a proper hatchback lid, hinged to the roof's edge.

From a structural standpoint, Italdesign engineers had to redesign the rear cross-member which, in the Scaglietti, joins the suspension domes atop the fuel tank. Likewise, also added to the roof's edge was a cross-member, joined to two reinforced risers, to stand the hatchback trunklid's weight.

Like the exterior, Italdesign took to the car's interior at Giugiaro's behest, but left much of the Scaglietti's finishings intact. When working on the full-size mock-up of the 2+2 sports car, Giugiaro and his son Fabrizio decided to eliminate the closed-in feeling of the back seat passengers by sloping the rear window at the side.

Taken as a whole, the instrumentation is the largely same as the one to be found in the series-production Ferrari, but a brand new dashboard has been incorporated, fitted in the center of which is the AVIC - X1R satellite navigator by Pioneer.

Click here for the full report on the standard Ferrari 612 Scaglietti.