First Drive: Ferrari Daytona SP3 2022 Review

In June 1966 Ford beat Ferrari at Le Mans, a fact known by just about every race car enthusiast and film goer in the world. Perhaps less widely appreciated is that Ferrari returned the compliment the following year, crossing the Atlantic and not just winning the Daytona 24 hours, but placing second and third too. And in many ways it was by far the greater achievement: the factory sent just two P4s (one technically a P3/4), both powered by 4.0-litre engines, to take on the challenge of no fewer than six works MkII Ford GT40s, each with monster 7.0-litre motors to their names. Ford also had the greater driver line up, perhaps, indeed, the greatest show of raw talent ever wielded by a single manufacturer at an endurance race: Gurney, McLaren, Foyt, Hulme, Andretti, Donohue, Revson, Ginther among others. But the Fords failed, the Ferraris endured and with a private 412P coming third, completed the podium lockout.

It was such an emphatic and significant win that Ferrari’s next road car would be christened ‘Daytona’ and has been known as such ever since. But it wasn’t Ferrari that bestowed that name, it was the media. Indeed Ferrari has never called a car ‘Daytona’; until now.

But in memory of that victory and, without doubt, with an eye on its return next year to the top level of sports car racing as a factory team for the first time in half a century, Ferrari has finally and officially made its Daytona. And no, you can’t have one, first because it costs €2 million putting it beyond the reach of most, but yet more pertinently just 599 will be built and they’re all sold.

Its full name is the Ferrari Daytona SP3, denoting this to be third in Ferrari’s ‘Icona’ series after the 812-based SPs 1 and 2. But while they were impractical, roofless, screen-free toys, the Daytona has the appearance of a car you might actually use for journeys, rather than A to A sunny day jaunts.

Dramatic isn’t it? As in stop the crowd dead in its tracks and drop their jaws to the floor dramatic. That’s what strikes you most when you first see the SP3. Its shape is so cartoonish, you at first think it must be a prop for some forthcoming not very realistic feature film. But it’s not; it’s there before you in flesh and blood. Well, carbon fibre and Rosso Corsa (or potentially Giallo Fly) paintwork.

And once you’ve come to terms with the fact that it actually exists, the next thing to strike you is just how very beautiful it is. More beautiful, by a distance, than any Ferrari of the recent past, and there have been no shortage of beauties from which to choose. Indeed if you look back to the halcyon days when Pininfarina styled almost all of Ferrari’s street machines, you’ll find that for sheer pulchritude the SP3 rivals any one of them and for pure visual impact outpoints the lot of them.

It is the work of Ferrari’s own in-house design studio led by Flavio Manzoni, and if in those voluptuous flanks you see echoes of the P4, that is no coincidence at all. Likewise the huge ducts on the upper surface of the doors recall those behind the doors of the 512S while the slats at the back are a knowing cap doff to the P5. The what? The car that would have replaced the P4 had the FIA not announced, with just six months notice, a 3.0-litre limit for prototype sports cars from 1968. It was never built. The car thought of today as the P5 was actually Pininfarina design project number 222 and gorgeous though it was from that slatted back to its air-piercing front, it never ran.

It is also a car with a secret in the form of a detachable roof panel for that Targa look, though you will need to be very confident of the skills of your local weather forecaster as Ferrari provides nowhere on board to stow it once removed.

An important point to consider, perhaps the most important of all when it comes to making a dynamic assessment of this car: it’s not trying to see how fast it can go. Yes, it may sound odd for a car of this configuration and specification to say so, but I believe it to be the case. If you’ll forgive the slightly threadbare phrase, the Daytona SP3 is not about how fast you go, but how you go fast. And there is a world of difference between the two.

The proof of this particular pudding is not hard to find. The Pirelli tyres are bespoke to the SP3, but they are Corsas, designed to offer all weather usability on road as well as decent track performance; if Ferrari was bothered about lap times, it would have bolted on a set of Trofeo Rs which have the consistency of warm marmalade. Talking of lap times, Ferrari always quotes a Fiorano lap time for all its two seat sports cars, except for this one. Other than the usual straight-line figures, Ferrari warrants nothing more about its performance. Nor is the SP3 even particularly light, despite all that carbon-fibre: a weight of 1,485kg is quoted, but that’s a ‘dry’ weight without even any fluids on board, let alone passengers, and with all lightweight options fitted. So it’s heavier by a distance than was claimed for the LaFerrari, despite not having to carry that car’s electric motors and battery pack.

So forget all that, sit back and enjoy the ride. You’d think any 6.5-litre engine would be awash with torque from idling speed, but it says something about this car’s state of tune that actually it doesn’t produce maximum thrust until 7,250rpm, at which point it still has over 2,000rpm to run to the redline. You let it build instead, listening as layer upon layer of mechanical music is fed into the soundtrack as the revs rise inexorably higher. A V8 turbo has far more low-down punch, but it can’t fascinate and build anticipation like this. You’re waiting for around 6,000rpm, when the crescendo turns into a something closer to frenzied, shrieking wail and the SP3 spears you towards the horizon. Seven closely stacked and fast changing gears ensure you need never drop below this zone so long as you rev it out all the way. And you will want to, because once heard, the sound of a 6.5-litre naturally aspirated Ferrari V12 engine at 9,500rpm is never forgotten.

But it’s not just the engine that needs learning, it’s the chassis too. There are two problems, one compounding the other. The first is that the car is incredibly wide, wide enough that even on the open, quiet roads of rural France south of Le Mans where I drove it, it intimidates. The second is that the steering lacks feel, in a way I remember from Ferraris of ten or more years ago and not those of today. Together these factors sap confidence and could make you conclude this was a car only to be seen in, and not to be taken seriously as a driving machine. Which would be a mistake, because once you’ve learned to trust it, you’ll find all the other elements of a seminal driving experience – accuracy, poise, balance and adjustability on the limit – are all there in abundance.

Sometimes dihedral ‘butterfly’ doors work really well, and sometimes they do not, and the SP3’s are very definitely examples of the latter. Getting in is a little awkward, and you give thanks the seat doesn’t move because if it were any further forward tall drivers would have to bend down, reach in and slide it back before attempting to enter. Getting out is not inherently difficult, but the chances of banging one’s head hard on said door as you do are high and both me and my photographer speak from painful experience. On the other hand, it’s a mistake you’re only likely to make once.

Once inside things improve dramatically. The fixed seating position is simply brilliant. It allows you to sit lower and more reclined than would otherwise be possible, saving weight and reducing the centre of gravity. All round visibility is optimised, and a mass of up to 200kg (you and your passenger) centralised in a fixed location and not allowed to migrate around the cabin area. And all you do is pull the steering wheel and pedal box to exactly where you want them and then sit there wondering why on earth all cars aren’t made this way.

Because the seats don’t move, it allows the upholstery to run essentially from wall to wall which is another very P4 trope. Visibility is generally good, aided by a camera system in place of a conventional rear-view mirror though you still need to be careful when pulling out of angled junctions. Ahead is a large, central rev-counter flanked by two screens just as was the case in the LaFerrari. There’s a button on the bottom of the steering wheel and if you press it, the V12 first whirrs, then explodes into life.

The engine of the SP3 is hardly a technological vault into the future. On the contrary it is another development of the F140 V12 motor that first saw service in the Enzo, wait for it, 20 years ago. And if that doesn’t make you feel old, I’m not sure what will. In that time it has had three different capacities (6.0, 6.3 and 6.5-litres) and outputs ranging from 620PS (456kW) in the 599GTB to the 840PS (618kW) boasted by the SP3. Actually the LaFerrari was more powerful still, but only 800 of its 963PS (708kW) came from the motor, the remainder from the attached hybrid drive.

And yet this old motor is still the most powerful naturally aspirated road legal engine Ferrari has ever made. Indeed if you look at its V12s over the years, not only can no other road car match it, nor can any other racing car, not even the final 3.5-litre F1 car. If you want a more powerful V12 road car, you’ll need to have been invited to buy an Aston Martin Valkyrie. Only one V12 Ferrari in history, the FXX K, which can be neither raced nor driven on track, has developed more power.

The chassis isn’t exactly new either, but directly derived from the carbon tub first used in the LaFerrari nearly a decade ago. You can tell that’s the case not only from the fact it’s carbon fibre, unlike those of all mainstream Ferrari production cars, but also the fact that, like the LaFerrari and unlike any other of Maranello’s street machines, it comes with a fixed driving position with the seat structure forming part of the chassis, of which more in the next section.

But there are still some fairly trick materials in use here. Aeronautic-grade T800 carbon fibre is used for the tub to provide maximum torsional rigidity for minimum weight, while the doors are made from T1000 because it offers better crash protection, crucial in a side impact situation.

In terms of aero, Ferrari says that of all its cars the SP3 has the ‘greatest level of passive aero efficiency ever’, which is a rather cute way of also saying it has no active aerodynamic devices.

Clearly there are many Daytona SP3s that will just be closeted away and never driven the way it is designed to be used. Just look at it and it’s clear its primary purpose is to attract the attention of everyone who comes within viewing distance. And in this regard it is superlative.

But that is also to sell it short. You can grumble about it using an old chassis, not being as light as it should be, its price and impracticality (there is almost no stowage space for anything) but actually on the right road the SP3 remains a fabulous thing to drive, fully delivering on the promise of its outlandish appearance. For Ferrari, with all the cars sold, its value is already proven, its job already done. I just wonder what car from its past it might choose to honour next. An ultra-light, stripped out track warrior would get my vote, and if it looked like a 1972 312PB, so much the better.