THE FERRARI 296 GTB BY MANSORY AIN'T HALF BAD!
The Ferrari 296 GTB is quite a special car for the folk at Ferrari. It was the first proper series production car from the Italian automaker to use a hybrid powerplant. Many purists were upset because that new-fangled battery electric technology was messing with the age-old tradition of high-revving petrol-guzzling engines, but as soon as the car was released and it became clear that the filter down technology from Ferrari’s exploits in Formula One was working, people really started to take notice. At the base of things is a twin-turbocharged 120-degree V6 with a nice and compact capacity of 3.0 litres, a big change from the traditional choice of a V8 powerplant. This part of the equation is already rather powerful with a rating of 488 kW. Then there’s the new-fangled technology that comes in the form of a single electric motor. Being a little different to how others employ electric motors, in the Ferrari 296 GTB, the electric motor has been cleverly designed to be incorporated into the gearbox. This motor alone makes decent enough power, 123 kW, about as much as a stock Mk4 GTI. With all systems working in unison, the total power output is rated at a nice and high 610 kW with the torque at an equally impressive 740 Nm. The transmission in the GTB is an 8-speed dual-clutch setup and power is sent to the rear wheels. This thing can go like the freaking clappers, when you hoof a Ferrari 396 GTB off the line it can hit the usual 100 km/h benchmark in as little as 2.7 seconds. 0-200 km/h comes up in 6.9 seconds and with the loud pedal flattened it can get to a top speed of 333 km/h. The whole setup is wrapped up in one seriously good-looking body too, possibly the only modern Ferrari we’d spend lotto money on besides a 458 Italia.
For those 1%-ers that can splash out over R6,000,000 on a cool Italian toy, there are options available to make it stand out from the others parked at the annual company getaway in Camps Bay. You can do a few visual upgrades directly at Ferrari, but if you go that route then there’s a probability, as small as it may be, that you could end up with a car that looks like someone else’s. Luckily there are aftermarket options available too, and in this case the house of Mansory has an amazing upgrade package for the 296 GTB. The quality of the components is as good as anything that Ferrari can manufacture themselves, even possibly better. The visual upgrade package makes use of carbon fibre components that can be had in a bare look or painted, but we reckon there are unwritten rules that say any carbon fibre components must be paint-free, only clearcoat, or at best a slight colour tint if there’s not already colour in the carbon weave. Mansory has a front bumper, a front fender set, side skirts, a rear spoiler and diffusor and the coolest little winglets - all in forged carbon fibre. OEM wheels get replaced with a set of mismatched fully-forged wheels, 21 inches up front and 22 inches at the rear in the company’s YT.5 design. Being Mansory, a little bit of attention is also paid to the powerplant, they do a bit of a fiddle with the ECU to bump up performance along with a new sports exhaust system that adds a little power and a lot of soundtrack - the result is a 30 kW gain for a total of 640 kW. After all is said and done, the Mansory Tempesta package looks great and is one of the Mansory offerings we’d definitely look at in our virtual garage.
Take a look at the YouTube video that lets you see the details of the upgrade carried out on a Ferrari 296 GTB, one of the coolest cars to come from the Italian brand in the last 5 years. Mansory, while eye-wateringly expensive, can actually be a hit or a miss thanks to the extremes they sometimes take things to, but in this case, they rocked it!: MANSORY Ferrari 296 GTB | MANSORY
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