Ferrari 612 Scaglietti

Ferrari 612 Scaglietti at a glance

The 612 continued Ferrari's line of V12 four-seat grand tourers. All Ferrari models are in the Ferrari catalogue.

Name and background

The car is named after Sergio Scaglietti, the Modena coachbuilder who built the bodies of several Ferraris in the 1950s and 1960s. The name was a direct link to the place where the car was made: its aluminium body was built at the former home of the Scaglietti coachworks in Modena.

Ferrari describes the car as the continuation of its 2+2 tradition, a series of front-engined V12 coupés with two small rear seats.

Design: a homage to the 375 MM

The design by Ken Okuyama at Pininfarina contains a reference to a famous one-off. In 1954 the film director Roberto Rossellini commissioned a Ferrari 375 MM for his wife, the actress Ingrid Bergman. The 612 borrows two details from that car: the large scallops in the sides of the body and the shape of the headlights. Other 375 MM coupés are covered in our article on the Ferrari 375 MM Berlinetta.

The 612 is a large car. It is 4,902 mm long, 1,957 mm wide and 1,344 mm high, with a long 2,950 mm wheelbase that leaves room for the rear seats.

Aluminium chassis

The structure of the 612 is a space frame made of aluminium extrusions and castings, developed together with the American aluminium company Alcoa. The aluminium body panels are welded to the frame. Ferrari had used the same principle on the mid-engined 360 Modena, and the 612 became the company's second all-aluminium car. The kerb weight is given as 1,850 to 1,865 kg.

Engine and gearboxes

The engine is the Tipo F133F, a 5,748 cc V12 with a compression ratio of 11:1. It produces 397 kW (540 PS) at 7,250 rpm and 588 Nm at 5,250 rpm, and drives the rear wheels.

Two gearboxes were offered. The traditional choice was a six-speed manual. The alternative was the six-speed F1A automated manual, built by Graziano Trasmissioni and developed from the F1 gearbox of the 360. Most buyers chose the F1A: of the 3,025 cars, only 199 had the manual gearbox, which makes manual 612s rare today.

HGTC, OTO and the Sessanta

From 2006 Ferrari offered the HGTC package (Handling Gran Turismo Competizione). It recalibrated the dampers and the gearbox - gear changes became 150 milliseconds faster - and added polished exhaust grilles, 19-inch wheels, painted brake calipers and carbon-ceramic brakes. The carbon-ceramic brakes were the main difference from the related HGT-S package.

In 2007 Ferrari announced an electrochromic glass roof that could be darkened or lightened at the push of a button. In early 2008, at the Geneva motor show, Ferrari presented the One-To-One (OTO) programme. From then on, the 612 was sold only through this special-order process, which extended the Carrozzeria Scaglietti catalogue of options; the programme was later extended to the whole Ferrari range.

Two special versions stand out:

• 612 Sessanta (2007): limited to 60 cars to mark Ferrari's 60th anniversary. It has 19-inch forged wheels, black chrome exhaust tips, the F1A gearbox, a three-position electrochromic glass roof, a start button on the steering wheel, a Bose audio system and two-tone paint.
• 612 Kappa: a one-off built by Pininfarina for Peter S. Kalikow, unveiled at the Villa d'Este Concours on 23 April 2006.

Regional editions and the 2008 recall

Ferrari also built small editions for individual markets in 2006. The 612 GP marked 40 years of Ferrari in Switzerland and the first Swiss Grand Prix of 1949: nine dark grey cars with the HGTC package, carbon-ceramic brakes, two-tone paint, a red and grey interior and a plaque on the dashboard showing the historic racing circuit in Berne. In Japan, the importer Cornes & Co. celebrated its 30th anniversary with 20 cars from June 2006, painted in Blu Cornes and fitted with the HGTC package, a carbon fibre filler cap and mesh grille inserts.

In 2008 Ferrari recalled several hundred 2005–2007 cars with the F1 gearbox, because a clutch sensor could fail from heat in normal use. Of the 199 manual cars, Wikipedia reports that 60 were built for the US market.

Legacy

The 612 Scaglietti was replaced by the FF in 2011. Designed to replace the smaller 456, it was large enough to give adults usable space in the rear. It also showed how Ferrari's aluminium technology could be applied to a large grand tourer, and its OTO programme opened the way for Ferrari's personalisation services across the range. The company's story is told in our history of Ferrari.

For buyers today, the main choices are the gearbox - manual cars are very rare - and the equipment, especially the HGTC package with carbon-ceramic brakes and the glass roof.

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