Ferrari Enzo
by Sam Livingstone

The Enzo is an incredibly different and interesting design from Pininfarina. Latest in a long line of 'homologation' specials that date back to the 250 GTO of 1962 and include the more recent 288GTO, F40 and F50, 1300 examples of this car will be built as the most extreme road going Ferrari to date. But unlike all previous Ferraris, this car has a complicated, fragmented and visually demanding aesthetic.

The front is an impactful combination of surfaces meeting from the central 'pointy' nose, front splitter and front wings. This nose and the splitter are explicitly F1 derived in their appearance, the wings are more voluptuously surfaced.

Further down the car the lower line of the strongly wrapping windscreen runs seamlessly into the lower line of the side DLO, which kicks up into the broad rear pillar, apparently reminiscent of the 1959 SWB 250GT. The rear hood is flanked by perforated metal air outlets for the engine and the rear lamps appear to have grown out of the rear deck.

But despite these unusual discrete features, one of the most dominant aspects to this design is the way the centre section is distinct from the wings and flanks in a similar way to a race car. The other is the use of complex curves to delineate the side air intakes, door aperture and wing surfaces.

All of these aspects are counter to Ferrari's typically coherent, simple and flowing form language and make the Enzo a challenging design. But as a signifier of a 660bhp Ferrari named after its founder, perhaps having such a demanding aesthetic is an appropriate way for such an extreme Ferrari to be designed. And maybe elements of this complicated and fragmented design shall be refined to create a new design direction for the 'mainstream' cars of this famous brand.

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