Roaring across Europe in a marvellously super-powerful Ferrari 599, Conor Twomeyponders the future of these machines, and indeed on the roads upon which they speed along
ABOUT AN hour north of Zurich we see the sign that we've long been waiting for: a big white circle with four diagonal lines across it. It signals the end of the speed limit and the beginning of a 30km stretch of derestricted autobahn, one of many linking Freiburg with Karlsruhe.
It's after midnight, the road is all but empty, and we have 612 Italian horses straining at the bit. The way Europe's attitude towards the automobile is going, I may never have the chance to do this again, so I sink my right foot and keep it pressed to the carpet for as long as I dare. There's no time to look at the speedometer to see how fast we're going (the sat-nav system will record it for us anyway) so all my concentration is going on keeping the Ferrari 599 Fiorano on the road.
Its amazing aerodynamics generate so much downforce it feels happier at 240km/h than it does at 120km/h, making me feel confident enough to press on. Trucks that were small dots in the distance a few moments ago suddenly whizz by as if stopped on the road. And still we're accelerating, pushing towards the magical 300km/h mark.
Sadly, a curve appears in the autobahn, forcing me to ease off and bring the 599 down to a more sedate 150km/h. Still, 292km/h isn't bad. Amazingly, it's also not illegal. Yet.
It will be one of those trips I'll tell the grandchildren about. We collected the car from Ferrari GB at Maranello in Italy the day after Chris Evans spent a staggering €7 million on James Coburn's 1961 Ferrari 250 GT California Spyder at the RM Auction. The plan was to take in as much of Europe as we could in two days, kicking off with a 500km jaunt across the Alps, pushing the €340,000 Fiorano to its handling limits before crossing Switzerland and heading north across Germany, Luxembourg, Belgium and back into France.
The final leg involved a hop on the Eurotunnel (an unremarkable experience, given the fuss over its construction) and a quick squirt up through southern England to Slough, west of London.
The Italian and Swiss legs proved to be the most entertaining, thanks to their endlessly challenging roads with excellent surfaces, superb road markings and not too much traffic (not that slower traffic poses much of a problem for the 599). We encountered no speed cameras or police checks on these roads, only in urban areas and in heavy traffic zones, which shows that in some countries these "safety" devices are actually used for the purpose of safety rather than revenue collection. But it's only a matter of time.
In Norway the "Vision Zero" group have unveiled a new super-safe stretch of road that has had its corners widened, the verges cut back and new safety rails installed everywhere. At €40,000 per kilometre it isn't cheap, but certain elements have even made their way to the Alps.
In the 10 years since I last drove across the Alps so many thick guard-rails have popped up it's impossible to enjoy the view without stopping in a designated viewing zone. It's only a matter of time before average speed cameras invade the countryside, so once again I'm glad I got to enjoy the experience while I still could. Within a decade, these great automotive rights of passage will be consigned to the history books.
I pity the future generations of drivers. Cars to them will be like iPods with wheels, functional devices devoid of personality and used solely for the purpose of going from A to B. They'll probably transverse Europe at speeds close to those achieved in our white-knuckle autobahn jaunt, but it will be more like travelling by plane - painless, sanitised, computer-controlled and safe.
Driving for the pleasure of driving will be an alien concept because the vehicles we will use will be no fun to drive. Already the clutch pedal is falling out of favour, as performance cars move to twin-clutch transmissions and torque-converter free automatic transmissions to reduce emissions and improve economy. The art of the heel-toe down change, or even knowing which gear you need to be in will be of no more use in the future.
How will I explain to them what a Ferrari V12 sounds like when the needle swings round to the redline? Already, Porsche is planning a new hybrid powerplant and even Ferrari has started talking about its carbon dioxide output, using direct injection and a new twin-clutch transmission to cut fuel consumption. Although it's a grand tourer in the traditional sense, the new California - announced earlier this month - will be V8-powered, unlike our V12 Fiorano.
This is the beginning of the end for the V12 engine. Wolf Zimmerman, R&D boss of Mercedes' notoriously power-mad AMG division, told Car magazine recently that cars such as the V12 S65 AMG are almost extinct, as the noose tightens on carbon dioxide output. The next generation of performance cars will be less powerful, but lighter and much more efficient. There is no more room for excess.
Autobahns are also coming under serious pressure. It's a matter of when, rather than if, a blanket speed limit will be imposed on every stretch of motorway in the country. It will probably start high, at around 200km/h, but work slowly downwards in an effort to reduce Germany's carbon footprint. Speed limits would have been implemented long ago were proposing such legislation not akin to political suicide - many Germans would be very unhappy if the right to drive as fast as they like is taken away, despite all the climate change scaremongering.
They were easily able to dismiss the road safety argument by pointing out that German autobahns are amongst the safest in Europe, but the climate relationship between CO2 output and climate change is much harder for ordinary motorist advocacy groups to disprove.
Still, that the limitless roads till exist goes to show just how much skepticism exists regarding the causes of climate change - not even the super-green Germans take it that seriously.
What will ultimately kill the autobahn and the genre of uber-performance car as we know it is the price of fuel. Our Ferrari's thirst costs us €1 for every 5km travelled, twice as much as it would have cost four years ago. Oil has just set a new price record at $135 a barrel, and with the massive populations of China, India and, closer to home, Russia, clambering to get their own wheels, it's only going to get worse.
Wasting such a valuable resource on the frivolous act of going fast will no longer be tolerated, and the technology already exists to limit the speed at which a car travels in various zones, so driving too fast will soon not even be an option. Next generation satellite navigation systems will throw up "virtual" road signs when a tight or dangerous bend is approaching (already a GPS-based "Speed Nanny" device is available for the Irish market) and there's nothing to prevent carmakers from installing software to apply the brakes and slow the car down ahead of the dangerous corner. Are we really that far from the self-driving car?
In years to come, people will be agog at the notion of taking a 320km/h car and thrashing it across 500km of mountain passes before pounding it at three miles per minute down a public road.
Indeed, within a few years it simply won't be possible. Road cars have almost peaked in terms of power and performance, technology is making driving less of a skill and more passive, while legislation continues to strangle what little chance there is to have fun behind the wheel. You could almost think of my 2,000km thrash across Europe in one of the world's most excessive and extraordinary supercars, the F599 Fiorano, as my own personal way of bidding the golden age of motoring a fond adieu.