Ferrari 550 Barchetta vs 575M Superamerica: Classic Comparison
Separated by only a few years, the Ferrari 550 Barchetta and 575M Superamerica have much in common, yet these limited-production open-top grand tourers from the Maranello-based marque offer markedly different driving experiences.
Autumn in Cape Town brings a pre-sunrise mist that makes the roads especially greasy. It’s not an ideal start to a morning drive with a pair of particularly special V12-powered Prancing Horses: a Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina and Ferrari 575M Superamerica, each of which delivers more than 350 kW.
Fortunately, we are heading out of the Mother City to the town of Franschhoek in the Cape Winelands, which is not only a renowned wine region, but home to some of the country’s most picturesque roads.
See also: Ferrari 550 Barchetta vs 812 GTS: Classic Comparison
I decide to drive the older car – the Ferrari 550 Barchetta – first, which has no roof whatsoever, a 4-point harness and a beautiful carbon fibre-topped gear lever. The 550 Barchetta’s sport seat holds me in place from top to bottom, while the harness fortunately clips in place easily through a single buckle.
What the Ferrari 550 Barchetta is like to drive
I turn the key and, after a few turns of the starter, the 357 kW 5.5-litre V12 engine catches and settles into a deep-throated idle. The clutch is relatively heavy, and its spring action takes a while to get used to.
However, I soon forget about the clutch as my left hand starts to guide the shifter through the classic open gate. Second to 3rd, 4th to 5th, the metallic click-clack sound is the highlight of changing gears.
The Barchetta delivers generous torque from low revs, which makes it more exciting to drive through the city than I anticipated. Having said that, I would not want to be stuck in traffic with this Prancing Horse.
Out on the freeway, I sometimes switch down to 4th gear just to be able to go up through 5th to 6th gear once again. At an indicated 120 kph in top gear, the rev counter sits at a very relaxed 2 750 rpm.
Specification:
- Model: Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina
- Engine: 5.5-litre, V12, petrol
- Power: 357 kW at 7 000 rpm
- Torque: 570 Nm at 5 000 rpm
- Transmission: 6-speed manual, RWD
- Weight: 1 690 kg
- 0-100 kph: 4.4 sec (claimed)
- Top speed: 300 kph (claimed)
As the sun starts to peek over the horizon, the mist clears and the roads are dry. The 550 Barchetta’s low windshield and open rear deck allow more wind to blast through the cabin than in a modern convertible.
There is an upside to this al fresco experience, however: This is a proper roofless car, with a greater sense of open-air connection than the Ferrari 575M Superamerica that sits in my rear-view mirror.
After a quick stop, the 575M Superamerica takes over the lead. The driver pulls away with vigour, and I notice how the car’s rear momentarily squats. Until now, I haven’t tasked the free-breathing V12 to rev hard to its redline, because using 2 thirds of the rev range rewards with more than ample progress.
But now that the 550 Barchetta is warmed up and the road is quiet, I plant the accelerator pedal in 1st gear. For a moment, the power delivery is paused as the ASR traction control warning illuminates on the instrument cluster. When I shift up to 2nd and plant my right foot again, it lights up again. Any time I put my foot down, the Ferrari’s long nose lifts slightly and the tachometer needle starts chasing the redline.
This is an Italian muscle car if there ever was one. How I wish this road were long enough to slot through all 6 gears up to the 550 Barchetta’s claimed 300 kph top speed! The wind noise does soften the engine and exhaust sound, but the experience remains intense and immersive.
When I steer the 550 Barchetta through a few corners, I can sense that the open-top Ferrari is hefty, which underlines that this is a very fast GT rather than an outright sportscar. That’s not all bad, however, because the weight transition gives me more, and earlier, warning signals before I breach the car’s limits.
Once we arrive at the location for the photoshoot, I have a chance to look at the 2 cars in detail. Although they likely share some parts – the Ferrari 575M Superamerica is, after all, based on the 550 – and could appear quite similar to the untrained eye, there are major differences between them.
Ferrari’s chairman from that period, Luca di Montezemolo, commissioned the 550 Barchetta to celebrate design house Pininfarina’s 70th anniversary (hence the model’s full name).
The car, based on the 550 Maranello coupe, debuted at the 2000 Paris Auto Show. It was the first front-engined V12-powered open-top Ferrari since the Daytona Spyder. Barchetta was, and still is, an evocative name, harkening back to the famous Touring-bodied 166 MM roadsters.
While the first Barchettas were mostly racing cars, invoking the moniker for the open-top 550 reveals Ferrari’s intentions: This is a true roadster for the ultimate open-top thrills, with only a fiddly canvas roof to use in emergencies.
Although more than 50 years separate the 2 Barchettas, they do have a few things in common. The most significant is the famous V12, although the 166 MM’s motor displaces just 2.0 litres and produces, perhaps, 100 kW. Both Ferraris also utilise a manual gearbox, with the earlier version featuring a remarkable-for-the-era 5 forward speeds.
In the book Ferrari 550 Barchetta Pininfarina, by Automobilia, former Pininfarina design director Lorenzo Ramaciotti explained the timing of this project. “Ferrari asked us to supplement the range of the 550 Maranello with an open car, to be built in limited numbers. The project required little time: No more than 3 to 4 months passed from concept to final model. The development time was longer, though.”
Only 448 Barchettas were manufactured, versus about 3 600 coupes. That is why they’re so collectable.
Two years after the 550 Barchetta was introduced, the 575M Maranello replaced the ageing 550. Three years after that, in 2005, Ferrari unveiled the 575M Superamerica at the Los Angeles Auto Show.
The car’s name comes from a small run of two very exclusive 12-cylinder models built between 1956 and ’64 (82 examples of the 400 and 410 Superamericas to 559 of the 575M version). It also reflects Ferrari’s respect for its largest market, then and now, which made Los Angeles a fitting launch venue.
Watch Ciro De Siena drive a manual-shift Ferrari 575M Maranello at Killarney:
The concept for the Ferrari 575M Superamerica was different to that of the 550 Barchetta, with the newer car tailored more to the luxury market.
Ferrari 575M Superamerica feels more resolved
Where the open-top 550 Barchetta makes do with fully exposed roll-over bars, the 575M Superamerica feels more like a coupe, with its bodywork flowing upwards towards the electrochromic glass roof, called “revocromico” by Ferrari. This roof, framed with carbon fibre, was the 1st of its kind to be used on a car.
Specification:
- Model: Ferrari 575M Superamerica
- Engine: 5.7-litre, V12, petrol
- Power: 397 kW at 7 250 rpm
- Torque: 588 Nm at 5 250 rpm
- Transmission: semi-auto 6-speed, RWD
- Weight: 1 790 kg
- 0-100 kph: 4.2 sec (claimed)
- Top speed: 320 kph (claimed)
The glass offers 5 levels of driver-selectable tint. At its lightest setting, the glass will allow the same amount of light into the cabin as a standard glass roof; in its darkest setting, it allows only 1% of the light through. This marvel of a roof has another trick up its sleeve: It flips backwards to lie flush with the rear deck. (To protect the glass, customers were supplied with a cover made of canvas and carbon fibre.)
With the roof out of the way, the 575M Superamerica creates the sensation of a huge open area above my head, even if the tall windshield, rear roof supports and the frame of the revocromico roof remain. By contrast, in the 550 Barchetta, the only thing between the cockpit and the sky is a tiny windscreen.
The Superamerica’s cabin feels ever so slightly more modern than the Barchetta’s, although they are very similar. There are a few very noticeable differences, however. Whereas the 550 has an Alcantara covering on the dashboard, which further enhances the racy feel, the 575 uses soft-touch materials.
The Superamerica also does away with the Barchetta’s hard plastic trim and controls, while its seats are slightly more comfortable, but less supportive. And, in this car at least, the classic gear lever has been replaced by the F1 transmission’s tiny pull switch in the centre console and 2 paddles behind the ‘wheel.
As we head back to Cape Town, the easier nature of the 575M Superamerica or, to be more specific, the easier nature of its F1 transmission, is immediately noticeable. In standard mode, the semi-auto shifts rather lazily, but it makes the Ferrari effortless to drive sedately. Traffic would be no concern at all.
I expected Sport mode to affect the newer Superamerica’s driving experience more than it did in the Barchetta, and I’m not disappointed. Pressing the Sport button (located below the central air vents) elicits an immediate change in the drivetrain’s responses. The 6-speed transmission shifts more crisply (with changes reduced to about 180 milliseconds), which was quite impressive when the car was new.
It’s not nearly as quick as a modern dual-clutch transmission, of course, but taking into account the Ferrari’s age, the F1 ’box does a fine job, with only a slight dip in power when it selects the next gear.
There’s more urgency to the 575M Superamerica’s engine. It’s V12 produces 40 kW more than the 550 Barchetta’s and revs even higher, and you could never tire of watching the needle swing to 7 500 rpm on the red (yellow was an option) rev counter. The exhaust system emits intermit pops when I ease off on the throttle – a wicked crackle that can be enjoyed by the driver, passenger and fortunate bystanders.
Unsurprisingly, the 575M Superamerica feels quite similar to the 550 Barchetta in terms of braking performance (both machines utilise traditional steel discs) and dynamic handling ability. The former feels a smidge more sophisticated to pilot, however, owing to the newer car’s extra few years of development.
In terms of ride quality, the Ferraris are on equal terms. Both absorb most road irregularities with aplomb, which is impressive when you consider their outright performance and skinny high-performance tyres (30- and 40-profile 18-inchers on the Barchetta, 30- and 35-profile 19-inchers on the Superamerica).
Verdict
I didn’t set out with the intent of declaring a “winner” between these 2 Prancing Horses (the cop-out is to say “the winner is the person who owns both of them”), but I did come away with a personal favourite.
While these limited-production Ferraris generally clock up fewer kilometres than their coupe siblings, the Ferrari 575M Superamerica is unquestionably the more versatile offering. It’s a car for any situation and, especially, any weather, and it feels quicker and more refined than the 550 Barchetta.
But I’d rather have more interaction, and have every drive be memorable; that puts the 550 Barchetta on top. The combination of a completely roofless cockpit and an open-gate manual gearbox connected to a V12 engine is something Ferrari doesn’t offer any more, and will most probably never offer again.
Pininfarina’s Ramaciotti best summed up the 550 Barchetta. “This is not a GT for long journeys, but a car that responds to a specific demand,” he said. “In this sense, it can be viewed as product virtuosity, since it is constructed in a very limited numbers for a highly particular market niche.” I couldn’t agree more.
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