MC Hammered: A Ferrari Enzo Goes Into Rehab and Ends Up In Finishing School

Motor Trend

09-07-2025

[This story first appeared in the June 2005 issue of MotorTrend] Remember the show, "Victor/Victoria"? It contrived musical merriment by having Julie Andrews play a woman pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman. There's a strikingly similar story line behind the supercar you see here. Its basic carbon composite chassis and 65-degree V-12 drivetrain started life in the street-legal Ferrari Enzo. Maserati did an extreme makeover, transforming the Enzo into an FIA GT race car. Then, with another nip and tuck, it was morphed back into a street-legal vehicle for a production run of 25 cars to satisfy series homologation rules.
The Maserati MC12, a transformed Ferrari Enzo, features extensive modifications for street use, including a longer wheelbase and aerodynamic tweaks. With a 624-hp V-12 engine, it offers a unique driving experience and exclusivity but lacks the creature comforts of other contemporary supercars.
This summary was generated by AI using content from this MotorTrend article Read Next
In the movie and play, Andrews is at her most alluringly feminine when festooned as Victor the drag queen, and it turns out that the Enzo makes a more comfortable and attractive road car when made over as a butch Maserati racer in street couture. Let's slip into the dressing room and examine the costume changes.
The transformation from Enzo to MC12 Versione Competizione is extensive. The wheelbase is extended 5.9 inches, and the nose and tail are stretched to add another 11.5 to the overall length in the name of optimized aerodynamics. This long, pointy shape, along with the wings, spoilers, and underbody venturis, provide enough downforce to change the static 41/59 front/rear weight distribution to 34/66 at speeds above 125 mph. The body also is 2.2 inches taller (due to the roof-mounted air-intake snorkel) and 2.4 inches wider. The windshield is the only exterior part directly carried over from the Enzo. The overall look is voluptuous and slightly reminiscent of a Jaguar XJ220.
Under the new skin, much of the carbon fiber structure, suspension, and brake hardware is Enzo derived. The engine is hardened for race duty with an upgraded dry-sump oil-scavenging system and gear-driven cams in place of the Enzo's chains. The cams, pistons, and engine control system are tuned for optimum performance breathing through the mandatory 33mm intake restrictor. Ferrari's six-speed auto-clutch paddle-shifted gearbox is little changed. All race versions are painted dark Maserati blue.
The race car transformation is quite convincing in battle. Maserati fielded two MC12s in the last four races of the 2004 season, taking two wins, three seconds, and one third-place finish. The team is gunning heavily for the FIA GT championship this year, and there are plans to compete in all American Le Mans Series races in 2005. Maserati won't be eligible for driver or manufacturer points in ALMS, however, because the car is longer and wider than the Automobile Club de l'Ouest regulations allow.
Recostuming the race car for Stradale duty went way beyond the bare minimum lighting, emissions, and safety requirements needed to certify the MC12 for legal road use. Because the 90-year-old company was determined to make a genuinely desirable halo supercar out of its FIA racer, it chose to add such touches as a removable roof panel--a bonus not offered on the quasi-gullwing Enzo. The lightweight removable roof panel unclips and lifts off as easily as a Corvette's, but can't be stored on board. The interior is also far more opulent than one might expect in a rehabbed racer. There's still plenty of naked gel-coated carbon fiber showing on the floor and door panels, but it's dressed up with blue leather and BrighTex fabric--a silver lame type material overlaid with a grippy, open-weave mesh that brings the look of carbon fiber to the seat inserts and upper dash. Air conditioning is standard; an audio system isn't offered (what musician would dare shout down the glorious sound of a racebred V-12, anyway?). All street versions are painted pearl white over blue.
Mechanical revisions to the road car include more docile cams and engine tuning. Output is rated at 624 horsepower and 479 pound-feet of torque. Race teams never divulge official engine output, but the Competizione's peak numbers are assumed to be close, with differently shaped power and torque curves. The Enzo made 651 horsepower and 485 pound-feet and redlined at 8200 rpm. Maserati paints the redline at 7500 revs in the MC12 Stradale, but lets it rev to 7700. The racing brakes and tires are swapped for more street-friendly compounds, and the track widths are reduced slightly. The pushrod-actuated coil-over Boge shocks aren't adjustable like the Enzo's and are tuned for a more compliant ride over small impacts. Relative to the race car, the aerodynamics are toned down, trading the adjustable rear wing for a lower profile unit that overhangs the body to give the sideview mirrors a better view of what's directly behind the car. This is crucial, because the engine air-intake snorkel blocks what would've been the rear visibility.
Enough backstage banter--let's get this show on the road. The test track built in Balocco, Italy, in the 1960s for Alfa Romeo's Formula One team is an ideal stage on which to strut the MC12's stuff. Its 4.75-mile tri-oval would be a great place to probe the claimed 205-mph top speed if not for a half-dozen narrow chicanes erected in hopes of making three test cars survive four waves of ham-fisted journalist test-drives. Team driver Fabrizio de Simone gives a hair-raising lap in a Quattroporte, threading the big sedan through the chicanes deftly at about 40 mph, leaving his braking until roughly the middle of each posted braking zone.
Given just two laps of the high-speed track, the first couple of chicanes are negotiated at well under de Simone's pace. This car measures nearly eight inches wider than a Quattroporte, after all. But the quick, precise steering and excellent forward visibility quickly build confidence and chicane speeds. By the second lap, it feels right to carry nearly 40 mph through the gates leading onto a mile-long straight and then floor the accelerator. The steady, strong push is attended by what sounds like the MGM lion roaring in the engine room. After four such growls, the speedometer just kisses 170 mph as the first braking marker flashes by. A deep steady stab of the brake erases three-quarters of the entry speed with no sign of fade except an ever-stiffening pedal. No side-to-side squirming or darting; just steady, stable deceleration.
For act two, the cars are turned loose on part of a 6.7-mile handling circuit for another two-lap session. Lap one, driven as one would on an unfamiliar public road, reveals incredibly communicative and confident steering that becomes more so as the speed and aero downforce increase. Street compound brakes make no noise, can be applied smoothly and gently at any speed, and don't require heating up to become effective as racing brakes do. The road-legal Pirelli PZero Corsas feature a tread pattern that's about 34 percent open in the front, 28 percent in the rear, so there's a bit of squirm on initial turn-in. But at higher speeds, there's less tramlining and very little nervousness at the wheel.
Dialing up the heat a bit for lap two reveals relatively high but safely approachable levels of lateral grip. Time the trail braking just right and feed just enough throttle in to spin the tires by an amount allowed by the ASR traction control's "Race" programming, and the car adopts a nice, satisfying drift, setting up perfectly for the next corner. There's none of the "knife-edged limit handling" we criticized in the more extreme Enzo. It's even more forgiving at the limit than an Acura NSX. The brakes are strong, but they demand a bit of respect. One self-described pro-rally driving journo piloting the Stradale as if he were in competizione managed to return with flames shooting off the pads.
At the end of the day, we strap our test gear onto the MC12 to quantify its straight-line capabilities (the black lakes and skidpads were off-limits). To launch the car, simply engage the Race mode (to quicken shifts and allow more wheelspin before the ASR kicks in), then quickly open the throttle about 30 to 50 percent--enough to call for a big clutch drop, but not so much that the engine overpowers the ASR--then feed throttle in gradually as the grip allows. It's easier than it sounds--our second launch is our best. (Note that the rear brakes need to be cool for ASR to work at all.) Get it right, and the tires hook up by around 3500 rpm. Pull the upshift paddle just before fuel shutoff at 7700 rpm in each gear, and 60 mph arrives in 3.7 seconds, the quarter mile in 11.8 at 123.9 mph. That's about 0.3 second behind an Enzo at 60 mph and 0.8 back at the quarter mile. Can't have a Maserati outperforming the ultimate Ferrari, can we? Engine tuning and increased aero drag account for the difference. Perhaps a more apt comparison is with the similarly easy-to-drive Mercedes-Benz McLaren SLR, which performs within a couple tenths of the MC12.
Of course, the SLR offers a trunk that'll carry golf clubs; it costs about half as much as the MC12, and it can be imported legally to the U.S. The MC12 carries nothing but two people, some gloves, and 30 gallons of premium fuel. It sells for 600,000 euros or just a shade under $800,000. It's not homologated for U.S. sale, but a handful of cars can be imported under the show-and-display law. The first 25 cars sold out quickly in 2004. There are more than 25 orders for the 2005 run, but the cars haven't all been assigned yet, so there's still time to fill a suitcase with "incentive" cash and hop a plane to Modena. Do so, and you'll own a car that'll forever keep folks guessing. What's Hot: FIA-approved style and substance; low-danger dynamics; nearly as rare as the last Cooper-Maserati V-12s What's Not: No trunk; no spare tire; no radio Like This? Try These: Saleen S7; 1992-1994 Jaguar XJ220; 1998 Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR Who's Calling the Shots at Maserati?
The February "sale" of Maserati from Ferrari to Fiat was widely reported to be a simple shell game to move the high costs of developing the Quattroporte and Coupe/Spyder replacement off Ferrari's balance sheets in hopes of boosting the share price when the company goes public, probably within a year. But Maserati stands to gain from the deal, as well.
Here's what happened: Ferrari Maserati Group was divided into two autonomous entities under Fiat SpA, standing alongside Fiat Auto (Alfa Romeo, Lancia, and Fiat brands), Iveco trucks, and CNH (agricultural and industrial products). A technical alliance remains with Ferrari, which will continue to build and co-develop engines and transmissions for Maserati, share Formula One technology, etc. A new commercial and technical partnership has been formed with Alfa Romeo.
Alfa's larger-scale manufacturing and purchasing power are expected to help Maserati expand to fill its 10,000-unit capacity with a higher volume, lower priced product. The concept has worked for archrival Porsche. With the 911 firmly established as the hallmark of the brand, the German niche-player teamed with the mass-market experts at VW to launch the comparatively high-volume Cayenne.
Will the Trident also build an SUV? Maybe. But there's so little SUV expertise to tap into within Fiat that a better guess might be a Boxster-priced junior sports car, which Alfa could offer more help with.