Retro review: the Ferrari 599 GTB HGTE test reports 2021

This review was first published in issue 192 of Top Gear magazine (2009).

The Ferrari 599 GTB Fiorano is a car so good that it can turn you into a ridiculously picky person. I mean, sitting there in a £ 200,000 supercar and seeing the design of the instruments, for example, is a petty and twisted thing. (But yeah, the dials aren’t that clear or beautiful.) In most areas, however, it touches on perfection, and I haven’t met a person picky enough to judge that the 599’s handling is a bit shabby. Even so, Ferrari has decided that it can be even better in this regard.

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Hence the Handling Gran Turismo Evoluzione package or HGTE for his friends. It’s an option package worth £ 13,960 and not a separate model. If you already have a 599, you can have all dynamic changes retrofitted. It is said that Luca Badoer, Ferrari F1 test driver, is number one for this upgrade.

The pack allows the 599 to navigate the Fiorano test track (which is roughly the same length and layout as the TG) 0.6 seconds faster than the production version, despite being no longer a lighter and no longer developing power. This time saving isn’t a huge margin at all, but it will be worth it for some. And what is definitely worth it is the subjective gain, the additional feeling of control.

The day I tried the 599 HGTE, an opportunity arose on the Fiorano test track. Now I was naively assuming that since the F1 testing ban in the season at this time of year, the place could only be tumbleweed. Not like that: Ferrari uses it pretty well every day for R&D and demo drives with sponsors and all sorts of other work. So TG had to take the chance. Unfortunately, the track was cold, damp, greasy and unstable. In all fairness, it couldn’t have been more treacherous if there had been a herd of mozzarella buffalo out on the pavement, lifting their tails and dumping them for all their worth.

So I set off with the Manettino in the green-for-smoothness setting. The car seemed remarkably relaxed, so I gradually worked my way through white-for-sport and orange-for-race. With each notch, the programming of the dampers becomes more eager, the stability control laissez-faire and the paddle shifters faster. There’s also red-for-stability-control-off, but I’ve only used that on the slowest corner where there’s a lot of run-off. This turned out to be a wise decision. Read whatever you want into it. (No, no. I brought it home unbent.)

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So I can’t tell you much about the ultimate grip on the track. But it was obvious how skillfully he was handling his crowd through the harassment. This thing is a quarter tonne heavier than a Corvette ZR-1, but it does an S-turn like a featherweight, and that’s even better than the regular 599.

How does it work? Well, the springs are a bit stiffer at the front and rear and the car is lowered by 10 mm. The rear stabilizer is also thicker. This means that the car rolls and nods less when stationary. But the adaptive damper software has also been modified, at least when calling up the sportier Manettino settings. The dampers are now stiffer than before when the car turns into a curve or begins to brake or accelerate – this dampens pitch and roll far more than the static values ​​suggest. And that gives it that newfound feeling of agility, as well as a slight change in the camber of the front wheels. Oh, and the tires may be the same size and design as the stock tires, but they’re made of rubber. Don’t glue them to the bottom of your school desk.

The gear changes are meanwhile hammered through in 85 milliseconds, thanks to new transmission software for the more aggressive Manettino settings. It makes you feel like a bumpers are pounding your chest, but boy, that makes you in a rush. With the revs and all of its 620 hp, this car is tremendously fast. And of course the carbon brakes are more than equal – I always hit them too early. At that moment at the end of the pit straight, when the sharp right-hand bend emerges, you sit on the stoppers and pull back the minus paddle, it should be in the training manual for free-fall skydivers.

Time is up. Fiorano has secret work to do and TG is politely shooed away. Not that it took much convincing, I have the rest of the day to ride the HGTE through the Italian hills.

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Remember, the engine hasn’t changed. But there’s a new exhaust in the HGTE pack that gives it a richer baritone. Still, it’s an old school Italian V12 sound, high and mechanical, not the hard rock bass tank of a Murciélago. And at the beginning you might ask yourself whether you really get the full performance value at least in the middle speed range. It just doesn’t have the clout of the Lambo, or the charged mania of a ZR1, or the lungs of a 911 Turbo. But ping it down a few gears – zam-zaaammmm – and the distance suddenly hits you in the face.

That means you need all of the suspension control you can get. And this car is a miracle. Just as it controls its body movements when suddenly turning on a slippery road, it does an equally strong job on a road that curves and winds in all other dimensions. Of course, these surface changes – not to mention we’re going from wet to dry and back again today – are pissed off unless you know what grip the wheels have, and this is where the HGTE serves its most delicious surprise. There’s an even sweeter, more detailed feel of the chassis than before. It gives you priceless confidence, and it’s something you don’t get from any of the other front-engined supercars out there.

This chassis feeling is partly due to the semi-race seats with adjustable cushions that clamp in place. You can get them on a regular 599, but their full carbon shells are just an HGTE item. Ditto the split rims. There are carbon door panels and dashboard panels, but they don’t save weight – it’s about looking expensive. And anyway, it’s optional on the standard car, with the exception of a small carbon pencil strip above the radio, which apparently only comes in this package. The HGTE also gets cast, prancing horses on the front and back instead of polished. I think we’re stopping now. Sometimes you can know too much.

And there’s also one detail about the HGTE that’s more important. Ferrari says it doesn’t compromise much on comfort. It doesn’t do a lot. But at low speeds, the stiffer springs make the car pop and creak a little. The standard car feels gentler. A normal 599 (‘normal’? When was a word less appropriate?) Is such a brilliant thing because it feels like a luxury GT if you don’t whip it and like a real supercar when you are. The HGTE is without a doubt a better supercar. But it’s a full-time, no-slack supercar, and that somehow makes it less miraculous. Do you see what I mean by that it makes you picky?