Jay Leno remembers easier occasions in a 2001 Ferrari 550 Barchetta

Jay Leno thinks the 2001 Ferrari 550 Barchetta is getting old properly, and on this episode of “Jay Leno’s Storage,” he explains why.

Unveiled on the 2000 Paris auto present, the open-top Barchetta was a limited-edition model of the Ferrari 550 Maranello coupe, and one of many final Ferraris launched earlier than the period of smartphones and infotainment. It is from an easier time when, as Leno places it, “all you could possibly do was drive.”

With its front-mounted V-12 and 6-speed guide transmission with gated shifter, the 550 Barchetta recollects traditional Ferraris of the Nineteen Sixties. And like a Nineteen Sixties sports activities automobile, it was designed primarily as an open automobile, with solely a rudimentary tent-like roof supplied for sudden downpours.

The 5.5-liter V-12 options twin overhead camshafts and 4 valves per cylinder, together with dry sump lubrication—all the pieces you’d anticipate from an engine sporting the Ferrari title on its valve covers. It produces 478 hp and 419 pound-feet of torque, which Ferrari says is nice for 0-62 mph in 4.4 seconds and a 186-mph prime velocity.

Past the numbers, the naturally aspirated engine, guide transmission, and lack of complicated driver aids gives a purer driving expertise than present Ferraris. It is a real throwback that reveals simply how a lot issues have modified over the previous twenty years.

Ferrari and coachbuilder Pininfarina constructed 448 of the Barchettas, in comparison with about 3,000 examples of the usual 550 Maranello coupe. The manufacturing run was accomplished pretty shortly, with the final automobile leaving the manufacturing unit in December 2001. That wasn’t the top for convertible variations of this platform, although. After Ferrari refreshed the 550 Maranello into the 575M, it launched the 575M Superamerica, this time with a retractable hard-top roof. However that is a narrative for one more day.