Maisto Ferrari F50 Barchetta
In 1988, Ferrari produced a wild, highly evolved mid-engine car based on the 308 series, and named it the F40 to commemorate Ferrari's 40th year building cars. So it was only logical that, for 1996, Ferrari would produce another wild, highly evolved mid-engine car, and call it the F50. (And you better not mention the age discrepancy.)
The difference, you might have noticed, was that while the 308 series evolved through the 288 GTO, 328, F40, 348 and 355 versions to ultimately become today's 360 Modena, the F50 wasn't based on anything like it. Instead, it was a totally original car, looking for all the world like a Le Mans racer brought to the street. If it was the spiritual grandchild of any Ferrari, it would be something like a 330P3 or a 512S.
With their usual tradition of not caring whether you want the car, Ferrari announced that it would only be offered to a select few loyal and longtime Ferrari owners -- and hence its desirability was guaranteed in pure unobtainium.
Which brings me to the only way I'm likely to ever own an F50 -- in scale. When I saw Maisto's version offered at a local store at a very good price, I snatched it up.
The real F50 belongs to that very exclusive group of production cars whose top speeds have been reported upward of 200mph, depending on whom you choose to believe. This rareified club includes the predecessor, Ferrari's F40 (201), Bugatti EB110 (214 mph), Lamborghini Diablo (202), Jaguar XJ220 (219), Porsche 959 (201), and, king of them all, McLaren's F1 (237!!). The F50 qualifies with the Lamborghini at 202. (Ferrari's 550 Maranello just misses the cutoff, running out of steam at 199.) I intend to own them all, at least in scale, but this is my first.
Maisto, Bburago and Mira all offer the F50 in hardtop and open-top versions (Ferrari calls the open version "Barchetta," "little boat," a name they have used since the '50s for cars that were NON-convertibles -- always open). I got the Barchetta version in a red too deep for that word. Scarlet, perhaps. Crimson. Not just red.
So -- I looked at my model, and found a lot of things I really liked about it. And just a few I didn't.
Here we go:
The Maisto F50 wears the best tires of any car in my collection yet. They are asymmetrical in tread pattern and wider in back than in front -- this means that, like the real car, the model wears four unique tires; none can be switched for another. In addition, they look great, with no visible mold seams, fine sidewall printing and tread definition, and exactly the right color of rubber. Finally, they feel right: if you press on the tread, you can feel it give inward slightly, even beyond the spring suspension.
And about that spring suspension: the front end wears Maisto's usual vertical-mounted coil springs. But in the back! -- pop the hatch, and, besides the engine, you see the cantilevered rear suspension, and it works! The control arms have a 90-degree upward bend, leading to horizontally mounted springs. Sure, the springs themselves are a little out of scale -- but the working suspension is just too cool to pass up.
Next, while we're there, let's take a look at the engine: The first thing you notice is the airbox, on top of everything, in a textured, shiny grey. This is carbon fiber. Well, not really; it's plastic, but it gives a credible imitation of carbon fiber. This exotic material gets reused here and there throughout the model, just as in the real car. (Well, the real car is pretty much made of carbon fiber...)
The rest of the engine is nicely executed, with good depth -- this is a model of an engine in a model of an engine bay, not just some plastic extrusion. There are two sets of spark plug wires on the V-12, but there they made a mistake -- they used a simple plastic molded in red. This has the translucent, almost waxy finish of unpainted plastic -- a quick spray of red on the plastic would have helped a lot.
The engine bay also sports a feature that mystified me for a while: behind the powerplant is the transmission, and above the transmission is a complex assembly of struts and rods with no obvious function. It was some time before I figured out that they comprised a pair of engine lid struts -- the giveaway was the tiny pair of detents in the underside of the hood. Once you've figured out what they are, then you only have to figure out how to use them, and then how to put them back -- rather like refolding a large road map. Since the engine lid wedges open so nicely, I just leave the struts down to mystify onlookers.
The tail's huge wing dominates the rear view -- but, when you look past it, you might see the quad tailpipes misaligned -- on my example, the left pair are low in the rear clip, the right pair high.
The sides of the car sweep into a pair of large, low-mounted intakes, which lead into nicely modeled radiators for cooling the massive V-12. You can barely see them, but they're there, and they look good. Extra credit to Maisto.
In the forward section, the F50 sports a pair of "nostils," ducts sucking air from the underside over the hood to create downforce. If you pop open the hood, you'll see a pair of fans to aid in the job. You'll also see a removable piece of Ferrari luggage, a bag tailored to fit the trunk and upholstered to match the seats. (But if you turn it over, it's hollow. Oh, well.) More extra points for Maisto.
The headlights look good, but the red lenses on the taillights look a little too dark. I could be wrong here, but I don't think I am.
Now for an unusual note about accuracy: comparing the Maisto F50 with Bburago's model of the same car reveals a glaring difference: on the rear engine lid, the Maisto has the seam in the side of the panel running diagonally, where the Bburago has a vertical seam. I studied a number of photos of the real thing, and reached an inescapable conclusion that surprised me: Bburago has it wrong. Compare photos if you don't believe me; Maisto scored on Bburago with this little bit.
And now the interior: The seats look great: black with red inserts, and the seatbelts even have little silver "metal" parts. The floormats look even better: a functional rubber with varying textures; appears to be perfect. Strips of "carbon fiber" decorate the cockpit here and there -- the dash, the doors.
The mirrors -- oh, well. The center rearview mirror is permanently aimed way downward so the driver can see his own lap, or maybe that of the pasenger. The side mirrors are less obviously misaligned -- maybe I was spoiled by the excellent positioning of the mirrors on Maisto's Boxster. But the center one is visibly, obviously wrong.
The red -- no, crimson -- paint on the F50 is generally very good. It looks as if it were slathered in nail polish; it seems to be "thick", as if it would obscure detail. But there are a few plastic bits where the finish doesn't match: specifically, the inserts in the side and nostril vents. Far more subtle is the plastic double fairing behind the cockpit, which matches the sheetmetal almost perfectly.
Far less subtle, and more annoying, is Maisto's continuing failure to paint the insides of the opening parts. When you open the hood, the cool suspension and interesting engine entertain you for a minute -- and then you see the paint fade away on the inside fenders, or the undersurface of the hood itself. It looks as if the paint that is there is just overspray. It's not hard to overlook this failure in a silver car, where the silver gives way to bare metal. It's far more obvious, and hence less forgivable, when the car is bright red.
This irritation is also present under the front trunklid: again, the paint fades into overspray, and then bare metal. How hard would it be for Maisto to give the undersides a quick spray?
I have one other major gripe about this car: the doors. Sure, the fit is okay, and they open smoothly. But they use an unusual type of hinge, with a pin sliding in a slot. This gives much less vertical stability, and they tend to sag visibly when open. In fact, at its full extension, a door can easily be wobbled up or down over half an inch with a fingertip!
If you look closely at the action of the door hinge, you can see one possible reason why they did it this way: the fulcrum, or pivot axis of the hinge, is realistically located in the doorjamb. With the usual mechanism the fulcrum is generally displaced a substantial distance. It may have been forced by the fact that the front trunklid opens so close to the doorjambs. Bburago has made a number of Ferrari models with similar doors, and they are usually much more precise (but occasionally their doors fall off, as on my Bburago Viper RT/10!) I find the wobble more annoying than the slight difference justifies.
Good thing it's a Barchetta. I'll leave the doors shut, and visitors to my office can still see the cool seats and carbon fiber. Maybe they won't notice the rearview mirror.
To sum it up:
Strengths: Excellent tires, cool rear suspension, good engine, seats, exterior appearance.
Weaknesses: Poor paint on sheetmetal undersides, sloppy door hinges.
Overall: Well, it's pretty good. I plan to get other F50s -- at least the Bburago, Mira, and Mattel -- and publish a face-to-face-to-face shootout someday. Until then, my Maisto is at least worth what I paid.
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