How Ferrari Spins

[mep]

There is probably a cultural thing going on here. When US reality TV is shown on UK TV, they often have to give warnings that scenes are "simulated". There's a culture that documentary style TV has to be objective. People have lost jobs because of it.

The journalist is comparing Ferrari with Lamborghini. Similar price bracket, similar performance. So its not a complaint about super cars or nationality. Its simply someone external to you placing onerous conditions on your ability to write a story.

Interesting comment what do you exactly mean by this?
Juice to hear about cultural differences. Maybe some american TV program does not fit to european audience.
Don't you want a documentation to be objective?
I even get upset when events get some kind of rating by a special use of language when they are shown in the news.
By the way this guy claims to be a journalist but I think he is one of the worst ones of his kind. His article has no value at all just because it's obvious that he is not objective and has personal causes involved.

[dumrick]

I feel its just more Ferrari basing by the British press

Ferrari bashing? I didn't even know that this was new to people. For years french magazine Sport-Auto couldn't even test Ferraris because they make a point on independently verify all performance measures. Another common joke is how Ferrari and Lamborghini weight their cars without any fluids in and how the dynos never replicate the announced hp...

A world apart from Porsche that commits to every sold car to have at least the power that's announced (differences up to 40 hp more that "nominal" have already been measured).

[Ciro Pabón]

True, Ciro. But you know I can't let that keep me from putting a little fuel on the fire...

Go, Rinty, go!


I'm appalled. Do you mean that car magazines actually exaggerate about the quality and style of "top cars"? Should I change my 66 GTO for a Porsche? What should I do with the John Deere? Perhaps change it for a Lambo, instead of a Ferrari. Hmmmm.... hard to decide.

Ferrari tested under Maranello specs. Oh, the beauty of it!


Same car tuned for straight road test. Chicks, I'm on my way!


BTW, this is a paint job by Christian Lassen Automobiles, it costs 100.000 devaluated dollars, so it has to be good. Instead of only a cavallino I can have a cavallino AND a dolphinllino.

On a related theme, Pup, is it true that chicks in men magazines are uglier than they look? Is it true that they use make up to enhance artificially their beauty? Some friend sent this to me (if I can call him a "friend", after trying to shatter my confidence in the honesty of the human race. The dog!).

Paint shop. Pro.


Look! A blonde!


If true, life won't be the same for me. You know, there is this woman with the mini miniskirt (really short!) that stands in the corner close to my house, every weekend night, really a beauty, with big hands and long legs. Really big hands. I was going to go for her, but now, I'm not sure. She could be another Maranello girl or a Lambo woman. Where is this world headed, if you cannot trust in journalists and beautiful girls? They all seem the same to me, earning their lives the HARD way. So, puhleeze, let's respect those two professions which, I understand, are very old.

Thanks heaven we have Porsches, like dumrick made clear. Those germans! You can ALWAYS trust on them. Like the German we have at the Vatican, the new Pope. Gentle and understanding. I understand people call him "A True German Shepherd". Shepherd of souls, of course.

[myurr]

Ciro, the problem with the women in mens magazines comparison is that you are not comparing an airbrushed woman with a non-airbrushed woman in a head to head test as equals.

[Just_a_fan]

By the way this guy claims to be a journalist but I think he is one of the worst ones of his kind. His article has no value at all just because it's obvious that he is not objective and has personal causes involved.

He is a pretty good car journo actually. This piece was more just an extended blog post which allows him to 'vent' about something that he sees as wrong but which he has been forced to put up with for a number of years.

The fact is that Ferrari demand special treatment in order to make their cars look better than they are. Now, good luck to them if they can get the car media to comply with that, but personally I think it stinks. And yes, I would say that if some other car manufacturer did the same thing.

[Just_a_fan]

Ciro, the problem with the women in mens magazines comparison is that you are not comparing an airbrushed woman with a non-airbrushed woman in a head to head test as equals.

And, more importantly, you're not going to go and buy a woman after reading the magazine!

[Richard]

Interesting comment what do you exactly mean by this?
Juice to hear about cultural differences. Maybe some american TV program does not fit to european audience.
Don't you want a documentation to be objective?
I even get upset when events get some kind of rating by a special use of language when they are shown in the news.
By the way this guy claims to be a journalist but I think he is one of the worst ones of his kind. His article has no value at all just because it's obvious that he is not objective and has personal causes involved.

I was highlighting that certain parts of the media put objectivity high on the list, to the extent that they will preface imported programmes to warn that scenes are fake.

His article is very objective. He showed that one car manufacturer imposes restrictions on his freedom to independently test cars while other car makers allow independent testing. What's not objective about highlighting that?

[mep]

His article is very objective. He showed that one car manufacturer imposes restrictions on his freedom to independently test cars while other car makers allow independent testing. What's not objective about highlighting that?

I do not complain about the stuff he writes about I don't like the way how he does. I agree that I might be very nit-picky when it comes down to the work of journalists. For me it's important that information gets delivered. I am not interested at all in the opinion of the journalist or the guy that reads the stuff out in the news. I want it bone dry and focused on facts which of course are just facts when they are proven and the proof is presented otherwise it’s just speculation.
When I read the text of a journalist and I notice that he brings in own opinions (without declaring it) or even has personal reasons to claim something then the article immediately loses value for me.
Here it is very obvious that the guy wrote the stuff out of anger because he got some personal issue with Ferrari. He does not even hide that. So this article loses almost all of its value. That's what I mean by saying the article is not objective even if everything claimed might be true.

In this world media is a very dangerous and powerful thing to manipulate people. Very often wrong information gets presented or journos lie to you. You must find ways to filter all this bullshit. One way is to check the way something is written.

He is a pretty good car journo actually. This piece was more just an extended blog post which allows him to 'vent' about something that he sees as wrong but which he has been forced to put up with for a number of years.

He might be a good one but maybe just because all the rest are sh!t as well. Ok it's just a blog and maybe he has a better style when he writes for a magazine. For sure I would not pay anything for his articles when they are written like this. Even worse then it’s not just his articles I rate bad it’s the whole magazine I put down just because they print bad stuff. You see how this works? I knew of a news agency presenting articles in the net which usually don’t obey the rule I explained above. They provide useful information which might be good to know but I can’t trust on them and give them to further people because it would pull my name down. So the news they present are kinda worthless.

Notice I am not a journalist myself. I want news to be presented in a more scientifically way.

[mep]

Ciro, the problem with the women in mens magazines comparison is that you are not comparing an airbrushed woman with a non-airbrushed woman in a head to head test as equals.

And, more importantly, you're not going to go and buy a woman after reading the magazine!

Thats not even true.
You will compare the ordinary girls on streets with the ones you see in mags.

[myurr]

Ciro, the problem with the women in mens magazines comparison is that you are not comparing an airbrushed woman with a non-airbrushed woman in a head to head test as equals.

And, more importantly, you're not going to go and buy a woman after reading the magazine!

Thats not even true.
You will compare the ordinary girls on streets with the ones you see in mags.

But you do so objectively knowing that the girl in the magazine was airbrushed - either way the comparison is not a good one.

If what this journo is claiming is true it means that you cannot believe anything you read about Ferrari in the press when it comes to reviews of their product. When you read a review of a product, any product, that you are considering buying or even just want to compare to something you do own (or can afford) so you know what you're missing out on (or dream of), then you expect the manufacturer to supply the actual product that is for sale.

It's like Dyson supplying a vacuum for a test and sending a team of engineers out to modify parts and change the way the product works so that it wins each test - maybe removing the filters for a suction test, fitting a more powerful motor, etc. Or Samsung supplying a TV for review that has a different panel and processing engine in it from the retail unit. It's utterly dishonest cheating.

I'm not under any illusions of this being a problem confined to the motor trade or Ferrari. Computer game reviews have been shown in the past to biased based on the freebies given out the 'journalists' or the amount of advertising a particular publisher places in the magazine. Projector manufacturers talk about contrast rations that use an iris to inflate the numbers, and LCD display makers talk about grey to grey response times instead of black to white. None of that justifies or excuses the deception Ferrari are pulling, or the journalists for going along with it, any more than it does for any other manufacturer involved in that kind of thing.

If I was the publisher of a car magazine then I'd call Ferrari's bluff and out them, stating in a lead article exactly why Ferrari were refusing to send cars for review. Turn it into a PR story against Ferrari and the other magazines for going along with their demands, and it will show your own objectivity in a strong light and show up the failure of your competitors. Hopefully it will also create a backlash against Ferrari who will have to supply you with cars to diffuse it.

Even if you lost the ability to review Ferrari's I would still bet that enough owners would be supportive and would lend you their cars, and that whilst you may lose out on sales when a new Ferrari is launched, you'd make up for it when you did the follow up 'real' review.

Finally, I do not understand why anyone would defend a brand, even one that they support and love, when that brand is actively lying to them and deceiving them.

[Pandamasque]

Even if you lost the ability to review Ferrari's I would still bet that enough owners would be supportive and would lend you their cars, and that whilst you may lose out on sales when a new Ferrari is launched, you'd make up for it when you did the follow up 'real' review.

That's debatable. Do most readers really need 'real' reviews? Esp. on the internet where immediacy is way more important than quality to the majority of users.
Maybe someone like Harris can afford giving it a try, but others would rather prefer not to risk.

[myurr]

Do most readers really need 'real' reviews? Esp. on the internet where immediacy is way more important than quality to the majority of users.

Do most readers like being knowingly lied to? I agree it's debatable, but certainly Ferrari's image could be tarnished enough if even only a percentage of readers pick up on it. I'm guessing but I'd imagine there are two types of Ferrari owners - those after the ultimate driving machine, and those looking to show off and pose. I don't think there should be any question that the first group would be pretty pissed off when they found out they'd been deceived about what they were buying.

For the latter group it's much harder to know, but I could see Ferrari's brand being tarnished in that group if the fact they were having to manipulate car tests went mainstream. Who wants to be posing in a fraud?

[Agenda_Is_Incorrect]

I don't know how tests in Europe are done, but products sent to review were I live are almost always made specially for this purpose and are admittedly like that. Car magazines here often talk about differences in the products they review and the ones you find at the dealerships and there's even people inside the industry who comment on that.

Mostly it's not enough to make the products a fraud, it's just that they pick their best units and put some extra effort in it. Of course you may not be able to get the same thing when you buy it, but except in cases of the manufacturer being really dishonest the product you get is pretty close to what's reviewed. It's like putting a bit of make up in a girl and getting her in a nice mood, most will do it and do it admittedly and to a point there's nothing wrong with it. Some will completely transform themselves into something they are not and that's were the danger lies. Here it's the job of the journalist to tell things apart and speak out dishonesties.

I bet Porsche and every other sends to the press their best vehicles as well. Ferrari just might take it a step further, but if readers are warned and what they do in terms of setup can be done to every vehicle they do then there's not much harm. Tough obviously a comparison with a not specially setup car gets impossible. But keep in mind those Nurburgring laps and such are done almost always with special tires, drivers and setups.

The only way to avoid all that would be by doing reviews with bought cars, which is rare and expensive to do. Most end up close to specially made review products by honest manufacturers. So, at least to me, the question is a proper review with the proper disclaimers and honest manufacturers. The reviewer can tell this with proper research as well.

[myurr]

In Europe tests are supposed to be of the final product, and are not usually admitted to be 'special editions' or anything like that.

I get it that review samples will also have additional Q&A that production products will not benefit from. However to me there is a clear difference between sending the best example of a car from your production line, knowing that standards will vary to some small degree, and sending two cars set up for different things with a team of engineers to optimise both and dictating the terms of the test. With Ferrari failure to comply means ex-communication.

Let's go back to the hypothetical vacuum test I mentioned before. You are reviewing two vacuum cleaners, one dyson and one hoover. It's a three part head to head test: 1) measure how powerful the suction is, 2) check the quality of the air exhaled by the cleaner, 3) see how light and maneuverable it is.

Hoover check several examples of their model, select the best example, and perform some additional checks to make sure it's all working 100%. Dyson do the same but send two vacuums and a team of engineers to set them up before each test. For the first test Dyson's engineers remove the filters, fit a more powerful motor, and optimise the hoses. For the second test they refit the filters, and fit additional filters just to make sure. For the third test they switch to the second vacuum that is fitted with a half size (and weight) motor, and has special lighter components and chassis that have a much shorter lifespan. Naturally the Dyson wins all three tests.

Now this is a completely made up and hypothetical test, but it is exactly what Ferrari are doing with their road tests. Is that hypothetical Dyson the better product? It could well be, but because of the corruption of that test we have no idea. Same with Ferrari, you can no longer read a review of one of their cars, hear about how wonderful it is, and place any trust in the independence of that reviewer. They may make the best cars in the world, but because they insist on perverting the review you have no idea if that is the case or not. To me it cheapens the entire brand. Whether or not they would have won the test on merit they decided to cheat, and as used to be the case in F1 to me the Ferrari brand is again synonymous with cheating. Win at all costs has a resonance with some people, but to me integrity is far more important.

[Agenda_Is_Incorrect]

You are right in your doubt about Ferrari in this case and there is a possibility they do it like your vacuum cleaner example. But chances are, and at least that's what was revealed so far, that it's only a special setup job that anyone could do it if they wanted. Maybe Ferrari wants to perform the best possible in each test.

It hurts the comparison if this is not done in the competitors, but it's not enough to make the review cars different beasts than what you could buy. Maybe in comparisons the reviewers could do the same with the competitors to make things even. As long as it's warned to the reader in any case and it doesn't go further than that, seems ok to me. Obviously, in comparisons I would prefer all cars in equal conditions, either all on stock setup or specially setup.

And while you guys expect the products to be non special, unless there's some enforcement of this I don't see it being too different overall from here. For instance, Porsche could setup their cars in the factory for a specific press test and you wouldn't even notice.