The ‘exposed carbon’ personalisation for the Daytona SP3 grants Tailor Made customers the opportunity to fully appreciate their car’s underlying and sophisticated beauty
Sometimes, ‘less is more’ is not a bland cliché. Just ask the lucky owners of the Ferrari Daytona SP3 ordered with the Tailor Made ‘carbonio a vista’ - ‘exposed carbon’ - finish. For the guiding philosophy behind this newest of personalisations offered by the Tailor Made Programme is, indeed, a matter of reduction, not addition: instead of finishing the chassis and body panels of the car with one of the near-infinite hues available to Tailor Made clients, in this case the car is left ‘naked’ – if you will – boasting only a transparent, protective coating that maintains its native black carbon-fibre tone in full, splendid view. A technique borrowed from a previous Ferrari Tailor Made experience – in that case the chassis was completely in aluminium – when the car was left ‘bare’ and transparently coated.
The Daytona SP3 boasts an airbrushed Ferrari logo on the door. Tailor Made clients can choose from a variety of additional exterior finishes, like titanium-coloured exhausts and gold-coloured wheel rims
Subsequently, to complete the finish, the vehicle was given a special ‘spazzolato’ – ‘brushed’ – treatment that further enhanced its majestic body. The goal is the same with the new exposed carbon finish for the Daytona SP3: to enhance the aesthetics of this third Icona Special Series oeuvre, revealing the beauty and sophistication of the vehicle’s underlying structure. Ordinarily, an unfinished chassis and body is not something to boast about. But by ‘baring’ the Daytona SP3’s carbon fibre, the car looks – it has to be said – way cooler. Indeed, this new customisation is sure to increase the car’s already significant head-turning capability.
The tone-on-tone livery fades from blue to carbon-fibre black
While the ‘raw’ look is a weight-saving ‘trick’ used to enhance performance in racing (basically, less paint equals lighter car equals higher speed), performance is not the inspiration here. And the process is not a simplification: indeed, the ‘carbonio a vista’ personalisation is extremely complex and required re-thinking the entire assemblage of the Daytona SP3’s body panels. Normally, this Icona model’s paintwork conceals little blemishes that can form where the carbon-fibre sheets are joined. But in this case, Maranello had to carry out a sophisticated study to position the sheets so as to ensure such blemishes don’t emerge. Another part of the solution called for painting a section of the Daytona SP3 with a livery whose tone-on-tone colour enhances the underlying carbon-fibre finish while cloaking minor imperfections that may appear elsewhere.
The exposed carbon fibre’s characteristic weave pattern is enhanced by the blue paint applied over the protective transparent coating
For those clients looking for an even more amazing look, the Tailor Made exposed carbon finish offers an additional, sports-augmenting option: exclusive ‘transitional carbon’ hues that further enhance the Icona’s exterior. Together with the plethora of internal finishing and customisation possibilities offered to render each Daytona SP3 even more unique, these shades – named after precious stones and metals like Rubino, Zaffiro, Malachite, Ambra, Oro and Ametista – create an effect whereby the car appears to glow with a barely perceptible hue that enrichens, never masks, the carbon fibre’s underlying, characteristic weave pattern. For now, the exposed carbon personalisation – which has been met with great enthusiasm among Ferrari clients – is available solely for the Daytona SP3, the only Prancing Horse car in Maranello’s current range to boast an entire chassis and body in carbon fibre. But who knows what the future holds ...
THIS STORY WAS TAKEN FROM ISSUE 61 OF THE OFFICIAL FERRARI MAGAZINE