EFFX – inspired by the Ferrari FXX

hover and click over individual sculpture photographs to enlarge

---

The Car

The story of the FXX starts with the 2002-04 Ferrari Enzo, named for the dearly departed founder of Scuderia Ferrari, Enzo Ferrari. Four hundred of these 660 hp supercars were created, with the final edition Enzo given to the Pope. Thereafter, Thirty of the far more evolved FXX versions were made, the final one given to seven-times World F1 Champion Michael Schumacher, (with Michael’s ride also having special features above the others…… so does that make Michael a pay grade, or even two, above the Pope at Maranello?).

Compared with the 400 Enzos, the FXX had body, brake, transmission, and engine upgrades including displacement and power bump (to 800 hp). The FXX were never road legal, nor even released to those who paid almost $2 million to “own” one. Rather, Ferrari maintained the fleet, and hosted European track days at various locations for the owners.

The penultimate Enzo chapter is the Evolution upgrade to the thirty FXX cars that was introduced in 2007-9 which had further body and driveline (850 hp) enhancements.

The Enzo was also the base for single Ferrari factory development car called the FXX K, which led Ferrari’s first efforts into road cars with hybrid drive (thus heralding the later La Ferrari driveline technology — and indeed the styling the FXX K is a cross between an FXX and the later 2013 LaFerrari).

The Stone

A friend-of-a-friend had a yellow Enzo shortly after the debut. He graciously took me for a spirited drive. Cars we were following would pull suddenly off the road to let us by.

While Ferrari would still sell every standard production model it minted without also trotting out a steady stream of hyper-cars (288 GTO, F40, F50, Enzo, LaFerrari), the planet’s car enthusiasts are enriched that it does. I’d love to sculpt each of those cars, but I choose the Enzo / FXX to begin. For me, the FXX looks positively sinister in black……and Schumacher’s FXX is black. But, classically a Ferrari is red. What to do?

MedRed is predominately black, with major patches of red. Minor patches of grey and white are also present, but visually these tend to be over powered by the black and red. Many of the 30 real FXX have a contrasting or complementary colors for winglets and undertrays. Thus the Laguna Rosso marble inlays of these structures in my sculpture.

The shape of the FXX is quite complex, (say, compared to the smooth lines of an E-Type Jaguar), with many air intakes and outlets. During sculpting I spent several weeks at “almost there” before finally setting down the tools and pronouncing the work finished.