[jdonaldson]

Italians have this long tradition of turning complex engineering into an art. Despite the fact that the Renaissance has come and gone, the roots for it run really deep in Italy still. I hope the same thing will be said about Silicon Valley one day.

[nimbius]

As a professional engine mechanic I would also say Italians have a sterling tradition of turning complex engineering into a rolling dumpster fire of repair and maintenance issues. Beautiful? yes, but not long for this world.

Fiat seems to have outsourced their 500 abarth design to the devil himself with intercooler,turbo, and thermostat placements that seem to actively dare the customer to try to service these parts without removing the engine.

on the other hand Maserati decided engines are just too hard, and outsourced the whole problem to Ferrari without any thought at all. a Primo engine mated to garbage undersized Hydraulic mounts and cheap stamped pot-steel tie rods. If you ever wanted a Ferrari experience well youll get one after about 40k miles as the idle will be as rough as a 458 on a cold track day due to the use of a cheap variator.

And if you've got the dosh for a modern Ferrari theyre no better. the 599 eats belts, the F12 belts are routinely known to just fall off, and the knock issue in the 488 never saw a proper fix...you were just expected to have an engine crew that would replace your spark plugs when knocking occurred. all of them.

EDIT: oh hey i forgot about the F430! the car that would eat its clutch if you ever drove it at an incline in reverse. about a six-thousand dollar part, and again your engine team was just expected to replace it as a consumable.

[hwillis]

oh my yes. The oil that comes in the engine of a vehicle is a good proxy for how carefully it was built. It collects everything that wasn't cleaned off, and every burr and bad surface creates more gunk during the factory run-in. Even if the first oil is replaced -as it should be, if its dirty- there's still left over gunk that will end up in later oil.

FortNine had the oil of a bunch of motorcycle brands analyzed. Aprilla and Ducati are two of the most expensive motorcycle brands- they make extreme performance luxury machines. They don't even make entry or mid-level bikes. They're both intensely race-focused. Here's the video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GAUo8eUXeU

Spoiler: Aprilla did 20x worse than the next-best, Ducati did 50x worse. They were an order of magnitude worse in every size of particle inclusion. Harley Davidson has possibly the worst reputation of any non-chinese motorcycle manufacturer and the best Ducati or Aprilla could do was to come within a 5x worse margin.

Like... oof. Americans make the biggest, Germans make the lightest, Italians make the prettiest. Only the Swede makes the quickest.

[jdonaldson]

I suppose it depends on the definition of art and craftsmanship. Sometimes people tolerate lower reliability, and sometimes that’s ok for “art”. E.g. Harley Davidsons are not reliable, but that’s almost by design at some point. My German car mechanic was almost a social scene... owners were in and out so much we got familiar with each other and would go grab a beer while we waited for certain work to be finished. Point is, you don’t even mind that much if you really love the product. Italians and Germans just hit different with their industrial design. I fall in and out of love with each of them for different things... cars... espresso machines ... bikes. I don’t think the world would be a better place with only highly reliable products.

[tim333]

Maybe the answer is Lamborghini. They used to have Ferrari like unreliability till VW bought them. Now they seem to combine Italian design flair with German reliability.

[in3d]

Can you point me towards some info about this 488 “knock issue”? I haven’t heard about it.

One issue that should not exist on the 488 and it’s shameful that Ferrari didn’t do better is the brakes. They go off and the pads and rotors get worn down very quickly after hard driving during track days. This should be unacceptable at this price point. Porsche did it right.

[cromka]

Interesting! Do you know how well Alfa Romeo handled Ferrari's engine in Quadrifoglio, compared to Maserati?

[tibbydudeza]

It is piece of shit. But you can't say that. Why not. It is a Ferrari.

[philippoi]

The Romans were already quite good at it long before that, too.