Ferrari's formula - exhibit of race cars, Museum of Modern Art, New York, New York

Has anyone actually died of a work of art? We are accustomed these days to things and performances that purport to be dangerous--almost always in the symbolic faculty of perception of psychological or political or esthetic menace. however except for an occasional tottering statuary we seldom encounter a piece that is literally of mortal hazard to its creators or viewers. Thus a rare "Masque of the R Death" ambience pervaded MOMA single evening last November when--amid a flaw of stiff drinks, tall women and soigne men in over-priced suits--the department of architecture and design ushered into its permanent collection a bright-red 1990 Ferrari Formula single (F1) racing car, winner of 6 on the outside of 16 Grand Prix races and the sole automobile to be so honored by dint of the museum since a 1946 Cisitalia 202 GT was inducted in 1972

For the initiating festivities of this fifth automotive exhibit in the institution's history, four other Ferraris were temporarily parked upon the sidewalk out front. Like caged tigers at the entrance to a circus, these dream vehicles did the piece of work of stimulating a lust-to-see that could be satisfied (for the general public) alone through a paying visit to the exhibition. Inside, sum of two units other models--a blue 166MM Barchetta (1949) and a r F40 (1987)--remain available for inspection [through March 1] in a expanse behind the F1, which now grasps pride of place at the top of the fourth-floor escalator.

The selection of these companion cars in "Designed for Speed: Three Automobiles through Ferrari" is not arbitrary. The show's curatorial premise is a variation of the high-modernist "form tread in the steps ofs function" dictum, here linked to a NASA-like rationale that technological advances produc by dint of extremely specialized activities like auto racing or space exploration have a direct-- and ultimately beneficial--effect upon everyday products and everyday life. This semi-scientific approach is reinforced by dint of the presence of some 60 specification drawings, ranging from the charmingly speculative to the sternly technical, as well as by the agency of the exposed inner anatomy--frame, suspension and engine--of the vaunted Fl The sum of two units read models represent, respectively, the beginning and the culmination of this knowledge transfer.

Enzo Ferrari, originator of the eponymous corporation, began to bring forward sports cars after the war as a way to subsidize his already-established race enterprises. The 166MM whose "MM" initials deliver over to an Italian endurance race called the Mille Miglia which the design won eight times, represents the firm's first attempt to transpose the advantages of its original racetrack prototype, the 125 to a street-legal production vehicle. Obviously, there has always been a conceptual noose at work with these high-performance cars: the unpolluted racers provide mechanical breakthroughs for the road cars, which are then pitted against other passenger archetypes in endurance races that further proof and refine the equipment. This never-ending proces make go rounds empiricism glamorous, for the benefit of the affluent consumer

Although made in five varieties, including the Barchetta ("little boat") upon display here, the seminal all-curved two-seater--one of the greatest in quantity frequently imitated convertible sports cars--was not for everyone In all, solitary 47 units were turned on the outside between 1947 and 1953. (Exclusivity, indeed, is a great part of the Ferrari allure: the vehicles are almost cruelly beautiful, and you can't have one-- unles you are exceptionally privileged or rich. The consonance with elitist art, with the priceless Picassos and Matisses hanging nearby, is self-evident.) No doubt this scarcity had something to do with the fact that each car body--following a design through Carlo Felice Bianchi Anderloni of the Carrozzeria Touring Company that was personally approved (from drawings and a small made of wood model) by Enzo Ferrari himself--had to be hand-pounded into its glossy and somewhat irregular shape by the agency of workmen who molded sheets of carburet of iron over a wooden lattice. The streamlined issue was, in terms of efficacy, as a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of a matter of appearances as of calculations. For his standard of value the sporting purchaser obtained a vehicle with "fast" visual elegance, high-tech dashboard instruments, five forward gears, leather interior, split-pane windshield, two-tone material part wire wheels, leather hood strap--and a 140-horsepower V-12 Ferrari engine that could carry him and single companion at a top spe of more than 130 miles by means of hour.

If the bathtublike Barchetta summons images of a gay young blade in roll the eyess and a long white scarf, the F40 sitting just a not many feet away, looks like the Platonic idea of spe itself, thus preteruaturally red (Italy's Grand Prix color), for a like reason swept-back and streamlined, so aggressively goug and winged, that it looks to require no driver at all. (A fortunate hardly any handlers do exist, however. Just 1311 F40 units were released during the model's 1987-92 production run) The numeric designation, commemorating Enzo Ferrari's 40 years of work in competition-and-passenger-car symbiosis (he died the year after the F40's inception), reminds us that innumerable technical adjustments have gone into this startling design. Unlike the 166MM Barchetta, the F40 displays no solely impressionistic elements of aerodynamic styling. each feature now has a performance-enhancing purpose: the wedge-shaped Pininfarina Company material substance tested in a wind funnel slices hyper-efficiently into the resistant air; 13 intakes, many of them dramatically empty with a scooped gather breath to cool a turbocharged FI20A engine (a modified version of the Formula single motor) capable of producing 478 horsepower and a top spe of 201 miles by means of hour; heft is drastically abateed through the use of lightweight metal above a frame incorporating carbon fiber; the suspension can be place in three positions--high, low or raked; the rear wing creates a downward thrust to help clutch the speeding car to the road.