You can’t tell to look at me, but I’ve recently been on the receiving end of a million-dollar facelift. While it was expensive, the results were undeniably effective, even if only fleeting. But it’s still a solid 10 out of 10, would recommend, from this correspondent.
I mean facelift quite literally. Such is the flat-footed punch on offer from the Ferrari Purosangue’s raucous V12 engine that planting your slipper doesn’t just force you into your seat with all the aggression of an All-Black tackle, but also sends any of your body’s jiggly bits backwards and upwards, including the softer parts of your face.
The result shaves years off your appearance, until you lift your foot off the accelerator. It also probably shaves years off the life of the planet, too. But what price is too steep for this kind of performance?
The Ferrari Purosangue is the brand’s first SUV (though you’ll likely be beaten to death with a leg of prosciutto should anyone in Maranello hear you using those three letters), and it’s likely to be the brand’s last – at least the petrol-powered version we’ve driven.
Rightly or wrongly, V12s aren’t long for this world. Electrification is coming, if it isn’t here already via the bonkers Lotus Eletre. However, engines as patently ridiculous as the Purosangue’s will suppress the shouts of anyone campaigning for a swifter transition to green power. It’s more like a red rag to a bull, or an open-cut coal mine to a Greta Thunberg. There is little to no chance that a V12- powered Ferrari SUV can last for too much longer. But damn if it isn’t great big bagfuls of fun while it does.
The Purosangue’s 12 cylinders produce a staggering 533kW and 716Nm, which is plenty, even when you’re steering several tonnes of Italian metal. Flatten the accelerator, and not only will you get that promised facelift, but you’ll also clip 100km/h in a scarcely believable 3.3 seconds, while 200km/h will arrive in just 10.6 seconds.
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And so what, I hear you ask. After all, the Lotus Eletre is faster, taking just 2.95 seconds to reach the same 100km/h target. If we’ve learned anything about EVs, it’s that they can do almost everything better than their petrol-powered counterparts. The word “almost” is important here, because it covers the very things that have been drawing us to cars for generations: soul, theatre, emotion. And the Purosangue delivers on all three in spades, more so than the Lamborghini Urus.
In its softest settings, it’s a surprisingly comfortable, quiet, docile SUV – all plush practicality and easy-breezy progress. But dial into its sportiest settings and it very quickly reminds you of its supercar pedigree. Engage launch control and you can feel the Purosangue hunkering down as it sinks lower on its suspension and prepares to pounce.
By then, you’ll have taken control via the paddle shifters, and be grinning like a lunatic with every bang and clang as you bounce off the rev limiter, the cabin filed with the orchestral note of perfectly tuned exhaust sound that swells and falls at your command, as though your right foot is conducting a petrol-powered symphony.
Yes, it’s $728,000. Yes, that’s more like a million bucks on the road, with an option or two ticked. And yes, it drinks fuel like a navy frigate. But it is undeniably fantastic, and it unlocks emotions few other SUVs
– electric or otherwise – can manage. V12-powered super SUVs might be dinosaurs lumbering through an electrified ice age, but if this is the end, then I’m glad I was there to wave goodbye.
