2024 Ferrari Purosangue takes SUV into the realm of the exotic

At some point some memo must have come out. It decreed that all super-SUVs would be built on the same template: a twin-turbo V-8, a torque-converter automatic transmission, and full-time all-wheel drive, all stuffed into a rakish but conventional four-door body. Are. This is the formula practiced by Mercedes-AMG, Porsche, Maserati, BMW, Aston Martin, Lamborghini and Audi. However, Ferrari didn’t get the memo. Thus its first SUV, the Purosangue, uses a 715-hp naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V-12 and a rear-mounted dual-clutch transaxle. Power to the front axle is delivered by a separate two-speed transmission that is only active in conjunction with the first four gears of the rear axle. The rear doors are hinged and power-operated, providing primo access to a pair of heated, ventilated, massaging rear seats. And the Multimatic’s TASV spool-valve active dampers, four-wheel steering and bodywork with more aero tricks than a Formula 1 car. Ferrari knew its first SUV had to be something special, and the resulting effort would be a fine companion piece to whatever other exotics are in a given garage, valet line, or secret underground lair.

You could say that Purosangue had some parts-off-the-shelf engineering at play, but it’s an agreed arrangement when the parts come from the 812 Superfast, with which Purosangue shares its dry-sump, direct-injected F140 V-12 . Here, that lusty mill is tuned for more bottom-end torque (80 percent of its 528-pound-feet maximum is available at 2100 rpm) but is still good for an 8000-rpm redline. The front transmission is derived from that which debuted in the FF and moves out to the nose of the engine, with two clutches enabling front-axle torque vectoring (and a two-speed front transmission with the first four wheels). allow the speed to match the forward gears of the rear transaxle). The Purosangue’s long hood isn’t just for stylistic effect, given the packaging challenges of mounting the transmission in front of the V-12. Ferrari claims a zero-to-62-mph time of 3.3 seconds, which sounds plausible if not conservative.

For most cars, a screaming V-12 would be the defining piece of hardware, but the Purosangue’s engine is pricey with its suspension, which uses 48-volt electric motors at each corner to actively flatten the body . Instead of simply reacting to uneven pavement, Purosangue’s four suspension assemblies compare notes every 50 milliseconds to smooth out bumps by raising or lowering each wheel independently. But the system is not completely motor based. The electric motors work in tandem with a traditional spring and damper, so they’re not doing all the work—like nudging the timing to increase returns.

It’s almost hard to say how well the system works because we’d have to go down a well-known road for a frame of reference. As it is, sidewalls that feel like they should provide a shatterproof ride just don’t. Everything is quiet and closed, as if the Sport setting of the dampers is mostly performance theater – even with the suspension at its softest setting, body control is precise. The huge 22-inch front tire and 23-inch rear feel like they have BFGoodrich KO2 sidewalls giving them instant feedback. Side-to-side head toss does not occur due to anti-roll bars because there are no anti-roll bars. In fact, the electric motors allow the Purosangu to lean In corners if Ferrari programmed it that way. When we asked a Ferrari engineer if Purosangue could theoretically jump over an obstacle in the road, he thought about it and said yes. He wandered off before asking about the possibilities of tricycle speed or Carolina squatting.

Since the Purosangue will be expected to handle some light off-road work, meaning climbing speed bumps at Bal Harbour, the suspension has a lift setting. But the motors need to stay powered up to lift the body, so you can’t drive like that all day. In fact, the motors work hard enough in daily driving to require their own heat exchanger and cooling circuit. And while the hardware is from Multimatic and could theoretically end up on other cars, the control software was done in-house by Ferrari engineers, and we have a feeling they’re not sharing the notes. So, for now, if you want the active suspension, you’ll need to shell out $402,050 to order the Purosangue. (That’s a $393,350 base price, plus a $5000 destination fee and $3700 gas guzzler tax carried by EPA ratings of 12 mpg city and 16 mpg highway.)

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That electric motor on the left powers a gear that turns a ball screw to quickly move the strut up or down. The four motors are powerful enough to require their own cooling systems.

With its torque vectoring, active suspension and four-wheel steering, the Purosangu manages to feel quiet and planted on a straight path the moment you turn the wheel, while maintaining the ability to scythe into corners. The rear-axle steering system, adapted from the 812 Competizione, can steer each wheel up to two degrees independently – for example, the outside wheel can help the rear end follow the nose into a corner, and the Ferrari can control the braking distance. Adjusts toe under. and hard acceleration to provide stability. At low speeds, as in a parking garage, the instrument cluster’s camera display shows green markings that predict your steering path, including one for the inside rear wheel to remind the driver That there is also steering going on.

This tangle of hardware and software operates so harmoniously that you rarely miss the fiendish complexity going on behind the scenes, ones and zeros in all those wiring harnesses flapping, clutches slipping and gears sliding across the floor. They remain entangled somewhere down below. moment. It all just translates into a big, fast car that looks good in everything. The only time you’re reminded of the Purosangu’s vast list of detailed systems is when you’re forced to interact with some of them via the steering wheel, where Ferrari saw fit to place all the controls. .

Ferrari crammed so many buttons and knobs and haptic touchpads in front of the steering wheel that it ran out of space and had to introduce controls behind it too – a tiny nub of a button at the back to change the audio source The right steering-wheel spoke, and that knob is located next to a toggle switch that controls track selection, which is also within a stray finger’s reach of the right shift paddle, and the right-turn button. signal buttons, and a haptic pad that controls the instrument cluster display and menus, and windshield wiper and washer activation buttons, and wiper settings knobs, and Manetino Lever that controls drive mode and suspension settings. “What if I accidentally touch that haptic pad while diving into Turn 3 at Imola?” you ask. good question Ferrari figured that, which is why those buttons don’t respond until you touch them twice, thus implementing the intent. If we have time later, we’ll tell you about the left side of the steering wheel.

The only physical control on the dash is a round knob that belongs to the climate-control system. It lays flush with the dash but it comes off when you touch it. You can then access the settings by spinning a knob and jabbing at its tiny touchscreen to activate the seat heater, say, or the massage function. (There’s a similar knob between the rear bucket seats.) Hidden behind glass to the left and right of the knob are a few more haptic controls, which control specific functions like the rear-window defroster and suspension lift. The only large touchscreen is in front of the passenger seat, intentionally inaccessible to the driver, and it offers the kind of display you’d expect in the center of the dash—there’s room to write “Shiatsu” on the massager. Show options or cover art for your Def Leppard greatest hits playlist.

The rear seats – which instantly clear the low bar of “the best rear seats ever in a Ferrari” – are accessed via power-operated rear-hinged doors that operate completely independently from the front doors. There are To open one from the outside, you pull and hold a small lever under the window that will be familiar to anyone who’s driven a Ford Mustang Mach-E, a platoon that apparently doesn’t include anyone at Ferrari. (This is the company, after all, that used the code name F150 for LaFerrari). A button on the B-pillar locks the doors. It’s the kind of cool trick you can indulge in when you don’t really care about weight – Ferrari quotes a dry weight of 4482 pounds in the lightest configuration, but the reality is more like 4800 pounds. Which still makes for a good power-to-weight ratio, but only because it has a lot of power.

Then again, this isn’t a sports car. The V-12 sounds great, but keeps them to a dull roar, probably to the delight of Tubby, who will surely do a brisk business in the unarranged Purosangue exhaust system. There’s a launch-control position for the stubby metal-console shift lever, but no track setting Manetino, Various aerodynamic tricks—underbody diffusers, air curtains to keep airflow from the side of the car, ducts and channels hidden in the bodywork—are optimized for cooling and drag reduction rather than ground-hugging downforce. Ferrari resisted the temptation to build a jacked-up F8 Tributo, and it was the right call.

Two decades after Porsche launched the Cayenne, we may be scrambling over whether sports-car companies should be building SUVs, but there will certainly be Ferrari fans who want the company to offer a vehicle. Will tsk-tsk for courage. People would like to buy. We’re sure Ferrari will worry a whole lot about those bullets as the Purosangue prints money and inevitably becomes the bestselling model in the lineup. And anyway, those who can spend $400,000 on an SUV probably don’t face the binary choice of Purosangue or sports car. They’ll get both. But if, fate’s cursed, you can somehow only have one Ferrari? Then this has to happen.

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Ezra Dyer is a car and driver Senior editor and columnist. He is now based in North Carolina but still remembers how to turn right. He owns a 2009 GEM e4 and once went 206 mph. Those facts are mutually exclusive.