First Drive: 2024 Ferrari Purosangue

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You’ve got to give Ferrari credit. It resisted the succubus-like temptation to build sport-utes for longer than pretty much everyone else. Lamborghini’s Urus showed up just four years ago, and it’s already Sant’Agata’s best-seller. Bentley’s been at this sport-utility business even longer. Hell, even Rolls-Royce couldn’t resist the lure of SUVs’ filthy lucre, the Cullinan likewise the best-seller in the storied marque’s portfolio.

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But still Ferrari resisted. Until now.

This is the Purosangue. Say it quickly — Purosangue — and it means “thoroughbred.” Break it up into its constituent parts — Puro-Sangue — and it means “pure blood.” The distinction might be minute, but you don’t need to have an MBA to understand that maybe, just maybe, Maranello’s marketing mavens are feeling a little insecure about their SUV’s reception in the marketplace.

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And with good reason. Just as Porsche’s loyalists rejected the Cayenne when it was first released, so, too, are some traditional Ferrari fans in high dudgeon, their angst seemingly higher than any time, well, since econo-car interloper Fiat bought Ferrari.

Like all modern-day polemics, said loyalists have gone overboard in their angst, fretting over everything, from the future of the supercar; to the notion the famed automaker might sell so many sport-brutes, they cheapen the legacy of their lord and master Enzo; or, worse yet, that if the Purosangue isn’t the new benchmark that all SUVs are judged by, it might tarnish the image of a Ferrari, still as yet unchallenged as the ne plus ultra of supercars.

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They needn’t have worried. For one thing, unlike even the most storied of those other premium brands, Ferrari is putting a hard cap on Purosangue sales, promising its SUV will never account for more than 20 per cent of its total sales, no matter how many dilettantes and poseurs come knocking. More important, however, is that despite its non-traditional shape — at least for Ferrari — the Purosangue really is very much as “super” as any car in its fleet.

That’s because the Purosangue is, for all intents and purposes, a rebodied supercar, in fact, little more than a sport-utility body slipped onto the powertrain of an 812 Superfast. Oh, it’s a bit bigger, there are four doors, and, to qualify as a true sport-brute, Ferrari mated the 812’s — oops, Purosangue’s — front end to a GTC4Lusso’s front AWD differential. But otherwise, pretty much everything that drives, stops, or turns the Purosangue is straight off the top-of-the-line 812 Superfast.

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Ferrari’s famed naturally-aspirated 6.5-litre V12, for instance, is the same, save for some minor cam-timing jiggles and an intake manifold finagle which means that, naturally-aspirated V12s becoming ever more a rarity, it’s still a powerplant beyond compare. Lamborghini’s Urus, powerful though it may be, is powered by a breathed-on Audi V8. The W12 Bentley boasts for the Bentayga is a) a Volkswagen engine; and b) will soon be no more. Even the Cullinan’s 6.75-litre V12 is a BMW hand-me-down. Worse yet, it’s turbocharged, which means that, though powerful, it has no personality.

The Ferrari, in contrast, is anything but shy and retiring. With no turbochargers clogging up the exhaust tract, it barks as soon as it lights up, all snarl and growl. Glide pass a slow-moving truck and it fairly thrums with variable-valve-timed torque. And being, well, a naturally-aspirated Ferrari V12, it fairly screams all the way to its banshee-like 8,250-rpm red-line. This is one SUV with personality in spades.

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It’s also, no surprise here, powerful. We’re talking 714 horsepower worth of powerful, a new peak for production SUVs. There’s also 528 pound-feet of torque, though the big Ferrari takes ’til 6,250 rpm to hit fully its stride (Maranello is at pains to point out, however, that 80 per cent of those torques are available as low as 2,100 rpm). That (slight) softness off the line compared with its turbocharged competitors is why, despite being the most powerful SUV extant, the Purosangue can only equal the fastest of all current sport-brutes, the Performante version of Lamborghini’s Urus, in its 3.3-second sprint to 100 miles per hour.

So, a little bit of a lunch-bag letdown, is it, then Dave?

Nope. Not at all. That’s because, just like the 812, once that big V12 does comes on song, the Purosangue really does transform into the proverbial thoroughbred, the 10.6 seconds it takes to hit 200 km/h being, by quite some margin, the very quickest of production SUVs. Indeed, once it gets rolling, the big Ferrari does quite the impression of a lithe little supercar, what will all the screaming of piston and blurring of lampposts.

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So, while Ferrari may well have decided on powering the Purosangue with the V12 to consolidate its heritage, the result remains the fastest powertrain in SUV-dom. Those looking to be disappointed by Ferrari’s first SUV will have to look beyond the engine bay.

For all intents and purposes, the Purosangue is a rebodied supercar, little more than a sport-utility body slipped onto the powertrain of an 812 Superfast

They’ll have to look further than the chassis, as well. Just like in the 812, Ferrari has pushed the big V12 so far back in the engine bay that the Pursangue is the world’s first front-mid-engine SUV. So far back in the chassis is the 6.5L, in fact, that you could probably squeeze another motor — a small inline-four, at the very least — between the V12’s fan belt and front grille.

You can barely see the intake manifolds for the windshield. Any further back and the crankshaft would be in the transmission tunnel. Mated, again like the 812, to a rear transaxle — this one an eight-speed, dual-clutch manumatic — and the Purosangue has an almost perfect 50-50 weight distribution. Just like a bona fide supercar.

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Then there’s Ferrari’s four-wheel-steering system, also lifted from the 812, this time from the Competizione version. Unlike other such systems — Mercedes’, in particular — that brag about having as much as 10 degrees of rear-wheel yaw available, the Purosangue’s rear tires are limited to just two degrees of turning ability.

But, says Ferrari, since they are steered independently, any number of combinations of handling-altering orientation can be had. Want to turn more quickly? The rear wheels steer in the opposite direction from the fronts. High-speed stability more your thing? Then all four wheels steer in the same direction. And just ‘cause they can, in some cases, one rear wheel can toe in while the other aims straight ahead. SUVs really have come a long way since International Harvester slapped a Travel Top on a pickup.

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Ferrari’s obsession with ultimate performance, no one will be surprised to hear, knows no bounds. As beautiful as all Ferraris might be, function always triumphs over form. So, while it might be easy to dismiss the Purosangue’s novel rear suicide doors as mere stylistic bauble, Ferrari swears up and down that the real reason for its Rolls-Royce impression is that the dispensing of the B-pillar between the front and rear doors let its engineers shorten the big ute’s wheelbase a smidge. A shorter SUV is a quicker-turning SUV, Maranello looking for every trick in the engineering manual to replicate true supercar handling.

Thanks to that obsession, the Purosangue really does handle like it’s a thousand pounds lighter. Tossing it into a tight hairpin takes no more effort than a Porsche Macan would in doing the same. A way-trick — and made-in-Canada — Multimatic semi-active suspension means there’s almost no roll, no matter how hard that toss into hairpin is. Stability, thanks to that same computer-controlled suspension sitting down on its haunches, remains as imperturbable as an 812’s, even when hitting 200 kilometres an hour on roads made slippery by snow.

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Yes, snow. In fact, so determined was Ferrari to prove its SUV bona fides that we spent all our time Puronague-ing through the wintery Italian Dolomites, and the only track this Ferrari saw was a slippy, slide-y ice trail at the base of Italy’s most famous ski resort, Madonna di Campiglio. If you’re rich enough to even consider ice racing an Italian exotic, your Ferrari is ready, Mr. Gates.

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And you will have to be really rich to afford the Purosangue. One of its few faults is that Ferrari’s decision to limit supply means you’re going to need near on 500 large to get behind the wheel of Maranello’s first SUV. Well, CDN$486,385, to be exact, not including the lengthy list of accessories and options sure to come that will easily push it beyond the half-million mark.

Such is the price of perfection. Or, at least, advancement. Save for a few hardly minor quibbles and faults — the rear bucket seats are so deeply dished that they compromise passenger comfort, and the steering wheel-mounted infotainment system controller is a frustration only total Italian misdirection could conjure — the Purosangue is a leap forward (high-performance) SUVs have not seen in quite a while.

Its big V12 is a free-revving antidote to the turbocharged sameness that plagues the industry. Its radical reformation of the SUV chassis eliminates most, if not quite all, of the genre’s compromises limiting performance. Oh, and ‘cause I have used all my allotted 1,500 words describing its technological advancement, I haven’t had time to mention that it’s also freaking gorgeous.

So, if you’re one of those that’s been fretting that the Purosangue would sully the good Ferrari name, not to worry. It really is an SUV worthy of the Prancing Horse badge.