Dirty dozen: is the 12Cilindri the most complete Ferrari ever made?

Yet regular Ferrari watchers will know that the company’s approach to ergonomics is idiosyncratic. There are fighter aircraft whose cockpits are easier to master. “I know how much you love the capacitive switchgear in our cars,” Raffa joked. “We have made some changes.”

Photography: John Wycherley 

Indeed they have. The 12Cilindri’s name isn’t the only thing that’s been streamlined. The driver’s display is a 15.6in multiconfigurable one, accessed by a thumb touchpad on the steering wheel whose behaviour is much less hyperactive than before. It’s possible to max out the rev counter – as is only right and proper in a car whose crankshaft can now spin all the way to 9,500rpm – without retuning the radio or accidentally triggering the ejector seat.

The graphics are crisp, cool and legible. Newly arrived is a smaller central screen for climate control and infotainment, which also handles the Apple CarPlay/Android Auto connectivity thing. There’s no inbuilt satnav, Ferrari having concluded that this is how most people use their cars these days. (Does it help that Apple kingpin Eddy Cue sits on Ferrari’s board? Possibly.)

The new 12Cilindri is a big car, in every sense (4.7m long, 2.1m wide), part of Ferrari’s purest bloodline, that of the front-engined GT. The company’s earliest products followed this typology, and Enzo gleefully sold his cars to kings and princes to keep the racing business afloat.

It was some time before he bowed to the inevitable and moved the engine to the middle, or sanctioned anything with fewer than 12 cylinders. “The 12 cylinder will always be the original Ferrari,” he said in his dotage. “So everything else is a derivation.”

Ferrari may also have crystallised the concept of the gran turismo, a modern spin on the age old aristocratic campaign of vigorous self- improvement that was the Grand Tour (no, not that one). When Fiat heir Gianni Agnelli bought his 166 MM in 1950, it had to be kept secret from the company’s austere CEO, Vittorio Valletta.

Unsuccessfully, as it turned out. “It has to be you, with your name, to get your kicks out of cars made by our competitors,” he grumbled. Agnelli would later buy almost all of Ferrari, which was one of his better decisions. The company’s market cap is currently £71bn.

Today, TG is going GT. Rather than Maranello, the 12Cilindri’s launch is out of Luxembourg, due to the proximity of a Goodyear test facility and state of the art simulator. It has developed rubber specifically for the new car, although it’s not homologated yet so ours is Michelin Pilot shod.

Landlocked Luxembourg borders Belgium, Germany and France, and we reckon we can add the Netherlands to that list in a bid to do five countries in one day. Ferrari says the new car has a bigger bandwidth than ever, with a greater emphasis on comfort and design, as well as the inevitable riotous high performance. It’s the connoisseur’s Ferrari, the OG, and in the flesh it drips with confidence.

You can tell a lot about a car in the first 50 metres. The 12Cilindri has attracted the ire of the online massive for daring to pick up where the limited run 812 Competizione left off. Sure, it has the same power output, and the valvetrain’s sliding finger followers – each coated in diamond-like carbon to reduce friction – and titanium conrods also appeared in the 812 Comp. But look, they’re hardly going to bin innovations like that on the next gen car, and besides, the 12Cilindri has a markedly different character from the get-go. It’s so civilised.

The Ferrari handover man advised caution to begin with until everything was properly warmed up. He needn’t worry. A biblical storm the previous evening means the roads are as slippery as a politician juggling eels. But the new car coddles the driver in a manner unlike any Ferrari I’ve ever driven, whispers “Don’t worry, we’ve got this” like no car with a mammoth V12 upfront and 315/35 section rear tyres has any right to.

During the first 20 minutes, my inputs are deliberately measured and circumspect, and the 12Cilindri’s responses are as expensively engineered and viscous as the sort you’d find in a Mercedes S-Class. That’s a mental note I’ll come back to. Except that the Ferrari might actually have a superior ride quality.

Where to first? The Spa-Francorchamps track, home of the Belgian GP, is barely 45 minutes away, scene of numerous victories for Ferrari in F1 and beyond. Alberto Ascari took the Scuderia’s first win there in 1953, and since then Niki Lauda, Michael Schumacher, Kimi Räikkönen and Sebastian Vettel have all nailed its merciless corners in red cars.

We head north noting the fabulously smooth roads that surround our base camp. Luxembourg is a tiny, rather enigmatic country known for its beneficent tax regime and prosperous populace. There’s not a single pothole to be seen as we slip into Belgium and head towards St Vith. My phone pings to alert me to a new network – it’s the only indication that we’re in a different country. Frictionless borders: a thing to prize.

The Ardennes forest is famous for its tricky microclimate, but there’s no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothing. Does that apply to cars? Like the Purosangue, the 12Cilindri is apparently an all-weather Ferrari. With the manettino still set to Wet mode, this big machine summons up astonishing grip and remains composed despite the water sluicing underfoot.

This is hardware and software in perfect harmony, and we cascade along the road as impassively as a waterfall down a mountain. Its steering is less frenetic than on other Ferraris, the brake by wire system exquisitely calibrated. Ferrari’s Side Slip Control is now into its v8.0 incarnation and performs miracles alongside the traction control, an armoury of complex sensors and the Virtual Short Wheelbase (3.0). It all keeps the car firmly on the island without being cack handed or self righteous about it.

There’s also a fast moving active rear axle to manage yaw and enhance agility, an evolution of the system that appeared on the F12tdf and 812 Competizione. Those two were highly strung and easy to overdrive until you’d dialled into them. The new car is instantly there for you, more linear and much more approachable. You can feel it pivot around you. It’s a different sort of beast. Less bestial, in truth.

Some facts: the chassis is 15 per cent stiffer than the 812 Superfast’s and it’s made of extruded and cast aluminium, much of it recycled (22 castings before, now 17). The roof is made of carbon fibre, and though the body’s surfaces are largely unadulterated there’s a lot of aero trickery.

The underbody is designed to funnel hot air away from the central radiators, and there are vortex generators at the front and rear to generate downforce. The active aero flaps on the tail stay flush to the body in low drag configuration, and pop up in high downforce mode to an angle of 10° beyond 37mph according to how hard you’re pushing. You can only have them in black.

This is hardware and software in perfect harmony

Racing circuits without any racing are curious places. Their lifeblood is absent. We persuade the man at the barrier to let us in, and quickly find ourselves close to Spa’s most famous corner, Eau Rouge. It’s hugely atmospheric. Between us and it sit several hundred Porsche 911 GT3s, an awesome sight for sure but also proof that Ferrari’s design trajectory is powerfully progressive. It’s as though a spaceship has landed in the car park, exactly the vibe the company’s Centro Stile is striving for.

“There’s a science fiction feel to it,” head of GT design Andrea Militello says. “The 12Cilindri has an almost abstract look, and it’s an object that’s definitely pushing towards the future.” Inevitably, not everyone is onboard with this, something Militello’s boss Flavio Manzoni acknowledges. It might catch you off guard at first, he says, but once you understand it, it starts to work.

The nose clearly invokes the 365 GTB4 Daytona, a Pininfarina design that transformed Ferrari’s aesthetic in a late-Sixties milieu that was undergoing radical social and political change. (Compare it with the 275 GTB that preceded it and you’ll see what I mean.) The rear ‘delta’ screen is perhaps the most challenging element, with those active rear aero flaps a close second, and the light bar and oblong tailpipes bringing up the rear. It’s a highly graphic, geometric looking car.

The cofango – bonnet and front wings – tilts forward to reveal the engine. It’s a major piece of sculpture and a triumph of manufacturing. This is perhaps the only car in the world that looks as good with its bonnet open as it does closed, though we wouldn’t recommend driving it in that configuration. Despite that epically long nose, the 12Cilindri actually has a lot of rearward visual energy.

Coffee in Belgium, (theoretical) elevenses in Germany, lunch in Maastricht. The roads have dried, so we cross the border into Germany and soon we find a small section of derestricted autobahn. In a world that thrills to vacuous internet EV drag races, Ferrari’s fealty to the naturally aspirated V12 suddenly looks like an act of rebellion.

Lighter components and innovative metallurgy means that the engine now revs to 9,500rpm, and most of its 500lb ft of torque is available from a lowly 2,500rpm. Ferrari has also adapted the variable torque software used on its turbo cars for this nat asp one, ‘sculpting’ the torque curve in third and fourth gear to heighten the sensation.

Not sure it needed to bother, tbh. This remains one of the great experiences in motordom, but the character here definitely leans into an ultra-GT mode rather than strident, otherworldly screamer. This thing will sit in eighth gear at 40mph pulling just 1,600rpm.

Yet the engineers have worked hard to preserve the V12 howl – there are equal length exhaust tracts and a six into one manifold for each cylinder bank – and every bit of the system has been worked for maximum sonic impact. It’s just not as loud as before, but it does meet all the toughest emissions tests. Ferrari’s engineers are wizards.

And it’s fast. Zero to 62mph in 2.9secs, 125 in 8.3, a top speed of 211. Wandering motorhomes and hire cars prevent us from reaching terminal velocity, but the 12Cilindri feels absolutely mighty if you twiddle the manettino and engage warp drive. Ferrari wanted to calm down the Competizione, smooth off the serrated edges a little. Job done, and as the miles pile on the only issue is a dull ache in my lower back. Those seats look great but lack support.

The 8spd dual shift box is lightning fast, satisfying in action and a wafty motorway cruise enabler. Leave it in auto if you want, but choosing manual mode on the cleverly designed gear selector is much more fun. This is an engine that enjoys being exercised, so powerful that we need to find a long open stretch to really savour those high revs. But even at full tilt, everything – steering, brakes, body control – remains in harmony. And it really does ride serenely. An angrier XX or GTO version will undoubtedly be along in a few years.

Ferrari may just have delivered its most complete car ever

Maastricht is where the EU was established and currency union set into motion, back in 1992. They couldn’t have predicted Brexit or indeed that it’s an EU mandate that’s lumbered us with the scourge of modern cars that is ADAS. Thankfully, there’s a button that turns it all off. A brand new Ferrari here is quite the flex, but Maastricht is pretty enough and there are some cool old buildings.

We have France to visit, though, blatting back through Belgium and creeping over the border near a town called Givet. Bonjour and au revoir are separated by about 20 minutes. Maybe we could make Monaco, the 12Cilindri’s natural habitat, by tomorrow morning. It feels eminently doable.

We return right on time. That in itself is no mean feat after 400 miles and 10 hours behind the wheel. No potholes and no traffic jams, either, only the sense that Ferrari may just have delivered its most complete car ever. It’s not as urgent or as extrovert as its forebears, but it is hugely charismatic, beautifully made, and a design and tech leader. That bloodline has just been enriched.