The Ferrari Purosangue offers utility with sports car style

Ferrari has just unveiled a family-friendly car for the first time in its 75-year history — just don't call it an SUV.

By Richard Ng / 29 Sep 2022

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The Prancing Horse has just unveiled for the first time in its 75-year history a family-friendly car. The Ferrari Purosangue is as family-friendly a car you can get, with when there’s a naturally-aspirated V12 under the hood, cranking out 716nm of torque and a top-end speed of 310kmh.

But this is Ferrari after all, which is why you can’t refer to the Purosangue as a sports utility vehicle. They aren’t kidding – its moniker literally means ‘thoroughbred’ in Italian (get the hint). The abbreviation SUV is uttered only once in the entire press release detailing the four-seater’s debut. And that’s only to say what the Purosangue is not.

“To enable the company to achieve the ambitious goals set for this project and create a car worthy of a place in its range, a completely different layout and innovative proportions compared to modern GT archetypes (so-called crossovers and SUVs) were adopted,” says the press release.

“The average modern GT’s engine is mounted forwards in the car, almost straddling the front axle with the gearbox coupled directly to it,” it continues. This arrangement “results in less than optimal weight distribution”. The Ferrari Purosangue ultimately delivers excellent “driving dynamics and driving pleasure". Touche.

Staying true to Ferrari DNA

Ferrari

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Instead, Purosangue’s engine is mid-front-mounted with the 8-speed dual-clutch gearbox at the rear, resulting in a sportier transaxle layout with an optimal 49:51 weight distribution that Maranello’s engineers were willing to sign off on. Jargon aside, it basically means this car handles like a Ferrari.

After all, there’s a 6.5-litre V12 powering this racehorse, pushing it from dead stop to a hundred in just 3.3 seconds, and double that in 10.6 – not bad, considering this Purosangue comes with two full-sized heated electric seats in the front and the back (instead of the usual two tinier ones behind), accessible via rear-hinged back doors a la Rolls-Royce.

It also comes with the roomiest trunk in a Ferrari yet – though if push comes to shove, said back seats can be folded down for even more storage space. Yes, this is a sports car that you can move furniture with. Just remember not to scratch the Alcantara leather and recycled polyamide carpentry and upholstery.

The sports car-first philosophy is not forgotten though. The Purosangue is encased in aerodynamic bodywork that’s been put through its paces in a wind tunnel, treatment very much expected of a full-on sports car. It’s also been given a full suite of vehicle dynamic control systems already seeing use in the marque’s “most powerful and exclusive sports cars”, like independent four-wheel steering and six-way dynamic sensors.

It seems after all that Ferrari might get to eat its cake and keep it too.

Find out more: Ferrari

Related: Mercedes launches its first electric SUV car, the EQC

Cars, Ferrari, suv