After much speculation, spy shots, teasers and whatnot, the Ferrari Purosangue is finally out in the open. The iconic Italian automaker today revealed its first ever SUV, although we won’t argue with anyone who wants to insist that this is really a car. No matter.
There’s another first with the Purosangue: it’s Ferrari’s first four-door sports model to make it to production in the company’s 75-year history. But no matter.
Here’s what does matter:
The Purosangue is built on a whole new dedicated platform, which has the model sitting higher off the ground than any other Ferrari.
On the other hand, its sleek, sloping silhouette (inspired most directly by the automaker’s Roma coupe) comes thanks in part to a low roofline, meaning its roof rises only 1,589 mm off the ground. The Purosangue also rides on very wide wheels (22-inch in front, 23-inch in back), and gets large carbon-ceramic brakes. The new aluminum chassis is lighter and stiffer than we’ve seen in other Ferrari four-seat models. Dry wight of the vehicle is given as 2,033 kg.
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Inside, there’s only room for four occupants in this SUV, making it even more of an anomaly in the SUV domain. More uniqueness: the rear doors are rear-hinged to make getting in and out easier.
Behind those rear seats, we find 473 litres of cargo space - nothing to write home about if you’re an SUV. On the other hand, said seats do fold down for accrued cargo capacity, and the rear opening is a convenient hatch.
At the other extremity, the Purosangue gets a 6.5L naturally aspirated V12 engine under its hood, mounted behind the front wheels. Ferrari tweaked that engine’s cams, stroke ratio and intake and took steps to reduce friction. The result is an output of 725 hp and 528 lb-ft of torque (80 percent of which is available from 2,200 RPM), working in conjunction with a rear-mounted 8-speed dual-clutch transmission set to offer close ratios up to gear 7, with the 8th gear assigned to highway cruising duties. 0-100 km/h acceleration takes 3.3 seconds.
Note that it’s likely that at some point Ferrari will introduce variants equipped with V8 and even V6 engines. No confirmation on that yet.
The Ferrari Purosangue also features a low centre of gravity, four-wheel steering, four-wheel drive, a brake-by-wire system tuned for tackling off-road surfaces when desired and an active suspension system, unique among current Ferraris and developed together with Canadian firm Multimatic. Among other things, that system cuts down on roll on hard turns and lowers the car by 10 mm at high speeds.
The Purosangue does not feature moveable spoilers or other active aerodynamic features other than its clean, aerodynamic lines. There is a fixed rear spoiler to redirect airflow over the rear window, (hopefully) precluding the need for a rear wiper.
Ferrari says it will begin deliveries of the 2024 Purosangue SUV in the spring of 2023 to customers in Europe and then, late in the year, to North American buyers. And by the way, Ferrari’s strategy is not to make this model a high-volume player on its roster. To wit, the asking price for Europe has been set at 390,000 Euros, or about $520,000 CAD (no pricing for North America has been announced yet).
