Yahoo Autos Ferrari Purosangue Is Brilliant and Flawed at the Same Time
It would be easy to make a cogent case that the Purosangue is the worst Ferrari in a very long time. Despite the fact that it’s dynamically capable and highly sophisticated, has a stunning V-12 engine and a gorgeous interior. We all know what a Ferrari “should” be, and this isn’t it. Yet in terms of execution—with one glaring exception—it’s pretty remarkable. So which is it? A fantastically poised machine to take Ferrari into a new space or a sacrilegious money grab? Having driven it, I’m still trying to work that out.
The case against the Purosangue is fairly devastating. It is nearly twice the price of an Aston Martin DBX 707 yet doesn’t feel nearly as fast most of the time. It is less practical than other high-performance SUVs, and the UI is almost willfully bad. These things are pretty much indisputable. Add the irrational into the equation and things get worse, as the Purosangue seems to directly undermine the Ferrari legend of elegance and uncompromised performance for no good reason.
Of course, most SUVs from sports-car companies (despite Ferrari’s protests the Purosangue is playing in this space, even if it’s sought out the extreme edges of the concept) are produced to prop up flagging profitability and reach new customers. Ferrari, by contrast, is incredibly successful, makes heaps of money, and has people clamoring to buy its sports cars. So why veer so far from the established story?
Seeing the glossy Celeste Metallic test car in dappled California sunshine didn’t do a huge amount to dispel my cynicism. After the unusual but classy form of the GTC4 Lusso—which has more than a pinch of old-school front-engined V-12 glamour about it—the Purosangue seems lumpy, slightly awkward, and ruthlessly chopped off at the rear. It is hard to ignore but equally challenging to love. The base price of $393,350 is already eye-watering, but even this relatively modestly spec'd car (lacking many of the carbon-fiber additions) stands at $506,305. Luckily, the naturally aspirated 6.5-liter V-12 producing 715 hp at 7750 rpm takes the edge off. As soon as this starts, the rousing case for the defense begins.
In a world of endless canyon roads, zero traffic, and a reality where you and three other people just have to get to a meeting place quickly and without much luggage, the Purosangue is pretty epic. Ferrari really has created it with the same focus and attention to detail that it would with a more traditional car like the 296 GTB. The V-12 is pushed way back in the bespoke aluminum chassis, completely behind the front axle. The eight-speed double-clutch gearbox is a transaxle for superior weight distribution, and the unique 4RM-S all-wheel-drive system, with a two-speed Power Transfer Unit driven from the front of the engine and no mechanical connection between the axles, has been refined to deliver a gorgeous balance of grip.
Then there are the trick Multimatic True Active Spool Valve (TASV) dampers, each with a liquid-cooled 48-volt electric motor attached to control the damper piston, so powerful that anti-roll bars are eliminated. There is also rear-wheel steering, ABS Evo that can adjust brake-effort wheel by wheel to help the car turn, Slide Slip Angle Control 8.0, and sophisticated active aerodynamics. In all, a whole heap of technology to manage, disguise, and manipulate the curb weight of more than 4470 pounds (that figure being dry and with all lightweight options fitted). For the most part, it works brilliantly.
On a canyon road the sensations are familiar Ferrari. The steering is light and clean. The rack is quick but not too jumpy, and the rear steer works really nicely. Ferrari’s first attempts at this tech felt aggressive and slightly unnatural, but now in the Purosangue, there isn’t the sensation of a yaw moment being artificially created and then stabilized. The result feels neutral and spectacularly agile. You can feel the benefits of the 49:51 front:rear weight distribution every time you ask the car to turn. There’s an inherent balance and effortlessness to the way the Purosangue flows over a demanding road.
The engine is both a killer ingredient and a mild disappointment. It sounds fantastically cultured and savagely sharp, and at full noise, the performance is truly strong. Yet at low and medium revs the Ferrari is massively outgunned by big-hitting SUV rivals with turbocharged powerplants. The Purosangue’s peak 528 lb-ft of torque is delivered at 6250 rpm, and although Ferrari claims 80 percent of that total is available from 2100 rpm, the resulting 422 lb-ft is dwarfed by something like the Urus S and the 627 lb-ft it makes from just 2300 rpm.
However, the natural way its performance grows in scale does enable you to drive the Purosangue more like a super-size real-deal sports car. The chassis can absorb and deploy the power so easily, and it has a lightness of touch you’d never find in the more bullying style of a Urus or the ruthlessly controlled chassis of the fastest versions of the Porsche Cayenne. You can pour the Purosangue along a road rather than try to demolish it in a series of point-and-shoot lurches.
Hit that sweet spot, and the Purosangue is huge fun. The suspension works superbly to keep the car level but never feels overly harsh. In fact, even in Sport mode with the suspension set to Hard, the Purosangue feels more than supple enough. I found myself more often than not selecting Sport and enjoying the added precision. The way the TASV dampers can actively manage and shift the front-to-rear roll stiffness balance through any given corner is head scrambling, but the result is simple. The Purosangue turns in hard, takes full power early, and even if it slips into oversteer, (good luck finding any understeer!) the 4RM-S system keeps everything calm and easy to control.
Throw in a fast, responsive gearbox, the sweet steering response, and a V-12 that sounds like heaven, and the world as experienced via a Purosangue is a pretty good place to be. The massive carbon-ceramic brakes certainly start to complain if you’re pushing hard for an extended period, but they stay relatively consistent. You’re aware that it’s a heavy car at all times, but there’s no denying its accuracy, sharpness, and fluidity. In the canyons, perhaps a Porsche Cayenne GT summons even more grip and speed, but the Purosangue has a purity that no other car of this stature manages. Which may sound like a strange thing to say about such a large, electronically managed car, yet the Purosangue has many moments when it transcends its size and complexity and delivers driving purity.
Back in the real world there are a few more complaints. The UI is woeful. There’s no central screen, just the digital instrument screen for the driver and a display for the passenger that allows them to control several functions. The driver’s display is controlled by haptic switches on the steering wheel. In the SF90, the originator of this system, these were live all the time, and you’d constantly change functions or wake up the voice command system by accident, which was both frustrating and irritating.
Now, in the Purosangue, the haptics need to be woken with a double tap. Or is it an extended push? Or 10 increasingly violent jabs with an index finger? It is hard to say as the response was inconsistent, and when the controls did respond they were oversensitive or sluggish as if on digital Xanax. Apple CarPlay, designed for a touchscreen, becomes deeply clunky when negotiated with arrows. Using the Apple system also replaces the entirety of the digital dash display, meaning there is no way to combine navigation with a rev counter at the same time. In all, it feels like a million miles from the seamless execution of the complex powertrain and suspension systems. It’s almost like Ferrari isn’t meant to make everyday cars.
Which takes us right back to the beginning. In trying to deliver on its name as a pure blooded Ferrari, the Purosangue sacrifices practicality as well as the thumping torque necessary to make so much car feel effortless. While supremely quick on paper, with a 0–62-mph time of 3.3 seconds, a 0–124-mph time of 10.6 seconds, and a top speed of “over 193 mph,” it never feels anything like that fast unless you live between 6000 and 8250 rpm. It also fails to deliver on the daily convenience you’d expect in a $60,000 four-door, let alone one that costs over $500,000. The frustrating infotainment, overly ornate heating and ventilation controls, and the air-conditioning’s struggle to deal with a California summer are all frustrations.
So the Purosangue is not capacious or effortless enough to replace something like a Range Rover. Nor is it truly beautiful. There is a lovely polish to the chassis, high levels of balance and adjustability, and a supremely cultured V-12, but the whole never feels as special as the much more traditional 812 Superfast. The Purosangue impresses, it flows, it does things it should not be able to do. But, ultimately, it is not truly thrilling. It doesn’t create the sense of awe and wonder generated by all of the best Ferraris.
That’s a pretty big problem. Above all else, a Ferrari should be exhilarating, intoxicating, and unforgettable. So while I greatly admire the execution, I still struggle to understand quite why the Purosangue exists. Does Ferrari need to make more money? If so, it should launch a manual version of the 296 GTB, call it the 296 Eredità, and sell it wearing some gorgeous colors from the Sixties and Seventies, charging an extra $200,000 over the regular car. That would raise revenue and create something to truly cherish. It is easy to respect the Purosangue, but it would be hard to truly love it.
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