Yahoo Autos Touring Superleggera Takes It Back to the '90s with the Veloce12
The Veloce12, from the Italian coachbuilder Touring Superleggera, is a curvaceous adaptation of the Ferrari 550 from the late 1990s.
The Veloce12 wears unique bodywork and has a reworked version of the 550's naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V-12 making 503 horsepower.
Touring Superleggera also fitted an adaptive suspension and powerful Brembo brakes.
New cars these days arrive bristling with technology, with ginormous touchscreens, digital gauge clusters, and even displays just for the front passengers. Throw in adjustable engine, suspension, and steering settings, advanced traction-control modes, and a cornucopia of cameras and sensors, and some cars feel like they require a degree from MIT to operate.
But Italian coachbuilder Touring Superleggera eschews this trend with the Veloce12, revealed today at The Quail as part of Monterey Car Week. Based on the Ferrari 550, the Veloce12 aims to capture the analog experience of the 1990s while sharpening the driving dynamics for the 21st century.
The Veloce12's styling remains fairly faithful to the original bodywork of the 550, but Touring Superleggera honed the details and stretched the coupe about an inch longer and wider than the Ferrari. The hood scoop has a thinner opening and is carved out of a more pronounced bulge, while the headlights have softer edges and more intricate LED elements. The front bumper, meanwhile, is entirely redesigned, with a larger aperture and deep side scoops that direct air around to the side of the car.
The front fender vents are also re-profiled, while the rear haunches are fashioned with a crisper character line. The two-piece circular taillights are still present but now utilize LED bulbs, while the rear bumper wears a more modern-looking diffuser and small slots cut out behind the rear wheels.
Under the handcrafted carbon-fiber bodywork lies a naturally aspirated 5.5-liter V-12 churning out 503 horsepower and 419 pound-feet of torque. That represents a 25-hp increase over the original F133 V-12 engine from the Ferrari 550, the extra oomph coming courtesy of Touring Superleggera's partner Supersprint Exhausts. Each donor car's engine will be thoroughly inspected before being rebuilt, with Touring Superleggera overhauling numerous parts including gaskets, spark plugs, and the alternator. The cooling system also gets upgraded.
Shifting duties are handled by a six-speed manual transmission. The rear-wheel-drive Veloce12 will dash to 62 mph in a claimed 4.4 seconds—not headline-worthy by modern standards but more than brisk enough for zipping along a flowing back road. Top speed is said to be capped at 199 mph. No matter how quick you accelerate, the 12-cylinder powerplant should emit a raucous aria.
The brakes, from Brembo, are said to improve pedal feel over the original stoppers. Up front are six-piston calipers, while the rear features four-pot calipers, both clamping onto 15.0-inch discs. The Veloce12 rolls on lightweight wheels, which together with the brakes reduce unsprung mass.
Those wheels are attached to a bespoke suspension created by a Dutch company called TracTive featuring adjustable dampers, allowing the Veloce12 to transition between a comfortable cruiser and a nimble sports car. Touring Superleggera also reinforced the chassis to improve torsional stiffness for better handling.
The cabin layout is identical to the 550 and looks lush thanks to swaths of brown leather and sleek metal trim. The climate controls are precision-machined, the pedals feature an complex latticework design, and the gauges sport a more contemporary look. Touring Superleggera says the color combinations for the interior will be unlimited.
Only 30 examples of the Veloce12 will be built, and Touring Superleggera says each will require 5000 hours to assemble. Production will kick off in the first quarter of 2025.
The Veloce12 will cost roughly the equivalent of $754,000 at current exchange rates, on top of the price of a donor Ferrari 550, which currently sells for around $200,000.
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