IMO the Porsche analysis works best. If you walk into the showroom right now and want a 5 door, practical, superfast car you have the option of the Panamera Sport Turismo Turbo Hybrid S or the Cayenne with equivalent engine. Even though the Cayenne is really good at what it does, I do question the very point of it...and if speed/good road holding is something I really want, logic dictates I should go with the Panamera. And that's my issue with the Puresangue. Whilst I really like what we've seen so far, I can't help but think (know!) that if they build a new Lusso (3 or 5 door I don't care), I'd go for that every time. Whilst the Cayenne is really good it will forever remain a compromised car IMO. Interior space isn't maximized and offroad capability isn't as good, either. If I lived in an environment where I actually needed offroad capabilities I'd go straight to the Ford dealer and order the Raptor RR. And if I wanted space and luxury, Land Rover for a full size range rover or even Bentley for the Bentayga, RR for Culinan. I guess my point is, I don't understand the S (sport) bit in SUV.
I don’t get all the hand wringing. Enzo sold road cars to fund his racing passion. He was willing to consider handing over control of road car operations to Ford to keep his racing operations alive. The deal fell apart because Ford also wanted control over racing decisions and that crossed his red line. He didn’t care that they could control road car production. And why do we even care what Enzo may have wanted? If he were still alive and running the company (into the ground btw) he’d probably have sold off the road car division to someone else if Fiat wasn’t an option and focus purely on F1. If his business people came to him and said if we build this SUV we can remain independent AND fund racing he would have signed off on the project in a millisecond. I have no problem with the SUV and someday may buy one. I like driving Ferraris, I like their style, handling, and performance. And to be perfectly honest I am willing to admit I like the buzz of seeing the prancing horse on my steering wheel. I worked hard and made more right decisions than wrong, and it is a reward. As I age it is nice to have a prancing horse car that isn’t so painful to get in and out of.
The best idea they should have had was to be original in this SUV world and make a modern interpretation of the 400. During Ferrari events, it will be terrible to see rows of well-aligned PS! And for the 80th anniversary in Maranello, beautiful rows of full electric Ferraris. It makes you want !!!
In my modest opinion the only reason Ferrari has entered the SUV market, as always, has to do with money and that's not necessarily a bad thing. We have to recognize that Ferrari's marketing is brilliant and proof of this is the invention of the word FUV "Ferrari Utility Vehicle" that embodies the intended entire "unique" concept of the Purosangue. Ferrari's former Chief Technical Executive explained what the concept means "I think we've found a concept and a package which is on one side a real SUV and will convince SUV customers to buy it, but on the other side there's a huge differentiation of concept to existing SUVs” However, we have to wait for the presentation of the Purosangue to be able to confirm whether or not this car actually materializes the much-vaunted unique concept.
Purosangue announcement made, VIPs contacted, and the horse is out of the stable. Time for a dedicated Purosangue thread.
Clarification: need to add Purosangue heading in “Model specific discussions.” It is now its own category separate from this category “FF/Lussso/F12/812S.”
If you’re imagining one scenario that didn’t happen, just imagine little further and you’ll see the PS there too! [emoji16] I’m kidding of course but my point is you can’t “imagine” one thing that never happened to support your argument but not “imagine” another. Once you hit imagination land all bets are off. Oh, and you wouldn’t see the GTs of the 60’s at LeMans even with heavy modifications. The circuit was just too demanding for all but the most purpose built cars. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat.com mobile app
So much here I agree with, the PS is a hard pill to swallow, it kind of hurts my soul, but evolution is often hard to accept. I remember when they told me I was now going to have to send emails, I said f^*k that, I will make calls on the phone, look at me now. lets not forget at the same time Ferrari is expanding its view of the 2+2 to fit 2023+, it is making some of the best sport cars it has ever made (some design work excluded), making strides in F1, respecting its roots in vintage with Clissiche, honoring its past with the Icona series, they are doing more right than wrong. The PS does not destroy the Bran Positioning, it expands the territory, and the other cars keep it on point.
And their passenger cars in the 50's and 60's did have competition versions and race, not that different than Ferrari's GT cars today. Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login Image Unavailable, Please Login
And my god, they were magnificent, Forza Ferrari!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After seeing these images it reminds me why its so important to fire Flavio Manzoni
This hit me the other day too. I think I really sexy, proper four door sport sedan could be really interesting. I think most could get a around a 4 door GT car before an suv/fuv. With that said, I get the suv market ups huge and I am still signing up for one.
I do not agree that they should have done or should do a sedan. Once you bend to market realities and choose pragmatism over high ideals, you may as well be commercially successful at it. If you’re going to sell your soul to the devil, you may as well get rich. A sedan is no less a compromise to racing ideals and the brand’s history than an SUV. And sedans are declining in popularity while SUVS are taking more and more market share from them every year. SUVs are what the consumer wants. From a business perspective, Ferrari made the right decision by going with an SUV and it’s not even a close call.
Manzoni is an accomplished genius and nobody could do a better job at managing all of his disparate design mandates than he and his entire team at Centro Stile. This constant pining for the beautiful Ferraris of yore is out of touch nostalgia, as great as those cars were. Do you want Ferrari to make every single car look like the Roma?
i shouldn’t have used sedan…meant four door coupe (yes I understand that is an oxymoron but plenty are using it) I meant a four door lusso or FF…which is what I thought you meant about the 400. Disagree they need to chase a market segment. Ferraris order books are full and if they want to add new buying segments something like the gle coupe (more car, less suv) would get a lot of younger/different requirements people interested. I had an FF for 5+ years because my growing son could fit it in and we could travel as family…many others have bought it for similar reasons. It was a gift to my wife for her 40th so I think it was attracting a new buyer that wasn’t there before. She would have never driven a 612. I was thinking that his is where F would land but not so sure with the leaked photos.
Respectfully … all of these practical considerations, being able to travel with the entire family, trundle tons of luggage to the airport, a car for the wife to drive … these are practical considerations for everyday mundane cars. These are light years away from the exhilaration of driving a race car derived sports car as it is meant to be driven. As much as I recognize the need for them to make an SUV, there IS something sad about, as day355 put it, going to a Ferrari event in the near future and seeing row after row of prancing horse badged SUVs lined up one next to the other.
Of the 10k per year cars they build how many Ferraris do you believe spend any time driven anywhere near they limits on a track or otherwise? 2%? 5? I don’t see any reason this newest line couldn’t be used just as little at the limit.
You’re right. People buy Ferraris for different reasons and use them differently. Members of this forum are all too aware that a huge percentage of Ferraris are used as peacocking tools, poodling along the Ocean Drives and shopping boulevards of the world, But while Ferrari can’t control what other people do with their cars, they CAN control the kind of vehicles they make and what the brand stands for. Let’s admit it. An SUV is a compromise of their principles and that’s sad. Becaue it was nice seeing a Lamborghini SUV but NOT a Ferrari one. And it was nice seeing an Aston and a Porsche SUV and NOT a Ferrari one. Ferrari is going to make this thing a wonder to drive and a lap time marvel, but it’s still a loss of innocence, a compromise of noble purpose, that we are witnessing. It’s like in a novel or a film when you have an idealistic dreamer hero and the cynical reality of the mundane world catches up with him and changes him into someone like … everybody else.
I agree that a four-door SUV subverts some of Ferrari's principles as a sports car manufacturer, although they claim that the Purosangue is not an SUV but a FUV. During the Dino project Enzo was contrasted with an identical problem because he proposed to produce a less powerful and cheaper model, which would also subvert some of the brand's principles at the time. That's why he chose not to use the Ferrari name and emblem. Using a similar strategy in the case of the Purosangue might have been a good idea to preserve the integrity of the brand as a sports car maker. But I doubt that the overwhelming majority of potential buyers of the Purosangue would continue to be so if it ceased to have the Ferrari name and emblem. In the case of the Dino buyers were disheartened by the fact that the cars did not have the prancing horse logo. It was rumored that American car dealers used to even put Ferrari stickers on Dino models on their own accord because it was the only way they could persuade customers to buy them.
