The annual request from the editors: give us your ‘favourite’ car of the past 12 months. I dislike this task because choosing a favourite is too black-and-white an approach when the list includes everything from the madness of an S1 Elise with 300bhp to a purple Rolls Wraith, skulking through Clerkenwell at midnight, utterly in its film-noir element. A comparison framework just doesn’t exist.
However, when pushed, my thoughts drifted to the summer. Summer, and seven or so miles of B-road in Lanarkshire plus one V12 Ferrari, resulting in a comprehensively blown mind.
I really am loathe to give a Ferrari the nod because choosing the world’s most fetishised supercar maker is unimaginative. But whether or not you like the design direction (I mostly do), and the way the company does business, the truth is that Ferrari is making outstanding cars in the current era, and if the photo above didn’t depict the 12Cilindri it may very well have shown the new 296 Speciale, which is also a car you might genuinely sell a minor organ to own.
That Lanarkshire B-road. I hit it after 200 easy miles of motorway running. At the other end it, Matt Prior was waiting in an Aston Martin, so we could conduct a twin test between these two monumental super-GTs. It was a big day in the office with real interest in the outcome. And yet, having written a 4000-word Vanquish road test earlier in the year and therefore knowing the car’s brilliance reasonably well, I knew the verdict within minutes of pulling off the motorway in the Ferrari. The doomed Aston had had it.
In fairness, both GTs have their strengths and are actually much more of a complementary offering than the arch-nemesis billing suggests. If you had the means, they’d sit aside one another in the same garage, ready to undertake different tasks. Driving 500 miles tomorrow? Honestly, just take the Brit. The cabin atmos is dreamy and there’s a strand of S-Class coupe – an intensely underrated car – in the DNA that does it no harm at all.
However, in raw dynamic terms, if the road ahead is even vaguely interesting, you want to find yourself in the Italian car and I cannot stress this enough. Ride, handling, steering, brakes: it’s no contest, and driven with some commitment you quickly realise the 12Cilinidri has to go down as one of the greatest performance cars there has ever been. Even before you consider the engine!
I’ll accept that the Ferrari’s manner isn’t for everyone and, yes, there’s a vestigial sharpness to the steering from the old and sometimes absurdly reactive F12 Berlinetta. But the factory’s slightly throttling-back on the character the F12 and the 812 Superfast means the 12Cilindri in a car that you can very quickly become at one with, and that’s just a fabulous place to be. Take it as read that the fundamental balance of the thing is perfect. No, really: perfect. Vertical control? The damping is exquisite. This car doesn’t so much roll along as surf. It almost seems to predict the future. Then add the linear power delivery.
It all combines to give you the confidence required to manhandle the thing like it’s an 819bhp Toyota GR86. Drive it precisely or drive it arse-out – it’s up to you and the result is the same. Deep, deep joy and crossover between technical ability and pure romance that very few cars ever get close to achieving. As for the ravenous depreciation these cars are apparently suffering from… Good.
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