Shortly after proclaiming that “you have to shoot me first” on the prospect of producing an SUV, the late Ferrari chief Sergio Marchionne confirmed that the prancing horse marque was “dead serious” about making its first sport utility vehicle. That was in 2016 and 2017, respectively. Fast forward to 2022, and that plan has come to fruition.
Folks, meet the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue, Ferrari’s first four-door, four-seater car which the Italian sports car maker falls short of calling a sport utility vehicle (the Maranello automaker insists it is NOT an SUV). But hey, if it walks like a duck, acts like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is a duck, right? So, yeah, Ferrari has finally joined its compatriots Lamborghini and Maserati in the SUV market. And it is kind of special too.
Powering it is a mid-front-mounted naturally-aspirated V12 motor producing 725 cv (715 HP) and 716 Nm (528 lb-ft) of torque, mated to a gearbox (an eight-speed F1 DCT) that is located all the way to rear to achieve a sporty transaxle layout that has a 49:51% weight distribution. A Power Transfer Unit (PTU) is coupled in front of the engine to provide a unique 4×4 transmission.
The car further boasts an electrically-powered active suspension technology called Multimatic’s True Active Spool Valve (TASV) System – a Ferrari’s first and a world’s first, btw – to control body roll.
In the numbers department, the 2023 Ferrari Purosangue will go from 0-100 km/h (0-62 mph) in 3.3 seconds and tops out at 193 mph (310 km/h).
Wrapping the Ferrari’s first is an all-new chassis featuring a carbon-fiber roof as standard and a la–RX8 style door configuration: a set of regular front doors that meet a set of rear-hinged back doors (aka welcome doors, or as most of us know it as suicide doors). Ferrari says that this setup makes ingress and egress easier while keeping the car as compact as possible. Nice.
The 2023 Ferrari Purosangue 4-door, 4-seater Performance Car is set to roll into the showrooms in Q4 2023 for US$400,000.
All images courtesy of Ferrari.
