Ferrari Purosangue review

It's more raised sports estate than true SUV, so is this Ferrari the market's best tall car to drive?

Ah, the Ferrari Purosangue. An SUV. The first Ferrari SUV, no less. But also, according to its maker, absolutely not an SUV. 

You can see why Ferrari would get a bit cagey about the the semantics. Not too long ago, its CEO swore blind there would never be an SUV from Maranello, and yet the Purosangue – though rakish, V12-fired and as dramatic to behold on the road as any other front-engined Ferrari you care to mention – has four-wheel drive and a raised ride height. It's an SUV, in short, and with it Ferrari finally falls into line with Porsche, Aston Martin, Bentley and even Lamborghini.

Ferrari maintains that only 20% of all its output will be allowed to be the Purosangue, so there's no way that, as for Porsche, Bentley or Lamborghini, SUVs will make up half or more of its sales.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

But don't we roll your eyes at this point. Never mind the 6.5-litre, naturally aspirated engine: the Purosangue also has truly active suspension, with each damper controlled by an electrically powered gear assembly. Such technology (eye-wateringly expensive, word has it) promises to bring about handling poise and accuracy the traditional super-SUV has never before known. This is also a decently practical car, if you can get comfortable with its considerable width. And soul? Well, we're about to find out just how much of that the Purosangue has.

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DESIGN & STYLING

Ferrari Purosangue 01

Fact: the Purosangue (pronounced 'pure-oh-sang-way') is Ferrari’s first ever car with four passenger doors. Unlike the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus, Porsche Cayenne etc, it doesn’t share its architecture with another vehicle, utilising instead a largely aluminium monocoque. And it has a price and mechanical layout that really makes a statement, as £313,120 (and I’m told that dealers aren’t interested until you’re adding £60,000 of options to that) and naturally aspirated, 6.5-litre, 715bhp, 528lb ft, 16.5mpg V12 engines, sited behind the front axle line, tend to.

The driveline is derived from the FF/GTC4 Lusso’s that came before the Purosangue in that there’s a twin-clutch transaxle gearbox (now eight-speed) at the rear, with a separate two-speed unit taking power from the front of the crankshaft, with a clutch for each halfshaft to provide part-time four-wheel drive.

Every other posh manufacturer has used an SUV as an entry point. Not Ferrari, though.
Murray Scullion
Digital editor

Customers love their GTC4s (and FFs), but they’re still long, low shooting brakes, with bold, irresistibly scrapable noses and only two doors, so they’re not as usable as owners would like them to be. So voilà, a tall car with a 185mm ground clearance, four doors, a hatchback and even Isofix child-seat mounts. The Purosangue is big (4.97m long and 2.0m wide), but at 1.59m high, it’s still lower by 29mm than the Urus and 91mm than the DBX. That the back doors hinge rearwards means the B-pillar can be more compact and the 3018mm wheelbase is shorter than it would be if they opened forwards. It also leaves their hefty mechanisms sited near a point of high nodal stiffness.

The Purosangue’s transaxle helps distribute the 2033kg kerb weight 49:51 front to rear, and it ensures the car will only ever have four seats, given the gearbox sits between the two rear ones. A typical adult seated behind a typical adult will have a hand’s width of head and leg room, and those seats also fold electrically.

INTERIOR

Ferrari Purosangue 08

The boot is 473 litres with the seats in place, compared with 600-plus litres for the various Volkswagen Group rivals. While you can spec a hard-carpeted bolster to lay across the seatbacks and save them from scratches, it’s more likely that you will mount skis or bicycles to an optional gizmo for the bootlid.

That would cut quite a dash as you scrabbled to the edge of a muddy or icy car park on a set of winter tyres to begin your adventures. Not quite ‘skis on a Lotus Esprit’ but satisfyingly exotic.

It's a proper Ferrari inside. Not a Land Rover.
Matt Prior
Editor-at-large

Nestled in its heated seats, there’s a pleasing feel to the Purosangue’s cockpit. It’s certainly laden with familial trappings. There’s a heavily sculpted dash with notable separation between driver and passenger. The driving position is sound and visibility reasonable; I can just see a front-wing haunch but then the view of the bonnet slips away, while the rear window is small to make the car look more muscly at the bottom than the top, to good effect.

I think Ferrari felt stung by criticism of the ergonomics of the 296 and Roma, so there are new features too. There’s only one scrollable screen rather than two on the digital instrument cluster, while the steering-wheel controls are now textured so that you can feel for them rather than having to peer at them.

Behind the wheel’s rim are big, fixed gearshift paddles that are, as usual, the best in the business. Ferrari doesn’t like column stalks, because they obstruct the paddles, which is why so many buttons make it onto the steering wheel. Presumably, this is a more complicated conversation than before: normally in a Ferrari, engineers say, the ultimate winner in an argument will be whatever improves a car’s performance – hence big paddles win over simple indicator stalks. But for the first time, the development process hasn’t been all about performance but functionality and usability, too. Aston Martin’s boffins said similar things about the DBX.

On the centre of dash is a rotary dial for the temperature that, if you push it and swipe it, adjusts the seat bolsters, heating outlets and more. It’s more fiddly than a bunch of separate buttons but not dreadfully complex, while phone mirroring is the only way to have sat-nav. The steering wheel’s rotary ‘manettino’ drive control dial has Ice, Wet, Comfort, Sport and Stability Off modes, and if you want to change the damper settings (we will come to those), you give it a push. Ultimately, it’s a pretty easy environment from which to focus on driving.

ENGINES & PERFORMANCE

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Ferrari Purosangue 03

We haven't formally road-tested the Purosangue with our usual telemetry equipment, because Ferrari doesn't like to submit its non-mid-engined products to the scrutiny of a circuit environment (which we need, if not for limit-handling assessment then to at least get the basic straight-line performance figures). We can't therefore tell you much about this car's outright speed, at least in purely objective terms, beyond stating what Ferrari says it does.

That said, there's little reason to doubt the claimed 3.3sec 0-62mph time, or indeed the 192mph top speed, for those times when you find yourself on a quite autobahn at night. The Purosangue weighs in excess of two tonnes, but any initial fears that this 6.5-litre V12 – whose 528lb ft torque total arrives at a comparatively heady 6250rpm – wouldn't have the low-down grunt required for SUV duties have proven unfounded. Rushed overtakes will require you to drop a cog or two, which they might not in the something turbocharged, like Aston Martin's DBX 707, but this is only rarely required. Most of the time, Purosangue simply goes, with deep purr and heavenly throttle response. 

Small things like the large gearshift paddles make such a difference in a performance car.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

The gearbox also deserves special mention. This dual-clutch unit isn't quite as sharp as it is in Ferrari's proper sports car but it's no slouch. What Purosangue does borrow from its lower-slung siblings are the huge gearshift paddles, and so neat is the handling (as we will shortly discover) that you may well find yourself taking manual control of the ’box and really enjoying a good stretch of road. 

RIDE & HANDLING

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Ferrari Purosangue 06

At low speeds, the ride mooches gently, and while the steering is quick, with a 14:1 ratio similar to the GTC4’s, it doesn’t feel as nervous as that, nor any other recent front-engined V12 Ferrari.

They’re always pointy and direct, and this is similarly accurate, with two turns between locks, but its initial response feels more measured. The cabin feels further forwards than those coupés/breadvans too, even though the engine is set well aft. And as a result, I feel like I’m located in the middle of the car, rather than over the back axle holding onto the reins of a flighty front end. There’s a natural feel to it all, even though active rear steer is one of a raft of standard technologies.

It’s like a GTC4 Cross Country or an FF Dakar.
Richard Lane
Deputy road test editor

There are more of those, most notable among them being the new Multimatic spool-valve dampers whose workings – and how they replace anti-roll bars. Lordy, they’re complicated, but they’re brilliant – able to resist the car’s pitch and roll as confidently as they do.

They have three settings: soft, medium and (surprise) hard, and for my money, in all of them bump absorption is better than any car with 23in wheels and 30-section tyres has any right to be. This is largely a quiet, confident, mature car, more solid-feeling than any Ferrari I can remember. A sound cruiser, I’d think – although we will have to spend motorway time with it later.

With that, though, body control is also tight. If the Purosangue were sufficiently light, the 48V suspension system would put enough force into itself to pitch into corners, rather than just roll less than expected.

How much less than expected? The Purosangue isn’t that tall (at one point I follow a Citroën Berlingo and figure its driver and I are at about the same level), but the Ferrari’s body movements are tied down like I wouldn’t expect from even this modest elevation.

Ferrari Purosangue news

Showdown: New Ferrari Purosangue vs Aston Martin DBX 707
Showdown: New Ferrari Purosangue vs Aston Martin DBX 707
Showdown: New Ferrari Purosangue vs Aston Martin DBX 707
Showdown: New Ferrari Purosangue vs Aston Martin DBX 707
Report: Ferrari Purosangue order books close at two-year wait
Report: Ferrari Purosangue order books close at two-year wait
Ferrari's 715bhp V12 Purosangue SUV to start from £313,000
Ferrari's 715bhp V12 Purosangue SUV to start from £313,000

It’s taut, controlled and agile for a car with an engine this size out the front, and with this kerb weight and this ground clearance. And boy, it’s fast. It has a very honest big-coupé vibe.

I try to think of the car it reminds me of most and ultimately settle not on its 4x4 competitors from the Volkswagen Group or Rolls-Royce but an Aston Martin, although not the obvious one either. Instead, I imagine what an Aston Martin Rapide would have been like if it had been jacked up, not to full SUV levels but to those of cars that get Dakar, Allroad, Cross Country or Scout monikers.

The similarities are there: aluminium chassis, front-mounted V12, transaxle, four seats, modest hatchback. The Ferrari bods are right: this isn’t an SUV, it’s a Rapide Allroad.

Ultimately, its handling balance has that presence. There’s enough power here to overwhelm sticky rubber on a warm day (where it would do 0-62mph in 3.3sec and 193mph), so with winter tyres on glassy, frosty or truly snowy gravel tracks, it has a surplus of hoon.

The Purosangue slides and skips and yumps with supreme ease and balance and then settles again with the deftness of a stage-ready rally car. It’s not an off-roader, and it’s not a 4x4, really. It can’t even tow anything. But as a way to have the V12 Ferrari experience in a relaxed setting without having to worry that you will crack four grand’s worth of carbonfibre on a driveway ramp, look no further.

Snow, no snow, it doesn’t matter: this car is a laugh. The DBX 707 is perhaps more flamboyantly keen to shout. The Cayenne Turbo GT is perhaps the only road-pummelling SUV that would equal the Purosangue for seriousness. And I still think this car will never be quite as cool as a GTC4. But this is a car Ferrari had to make, and while you excuse some car makers their SUVs because they let them make enough money to produce the sports cars we love, the Purosangue does for its maker what a lot of SUVs can’t for theirs: it actually feels like a Ferrari. 

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MPG & RUNNING COSTS

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Ferrari Purosangue

Use the Purosangue anything like Ferrari intends to you and you'll be lucky to get 20mpg. Will owners care? Frankly, not at all. The only thing likely to concern them is convenience, and given this car has a generous 100-litre tank, its touring range is actually fairly good. 

Then there's the cost of the Purosangue itself: around £313,000, which will swell dramatically with options (carbonfibre trim is particularly expensive). Aston's DBX 707 is less than £210,000 and the Bentley Bentayga – a superior car to the Ferrari in terms of comfort and rolling refinement – is about the same, depending on model. The Ferrari changes the super-SUV game in terms of handling ability, but you pay for it alright.

VERDICT

Ferrari Purosangue 02

Ferrari has had to reach deep into the technological closet (hello active dampers) to deliver something as ambitious as the Purosangue, but the result is stunningly capable and, yes, feels like a proper Maranello car.

Even so, this is not the easiest super-SUV to live with. There are more spacious, more light-filled and more easily maneouvreable alternatives out there that are certainly no slower on the road and also offer plenty of satisfaction for the driver.

However, with the Purosangue Ferrrari really has indeed managed to instil from of its classic DNA into an SUV package, only with a dollop of class-defying body control in the mix. It's a spectacular achievement.  

 

Richard Lane

Richard Lane, Autocar
Title: Deputy road test editor

Richard joined Autocar in 2017 and like all road testers is typically found either behind a keyboard or steering wheel (or, these days, a yoke).

As deputy road test editor he delivers in-depth road tests and performance benchmarking, plus feature-length comparison stories between rival cars. He can also be found presenting on Autocar's YouTube channel.

Mostly interested in how cars feel on the road – the sensations and emotions they can evoke – Richard drives around 150 newly launched makes and models every year. His job is then to put the reader firmly in the driver's seat. 

Matt Prior

Matt Prior
Title: Editor-at-large

Matt is Autocar’s lead features writer and presenter, is the main face of Autocar’s YouTube channel, presents the My Week In Cars podcast and has written his weekly column, Tester’s Notes, since 2013.

Matt is an automotive engineer who has been writing and talking about cars since 1997. He joined Autocar in 2005 as deputy road test editor, prior to which he was road test editor and world rally editor for Channel 4’s automotive website, 4Car. 

Into all things engineering and automotive from any era, Matt is as comfortable regularly contributing to sibling titles Move Electric and Classic & Sports Car as he is writing for Autocar. He has a racing licence, and some malfunctioning classic cars and motorbikes.