Car review: Ferrari brings out the sweet life with the 12Cilindri Spider
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The hills are alive: The Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider makes a beautiful sound when its V12 engine sings.
PHOTO: FERRARI
LISBON – On one sunny but cool day in February, I get to drive around one of the oldest cities in Europe in a 12Cilindri Spider, becoming among the first people in the world to put the latest Ferrari through its paces.
If this is not the sweet life, or “la dolce vita” as the Italians call it, I do not know what is.
The Ferrari staff seem quite calm about handing me a $2 million car, unaccompanied, for a couple of hours.
After the first few kilometres in the supercar, threading a couple of roundabouts leading to the coastal road overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, I am feeling similarly relaxed – and not just because the people in red polo T-shirts are out of earshot.
Here is a car that is wider than a BMW 7-series limousine, has more power than six typical family cars combined and uses the kind of braking technology found in Formula One (F1) race cars.
Yet, it seems nearly as easy to drive as a Mercedes-Benz C-class.
The suspension shrugs off the potholes and road humps effortlessly, keeping the carbon-fibre diffuser and other intricate fins on the underside of the car from harm. The brake pedal feels meaty and as easy to modulate as conventional steel brakes.
The Spider is the convertible version of the 12Cilindri, which is a front-engine coupe. The name references the 12-cylinder engine format, historically one of the most evocative type of engines. F1 race cars used to be powered by V12s and this is still the preferred format for top-level exotic road cars.
Aerodynamically tuned: The edges on the side of the boot will extend at speed to increase stability.
PHOTO: FERRARI
The way the car looks, according to Mr Flavio Manzoni, Ferrari’s chief design officer, is intended to draw inspiration from science fiction and the 1970s, which he calls “the most wonderful era in car design”.
Fans of classic sports cars may identify hints of the 1968 Ferrari 365 GTB/4 in the front end of the 12Cilindri.
To these eyes, the pronounced haunch over the rear wheel also looks a little like the one in the 1960s Japanese manga, Speed Racer. The triangular flaps on the side of the boot lid will extend and retract, depending on driving conditions, for aerodynamic efficiency.
It looks interesting and edgy, if not beautiful in the classical sense.
The 6.5-litre V12 engine makes 819hp at more than 9,000rpm. Smaller engines with fewer cylinders can make as much power, if not more. But the way the naturally aspirated V12 delivers its performance and the sound it makes when going about its business set it apart from the V6 and V8 engines of this world.
It is also as far from electric vehicles as possible, doing without any sign of hybridisation.
The coastal road located a couple of junctions from where the drive begins is littered with coaches stopping by the side for tourists to grab wefies with the crashing waves as their backdrop. The Ferrari slips by without drawing too much attention.
Pottering along with the engine turning at less than 3,000rpm, the mighty V12 feels docile.
Grand tour-ready: The cabin is equipped to pamper occupants on long intercontinental drives.
PHOTO: FERRARI
The low road speed is a good opportunity to get a handle on the user interface. Nearly all the key controls are on the steering wheel, as you would expect from the brand so closely associated with F1 racing.
Well, Sir Lewis Hamilton, the seven-time world champion who joins the Scuderia Ferrari race team for the 2025 campaign,
On the 12Cilindri, like other modern road-going Ferraris, these functions are controlled by toggle switches located around the Prancing Horse emblem on the steering wheel.
There are also touch-sensitive buttons with haptic feedback for functions like cruise control, phone and vehicle assistance systems, nestled at the other corners of the steering wheel.
Surprisingly, it does not take very long to know and understand the interface. But I manage to accidentally activate some features a couple of times because my thumbs brush the haptic controls.
I may not be alone in experiencing this. On request, Ferrari will retrofit the 12Cilindri’s steering wheel with physical buttons – as seen on the 1,200hp F80 hypercar.
The relatively compact touchscreen in the middle of the dashboard is good. The display is crisp and responsive. Besides various infotainment features and the climate control, this is also where you find the seat massage and ventilation functions.
Fussing over touchscreen sensitivity or whether how the interface works with an Apple iPhone may seem irrelevant in a supercar, but the 12Cilindri is not quite the kind of Ferrari most would have in mind. This is supposed to be a grand tourer, the kind of sports cars that people use to cover vast distances.
If you are going to drive across multiple European countries in a single day, you want to know that the shiatsu massage in the 12Cilindri works well.
With the weather as favourable as it is during my time in Lisbon, the only way to do better than to motor along in a Ferrari grand tourer is to do it with the roof folded away to let in the sun, wind and the voice of its V12 engine.
The 12Cilindri Spider’s three-piece hardtop takes 14 seconds to fold itself into the crevice just ahead of the boot. It can do so at speeds up to 45kmh.
The 200-litre boot is good enough for some soft overnight bags, while the 92-litre fuel tank should be able to cover more than 500km before it needs a fill-up.
Besides losing 70 litres in boot space over the coupe version of the 12Cilindri, the folding roof mechanism and additional bits to strengthen the chassis add 60kg to the overall weight of the car.
The Ferrari does not feel any less urgent or effortless from the penalty.
At 1,620kg, before adding fluids such as fuel and lubricants, the Spider is 154kg lighter than the Aston Martin Vanquish coupe, which has a 5.2-litre twin-turbo V12 engine.
Ferrari says it has worked to ensure that the Spider’s interior remains comfortably quiet when the roof is folded, including a special fin design on the top of the buttresses behind the seats to direct rushing air away from the cabin.
It works well enough, until I reach unprintable speeds.
Songbird: The 6.5-litre V12 engine has a voice that is unique to this type of engine.
PHOTO: FERRARI
Uncorking the V12 to race towards its nearly 10,000rpm rev limiter is a unique experience. There are no spikes in the power delivery or harshness across the rev range. The engine just purrs.
On the narrower country roads, away from houses, the car feels accurate and nimble enough to drive with more aggression.
The steering is as quick as anyone will need it to be and there is rarely any need to cross your arms when tackling winding roads.
Part of the agility comes from the rear-axle steering feature, which points the rear wheels in the opposite direction from the front at lower speeds.
The system feels natural, almost invisible to the driver. From behind the wheel, the car feels composed and progressive, rather than overly pointy or nervous.
With my road-reviewer hat on, I would say that the car may be very slightly stiffer when the roof is closed, as the reflection in the rear-view mirror seems more stable.
Well, forget about the supposed trade-offs, because the heightened sensations that come with having the roof off more than compensate.
As the song of the V12 reverberates among the hills, mixed with the fragrance of the flowers... Now, what is that phrase I am looking for? It is la dolce vita, of course.
Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider
Price: $2,071,475 without certificate of entitlement and options
Engine: 6,496cc 48-valve, V12
Transmission: Eight-speed dual-clutch with paddle shift
Power: 819hp at 9,250rpm
Torque: 678Nm at 7,250rpm
0-100kmh: <3 seconds
Top speed: >340kmh
Fuel consumption: 15.9 litres/100km
Agent: Ita Auto
Behind the scenes in Lisbon
It took six months to plan the event to host 121 journalists over three weeks.
Over 40 staff were on-site to run the event.
The eight cars used by the media at the event are identical, with at least one or two spares as backups, in case test cars are damaged.
Lisbon was chosen for its history and the particularly strong waves here, which Mr Alessandro Vaccari, press manager for Ferrari Sports Cars, said matched the image of the 12Cilindri Spider – which is about “nobility”, while the V12 engine is like “a force of nature”.
There are currently no plans to hold such events beyond Europe, because it would take too long to get the approvals to export the cars and conduct the test drives before showing the cars to customers and dealers.
