“This is not a smothering GT car like a Bentley, it’s a four-seat sports car”
Otherwise, everything is just as you’ll fnd it in the V12 GTC4. Only a new 20in wheel design sets the exterior apart, and inside there’s the same seating for four, fancy touchscreen and modestly usable stowage space. They say this car has more room than a Ford Focus, but the boot shape here is nowhere near as practical.
There’s also a familiar suite of electronics as standard. An electronic diferential, four-wheel steering and even Ferrari’s drift-hero Side Slip Control (SSC) system, all in their most up-to-date guises. The engineers insist the regular GTC4 only has four-wheel drive for really low-grip conditions, and even in the wet, their computer wizardry can make a 603bhp, 1.8-tonne rear-driven car entirely accessible.
And they’re right. This is an absurdly easy car to drive quickly. As always with modern Ferraris, the super-eager steering takes a short while to build confdence with, but it feels entirely natural once your nerve endings learn to keep up. Coupled with the four-wheel steering, this is a supremely agile car, one which only feels its size when you need to squeeze it through a small gap.
The steering-wheel manettino ficks through numerous modes, with Comfort replacing the Race of 488s et al. The ideal combination is seemingly Sport mode with the Comfort suspension, activated via the ‘bumpy road’ button. Thus set up, though, you’ll occasionally feel the stability control nibbling away at the power out of corners. Turn it of – bringing SSC to life – and the Lusso T doesn’t transform into a snappy hooligan. It simply becomes even more agile, moving subtly beneath you and cajoling you into driving it like you might a grippy RS Audi. It’s very good.
It’s also fast. While peak torque doesn’t arrive until 3,000rpm, there’s no discernible turbo lag, and the V8 never pauses to take breath. Such is its punch that if you’ve prodded the 7spd paddleshift ’box into manual mode, it’s too easy to bump into the 7,500rpm rev-limiter. That feels very conservatively set – the 488 GTB, with a diferent tune of this engine, hits 8,000rpm – hammering home that this isn’t a Ferrari engine at its most inspirational or exciting. The act of acceleration is gobsmacking, but the fun is all physical, not aural.
Get too excited and you’ll empty the tank in two hours, eroding those claims of extra range. The Lusso T is also stify sprung, and on poorly surfaced roads the suspension doesn’t do its work behind the scenes. While the car shrugs of bumps and sticks admirably to its line, they’re still telegraphed notably through the seat, and those big wheels thump around noisily. This is not a smothering GT car like a Bentley; instead it’s much closer to a four-seat sports car.
All told, it remains a unique proposition. Less comfy than GT cars, not as loopy as £200k-plus supercars, and considerably pricier than an equivalent Panamera. Yet its curious combination of talents (and faws) remains beguiling. We wish it revved more, though, and would happily trade £30k for another four cylinders, 2.4 litres and a 750rpm-higher red line. Sod choice – we’d stick with the V12.