When we started talking about Ferrari SUVs

A tale of the first issue of DRIVEN and a Ferrari with a big boot

Ferrari is special to us at DRIVEN (yep, I know Ferrari is special to a lot of people) because it featured on the cover of our very first edition in 2011. So it’s especially special this year, as DRIVEN celebrates its 10th anniversary.

The Ferrari story in question was the international launch of the FF and the writer was a young(er), thin(ner) freelancejournalist version of me. There I am in the photo above, driving majestically through the Italian Alps looking like a movie star already decades past his prime. Good times.

Anyway, the FF remains interesting because it was really the first time “Ferrari” and “SUV” were mentioned in the same breath. It was a shooting brake-type thing with AWD (we even drove it on snow), decent rear seats and luggage space. Still with a howling

V12 though.

To paraphrase myself, at the time I said something along the lines of: “This is the closest thing we’ll ever get to a Ferrari SUV, because a high-riding five-door crossover simply doesn’t fit with the brand”.

What an idiot. Of course, Ferrari is indeed now making a proper SUV, the Purosangue (it means

“thoroughbred”). We still don’t know a whole lot about it, except that it’ll launch next year, will feature hybridised engines and will be scary-fast. Pure-electric versions are also on the cards.

A scalable platform also means it could provide the base for further family-oriented Ferraris. So never say never . . . about anything.