Ferrari F12berlinetta Says Goodbye West, Hello East

Ferrari F12berlinetta Says Goodbye West, Hello East:

All photos: Peter Orosz.

GENEVA — The introduction of the Ferrari F12berlinetta is the storied automaker’s final step in a styling language transition that started with the 458 Italia in 2009. That car, along with the four-seater FF and now the flagship F12, show where Ferrari is headed, and it’s not to the West.
The F12berlinetta unveiled here at the Geneva Motor Show is, the company says, the most ferocious road-going Ferrari ever. We’re not going to argue with the numbers, even if they’re so big as to border on irrelevant. The first is 750, as in horsepower, from a 6.3-liter V12. That puts Maranello ahead in the decades-old internecine power war with Lamborghini, which gets a mere 700 horses out of the Aventador. Seven-fifty also happens to be in the neighborhood of what a Formula 1 car makes do with, even if the F12 is quite a bit heavier at 3,362 pounds. Look for a sprint to 62 mph in 3.1 seconds and a top speed of 211 mph.
Rather irrelevant numbers in the real world, but that’s what sells supercars.
Far more interesting is the styling of the F12, which was penned at the Ferrari Styling Centre with help from Pininfarina. The best thing about modern Ferraris is they don’t always look like what people think a Ferrari should look like.


Take, for example, the amazing Enzo. Ten years on and many people still can’t wrap their heads around its function-over-form styling. The same could be said of the Ferrari FF, a shooting brake that is, in effect, a station wagon.
Which brings us to the F12.
The F12 looks huge, swoopy, dramatic, showy. That sweeping “S” curve on the side is impossible to miss, as is the leering front end. The car sports twin badges on its nose (one yellow, one chrome) and has zero pretense of being green or electric or in any way environmentally friendly. This is somewhat surprising, given that just two years ago Ferrari rolled into this very motor show with the scarab green 599 GTB HY-KERS hybrid, of all things.
The F12, with its look-at-me lines and liberal sprinkling of logos, is, perhaps even more than most Ferraris, meant to advertise new money. Like a Duesenberg in 1920s America, it’s an object that primarily will be used to show off wealth without subtlety. And these days, the new money is in the Middle East, Russia and China — which has surpassed the United States to become the world’s largest market. These markets are the big, fat bull’s eye every luxury automaker is aiming at, and designing cars for. It’s little wonder Ferrari’s massive theme park, with its snap-your-neck roller coaster, is not in the forests of Monza but the sands of Abu Dhabi.
Then again, when were supercars supposed to be quiet and understated? The F12 Berlinetta’s grandfather, the 550 Maranello, is very much the exception to the “more is more” ethos with its softly flowing, almost whispering, lines. And compared to boutique supercars like the Pagani Huayra and Koenigsegg Agera, the F12 is an exercise in moderation.
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