The Perfect Storm

Sideways rain, hail, and red weather warning gusts meet a rear-wheel-drive V12 convertible. Ferrari's ultimate droptop GT braves Storm Herminia

- Jake Groves

IT WAS MEANT TO BE SIMPLE. ESCAPE THE United Kingdom, battered and bruised by Storm Eowyn, to the lighter and brighter Mediterranean to take full advantage of Ferrari’s new 12Cilindri Spider. But west of Lisbon, with a dense rectangular Ferrari key in my hand, I am all too aware that the sky is full of ominous clouds being hurled about by bellowing, howling winds. It seems I have escaped one storm only to end up in the clutches of another: Storm Herminia.

A good thing, then, that Ferrari say the 12Cilindri (a reminder for the class: dodi-chi chilin-dri) is their “most complete” GT car ever and, therefore, designed to cope with this outbreak of reality. It might just work. Yes, it is wetter and windier than you would generally want, but in many ways this is prime GT territory. These coastal roads bordered by craggy, sea-blasted rocks look very dramatic and I can just picture this Ferrari being a glamorous and graceful way to enjoy the scenery.

If Ferrari are touting this as the most well-rounded V12 car they have ever made, it should be in its element here. If only the elements, in the form of Storm Herminia, were not currently threatening my very existence. I am not being dramatic; some red “threat to life” weather warnings have been issued in the area.

Standing next to the 12Cilindri, even as Herminia starts to push me around with its gusts, I am trying to get my head around the styling. There is a lot going on; it is beset with every curve and angle imaginable. Is it classically pretty? Probably not. Is it as futuristic as Ferrari’s charismatic Design Chief Flavio Manzoni says it is? That retro front end—very clearly inspired by the Daytona of the late 1960s—makes it hard to swallow that argument whole. And yet I am still captivated, staring at the details from all sides.