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No It's Not An SUV

BBC TopGear India

|

April 2024

But an FUV Ferrari Utility Vehicle

- RAMESH SOMANI

No It's Not An SUV

Ferrari Purosangue has rewritten history for Ferrari; it’s something that no one had anticipated. The growing popularity of luxury performance SUVs has resulted in writing on every Italian wall for a need for accessible four-door, four-seat, four-wheel-drive SUVs, which can still be a behemoth with a 6.5-litre V12, and is a quintessential Ferrari. It was the loud request from its customers, as well as market dynamics, seeing the phenomenal success of the Lamborghini Urus must have also played a crucial role in Ferrari going back to the drawing board and blessings the world with the Purosangue.

It has been re-engineered and is unique; the bonnet opens the other way, and the rear doors open the opposite way, like a Rolls Royce, and surprisingly, it has good space inside. The Phantom’s luxury and comfort can’t be matched but the rear two passengers won’t complain for even a 1000 km ride. Ferrari does not think it made an SUV, but an FUV - Ferrari Utility Vehicle; difficult to digest, but they have a point, and what’s in a name if the names of Lamborghini and Renault were swapped, it would still mean the same. I spent a little over 24 hours with the Purosangue in the desert city of Dubai and absolutely loved it, also because it’s understated and at times passed off oblivious of the fact that it’s a supercar and it’s a Ferrari. It does not get the eye-rubbing attention a Spyder or an F8 tributo of SF90 would get, and that’s sometimes a good thing. Purosangue has battered physics by rocketing from a standstill to 100kmph in 3.3 seconds, still weighing over two tonnes and four usable seats that can fit large-sized adults.

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