SUPERCAR: UNDER THE TUSCAN SUN

Texting out the wicked new Ferrari 296 GTS in the foothills of Tuscany _near the marque’s Maranello home

- NICOLAS STECHER

There's something nearly out-of-body driving a Ferrari in these hills. Sublime even. Any time spent behind the wheel of one of their finest mid-engine supercars is a momentous occasion of course, but now, here-this feels even more transcendent. It's almost as if this Ferrari 296 GTS (Gran Turismo Spider) was engineered and designed... no, imagined to live in these specific winding roads carved above Maranello, famously home to the Ferrari factory. It's like experiencing Jiro Ono slicing you fatty tuna fresh from a stall in the Tsukiji Fish Market. Or Gieves & Hawkes tailoring a bespoke Savile Row suit for you, and wearing it to London's Animal Ball. It's all about purpose and place. Usually when epicures speak of terroir in these parts they're waxing poetic about the local Lambrusco wines-but let us tell you there's no greater sense of Italian terroir than driving a 8,500-rpm, redline-revving, gloriously nimble mid-engine Ferrari over the undulating foothills of Tuscany. Purpose and Place.

Oh the wail, that glorious high-pitched signature of the Prancing Horse in the 296 GTS, for the first time ever, this banshee call is summoned from a V6 (the only previous Enzo-touched V6 vehicles being the 1960/70s Dinos, not technically a Ferrari). Clumps of hair were pulled and teeth gnashed among global gearheads when Ferrari announced they were shifting from their beloved V8s to a plug-in hybrid V6, as is found here in this 296. Consternation that Ferrari would be sacrificing its unique, beloved full-throated timbre for CAFE law appeasement and downsizing.