GENERATION GAIN

With its divisive looks and hybrid V6 engine, the Ferrari F80 looked set to disappoint after the Enzo and LaFerrari. How wrong can you be?

- James Dennison

NOT 20 SECONDS EARLIER, A FULLY stickered up Volkswagen Golf Mk6 screeched to a halt, did an abrupt U-turn, and accelerated hard up to my rear bumper.

Now he is shadowing my every move. This is a small town outside Rimini, not Maranello, and the mere sight of a new Ferrari, let alone the brand's latest €3.5-million (Rs 35 crore) halo car, is enough to cause a frenzy. And a car accident.

There is no rear window aboard the Ferrari F80 but the rear-view camera shows we are mere inches from a shunt. Like a Labrador with its snout pushed up against a fish-eye lens, the Golf's front end is filling the entire screen, aftermarket tricolore grille confirming the allegiance to all things Italian.

You would think a quick foray into the F80's vast reserves of almighty power would solve the problem pronto, but what the Golf lacks in oomph its driver makes up for in sheer commitment to the cause. A gap opens on the opposite side of the road and Golf man pulls alongside, his passenger hanging from the window, phone in hand. Resistance is futile; like teenagers at a Taylor Swift concert, these young Italians are getting their damn picture and there is nothing I or any other worldly force can do about it.

They say that in Italy, it is food, Ferrari, and the Pope—in that order. And even by Maranello's exacting standards, this latest car is a huge deal. Freshly sprouted atop a rich and bountiful tree of luxury models, the F80 is the replacement for the LaFerrari and a once-a-decade technical demonstration of what the world's most famous car manufacturer can do when it puts everything on the table. This time, however, the hybrid technology that underpins it is not an exploratory dive into the unknown, as it was with the LaFerrari, but a necessity.