Ron here. I’ve spent most of this series arguing that character matters more than a badge, and the Purosangue is the clearest proof of that argument I’ve driven yet — it’s an SUV that never once let me forget it was a Ferrari.
Naturally aspirated V12, in an SUV body
725 hp is the number, and it’s a genuinely rare one for this segment — most rivals in the ultra-luxury SUV space have already moved to turbocharging or hybrid assistance, and Ferrari didn’t. The Purosangue’s V12 breathes naturally, revs the way a Ferrari engine is supposed to, and does it all while hauling a body two or three times the mass of the brand’s sports cars. That’s not a small engineering achievement. It’s arguably the harder problem than building another two-seat supercar.
Why Ferrari held out, and why it finally didn’t
Ferrari resisted building an SUV longer than almost any rival in this space, and the Purosangue reads like a brand that only agreed to build one on the condition that it wouldn’t compromise. Four real seats, four doors with the distinctive rear-hinged rear pair, and genuine practicality — but none of it came at the cost of the engine, the chassis tuning, or the fundamental feeling of driving a Ferrari rather than a tall car with a Ferrari badge on it.
What “still drives like a Ferrari” actually means
This isn’t marketing language. The Purosangue’s chassis is tuned to fight the extra height and weight an SUV body inevitably carries, and it does that job well enough that the difference between this and a lower two-seat Ferrari is smaller than the spec sheet would suggest. It doesn’t lean the way a tall vehicle usually does. It doesn’t feel like a compromise wearing a badge — it feels like Ferrari solved the actual engineering problem rather than settling for “good enough for an SUV.”
Where it sits against its rivals
The Purosangue already appeared in a group comparison against the Lamborghini Urus and BMW X5M — worth reading for how it stacks up directly. On its own terms, it remains the SUV in this fleet that makes the strongest case that “SUV” and “genuinely a Ferrari” aren’t in tension with each other.
The Ferrari Purosangue is bookable out of Monaco, the French Riviera, Munich, and Paris. Get in touch if you’d like to drive it yourself.