Former Ferrari CEO, the late Sergio Marchionne, was quoted as saying “I'll step over my dead body” when asked about a possible Off-road of the Prancing Horse brand. He passed away in 2018, at the age of 66, and five years later, the Maranello-based company unveiled its first-ever crossover, or not an SUV as Ferrari likes to call it.
It's called the Purosangue, which means “thoroughbred” in Italian, and rather than using a new platform, which would have made it even more expensive, Ferrari decided to build it on the same foundations as the Roma. Measuring almost five meters in length and with a three-meter wheelbase, it's roughly the same size as one of its biggest rivals in the segment, the Lamborghini Urus, while being about 400 pounds (~200 kg) lighter.
Unveiled in the second half of 2022, the Ferrari Purosangue is the brand’s first estate car, though not the first to feature two rows of seats. It has a Roma-inspired aluminum body, rear-hinged doors, large wheels, and a sexy overall silhouette. Mind you, it’s far from the most beautiful Ferrari ever made, but the Purosangue isn’t the ugliest either.
Photo: Hollmann
Even more importantly, unlike the Lamborghini Urus, which offers a V8-powered range, including a plug-in hybrid version that adds the SE suffix and makes do with 789 horsepower (800 ps/588 kW) and 701 lb-ft (950 Nm) of torque, the Ferrari Purosangue stays true to the V12 recipe. According to the Italian exotic car maker, the 6.5-liter unit develops 715 horsepower (725 ps/533 kW) and pumps out 528 lb-ft (716 Nm) of torque.
The model’s spec sheet reveals that it takes just 3.3 seconds to cover the 0-62 mph (100 km/h) sprint, making the Ferrari Purosangue quicker than most previous-generation supercars. At full throttle, it can reach 217 mph or 350 km/h. By comparison, the more powerful Lamborghini Urus SE is a tenth of a second slower at 62, while the track-focused Urus Performante is just as quick. The SE and Performante’s top speeds are 194 and 190 mph (312-306 km/h).
While other car manufacturers tend to push a similar interior design across most of their models, Ferrari has done things very differently when it comes to the Purosangue's cabin. Here, it's quite unique and half of the dashboard panel looks like it was inspired by the 296 GTB. For an extra touch of cool, it's been replicated on the other side of the cabin and here you won't find a central display, but two separate ones in front of the driver and passenger, and we think this quirk is a plus from a visual standpoint.
Like all modern (and some older) Ferraris, the Purosangue costs a small fortune, and for the price of a unit, you could buy a very nice apartment in most of the Western world. The model’s manufacturer’s suggested retail price is just under $400,000 in the United States. However, once you factor in destination charges, often greedy dealer markups, and a few optional extras, it’s easy to get close to the half-million-dollar mark.
Photo: Hollmann
Some modified copies tend to be worth more than their weight in gold, and we have occasionally encountered a few looking for new owners on the used market. The tuning fairy has not visited the one you see in the photo above, even though it boasts some generous gadgets, including carbon fiber wheel arches, side sill covers, rear diffuser and mirror caps, a panoramic sunroof, ventilated front seats with massage, premium audio, colored stitching, adaptive headlights, titanium wheel bolts and so on.
This vehicle is presented in Nero, which means “black” in Italian, and has a red leather interior with several white accents and multiple black touches, including the upper dashboard, sides of the center console, carpets, pillars, and headliner. The Prancing Horse emblem has been proudly stitched into the headrests, and overall, you are looking at a brand new car with only the delivery miles on the odometer, that is looking to find a new owner on the used car market.
Hollmann International is behind the ad you can see here, which shows this Ferrari Purosangue from multiple angles and briefly touches on some of its selling points. But how much does this Italian super crossover cost? More than you (probably) can afford, buddy, as the asking price at the time of writing was €811,580 including taxes. That translates to nearly $900,000 at today’s exchange rate, or more than double the manufacturer’s suggested retail price of a brand-new copy in the US. Is it worth it? Would you buy it if you were a millionaire? I wouldn’t, as that kind of money would quench my thirst for cool cars for many years.