What's Wrong With This Picture: Ferrari Brakes Down Industry Stereotypes Edition

Looking at this picture of Ferrari’s newest GT model, I can’t fight the smile that it brings to my face. Only yesterday, I asked TTAC’s Best And Brightest to square the eternal tension between the enthusiast’s love for unusual, communicative, original cars and the bland, practical vehicles that allow the industry to even consider the needs of those few of us who truly enjoy our cars. And while TTAC’s readers discussed the tortured relationships between enthusiasts and the industry they simultaneously love and hate, I spent some much-needed alone time in a car that could no more be described as boring than it could be described as a sales success (BMW sold nearly ten times the total production run of Z3 Coupes in each year of Z3 Roadster sales). And which has a remarkably similar profile to this new Ferrari FF.

Leave it to the Maranello madmen to popularize (and doubtless make tons of money off of) a look that previously separated the fans of unique quirk from even the sportscar mass market. No other automaker does as fine a job of turning the bizarre desires of the enthusiast community into a profitable business. Unlike BMW, Ferrari won’t need to sell ten twee soft-top versions of the FF to subsidize each sale of this handsome shooting brake… from its lofty peak atop the enthusiast-car competition, Ferrari can not only set the market’s tastes, it can make money doing it. But then, Ferrari has no more “freed millions from the tyranny of immobility” than I have… so perhaps this sudden embrace of a noble yet-neglected automotive form isn’t as significant as circumstances make it seem in my eyes.

[Hit the jump for actual information about the Ferrari FF]

“FF” stands for “Ferrari Four,” a name that signifies this model’s status as the first-ever four-wheel-drive Ferrari. The four-place GT will replace the forgotten 612 Scaglietti as Ferrari’s top-of-the-line tourer, and will be powered by “a new 660-hp, 6.3-liter V-12 direct-injection engine.” The FF measures 4907mm long, 1953mm wide and 1379mm tall, and weighs 1,790kg (3,946 lbs), some 50kg lighter than the RWD Scaglietti. It offers the latest generation of Ferrari’s magnetorheological adaptive suspension, as well as Brembo ceramic brakes and 450 liters of cargo space (800 with the rear seats folded). The FF will accelerate to 60 MPH in 3.7 seconds en route to a top speed of 208 MPH. Only 1,000 units of annual production are planned, and the list price has not yet been announced.