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CAMERON MCGAVIN
Ferrari’s next V12 coupé
will be the speediest model
ever sold in Australia.
W
e tend to think of the Italian
language as a flowery one,
and it is. But there’s also
a straight-talking simplicity that
belies the charming phonetics.
Take Italian cars, for example.
Quattroporte, the name of Maserati’s
luxury sedan, literally translates to
‘four door’. Berlina, a well-used Alfa
Romeo moniker, means ‘sedan’.
Berlinetta, a popular tag from the
Italian sporting-coupé realm,
roughly translates to ‘little sedan’.
world every decade or so (the last being
the LaFerrari). In Australia, where ‘super
series’ cars have always been off the
menu, there’s no argument — the 812
will be the fastest Ferrari road car ever.
The rage in the 812 machine comes
from a new 6.5-litre naturally aspirated
V12 that draws heavily on the company’s
F1 expertise to crank out a nuclear-grade
588kW of power and 718Nm of torque.
Its new seven-speed dual-clutch
transmission, mounted in the rear of the
car for optimum weight distribution, has
quicker shifts and its brakes, derived from
the LaFerrari, are more powerful. New
electric power steering and a new version
of the F12’s ‘Virtual Short Wheelbase’
four-wheel-steering system are said to
not just make it easier to drive than its
predecessor, but more thrilling, too.The new Ferrari on this page has
a name that’s even more straight up.
No Italian sing-song here, just some
very frank English — ‘Superfast’.
The 812 Superfast, to give it its
full title, is a straight-up Ferrari in
more than just name. It doesn’t bother
with fashionable hybrid, turbocharged
or green-tinged drivetrains and eschews
the favoured mid-engined layout of the
elite super/hyper-car pack.
Rather, it’s an evolution of its
current F12 Berlinetta and the next
installation of that most classic, most
old-school of Ferrari formulae — the
front-engined V12-powered coupé.
The big-ticket name isn’t a lie.
Ferrari says the 812 can jet from
standstill to 100km/h in a claimed
2.9 seconds on its way to a top speed
of more than 340km/h.
That makes it the fastest Ferrari
road car ever built if you ignore the
limited-edition, mid-engined ‘super
series’ cars the brand foists onto the