Ferrari 12Cilindri Spider review

When it first appeared in 2019, the Roma berlinetta (coupé) was strongly based on the Portofino M and at no time had a soft top been contemplated, until it was. To keep any kind of structural integrity, the Spider had to be completely rebuilt from the B pillars back; the ‘dedicated chassis’ had a new rear bulkhead, sills and fabricated mounts for the hood sticks. It weighed in at 84kg more than the hard top. That’s a full-grown adult male in the back of that two-seater, which isn’t the place you want to start when refining handling and performance, although Ferrari’s engineers did a good job even if the cost must have been exorbitant.

Fortunately for the 12Cilindri, Ferrari learned the error of its ways. A folding roof panel was planned in from the start and along with the stronger and thicker sill-sections, the convertible motors and mounting points, were linked to the design of last year’s berlinetta. The resulting weight increase? Just 60kg, which by my reckoning means this all-aluminium car, ready for the road with oil, water, brake fluid and travel sweets (but no driver), weighs about 1750kg. As usual, Ferrari won’t supply an actual figure. And as far as any loss in torsional stiffness is concerned, glasnost is similarly nowhere to be found. Its lips are sealed. But as there’s never been an aluminium spaceframe or monocoque coupé that’s been turned into a convertible and not lost a chunk of rigidity, the question is not really ‘if’, but ‘how much?’ And if, somehow, Ferrari had become the first to buck that hitherto uniform trend, believe me, its people would be shouting it from every roof in Cascais.

Can you feel the extra weight? No, you can’t, not on a public road anyway. Can you feel any chassis flex? That’s difficult. Perhaps though, on Portugal’s broken black top, but not much. Besides, is that such a great price for arguably the better looking of the two 12Cilindris? Though that styling is still controversial.

Flavio Manzoni, Ferrari’s chief design officer, is in his 15^th year at the post and has overseen the design of this unashamed retro futurist car. Taking bits of old and new such as the clamshell bonnet influenced by 1968 365 GTS/4 ‘Daytona’, together with the sleek wind cheating lines of the 1970 Pininfarina Ferrari 512 S Modulo concept, as well as the buttresses from 1950s Ferrari road-race cars and perhaps even the Jaguar D-Type, he’s created something that looks forward, but from the point of the view of the past.

It’s certainly less controversial than the berlinetta, with its weird and wonderful 1970s sci-fi roof line, about which our esteemed editor was moved to comment: ‘the back works less well than the front, both aesthetically and in use where the shape of the rear screen limits over the shoulder visibility, but the overall proportions are delectable’.

There are three major black elements to the coachwork which, like the recently revealed ‘no pink’ rule at Ferrari, cannot be changed, and that retractable hard top deploys in 14 seconds at speeds up to 28mph. This is effectively a Targa top, or Surrey top as it was called when first introduced on a Triumph TR4. You sit cosy in between the front and the back screens and there’s a rear window which acts as a wind diffuser or lowers if you really do want wind in the hair.

Ferrari staff look as inscrutable as Richmal Crompton’s Just William when asked about the effect of top-down motoring at the maximum speed of 211mph. Certainly the aerodynamics have been carefully shaped so as not to poison the car’s passengers with exhaust fumes, but I can’t help thinking the Bernoulli effect might suck your teeth out of your head at those sorts of speeds.

If the roof is up, you stoop to get in, if it’s down, you put a hand on the front screen frame and the other on the rear buttress and swing in – simple.

The interior feels modern, well-made and heavily sculpted with matching panel gaps and that luxurious twist on the traditional so loved by Ferrari. I’m not a huge fan of Ferrari’s current generation of screen graphics, but these are an improvement on what went before. So too, is the display logic, which at one time meant a connection to Apple CarPlay could obliterate the rev counter; in this case the digital speed readout was hidden behind my hand on the steering wheel. All the same the optional extra screen for the passenger (£3919) seems a gimmick. And the way that logically linked functions are scattered across buttons, touchscreen tiles and steering wheel buttons is bizarre.

The seats were finished in panels of tan leather with black hard backs and, as with the berlinetta, there’s poor lumbar support despite the pneumatic cushions and massage functions, and a pinchy feel around the lower spine, which feels painful after an hour or two at the wheel. There was also a fault with our test car where the seat motor detents hadn’t been set properly so the seat rammed itself into the trim at the rear of the cabin where it clicked and creaked the whole drive long.

The major controls are well sited and there’s lots of room in the pedal box for those with big feet (me). Large gearchange paddles behind the steering wheel are fixed and hard to miss, though the indicator buttons mounted on the wheel are cheap feeling and hard for fingers to find on a roundabout. Fore and aft gear selection is via sliders on the centre tunnel. On a couple of occasions, our test car froze out the selectors and refused to change out of reverse.

By contrast, the folding roof worked fantastically, sliding up or down silently and swiftly and eliciting not a jolt, a creak, or a wind rustle even at high speed. Luggage space is at a premium with the 200-litre boot only big enough for an airline carry on and a couple of squashy bags.

And the V12? Well as we’ve said before, this is where it all started for Ferrari. ‘The V12 cylinder will always be the original Ferrari car,’ said Enzo, who was reputedly influenced by Packard with its ‘twin-six’ engine and thought the V12 to be ‘the Italian interpretation of refined engineering’.

So, through the earliest Gioacchino Colombo-designed units, with modest swept volumes, carburettors and high-rev potential such as the 166, 195 and 212 Inters, through the brutish, more powerful Aurelio Lampredi V12 designs such as the Superamerica and original Superfast models, a V12 was the rock on which Ferrari was built.

Yet from the first non-V12 Ferrari road car, 1967’s uncredited Dino 206 GT, the writing was on the wall. The 365 GT4 BB flat-12 of 1971 showed (in the right hands) that you didn’t need a big vee up front to give the best in responsiveness, road holding and performance. By 1988 and the last of the 400 series, the V12 flame had gone out and it wasn’t until 1992 that Ferrari returned to the configuration with the 456 GT.

But who was kidding who? Ferrari’s V8s, its mid-engined hybrids, the SF90 Stradale, all offered a more exacting approach to going fast on the road. What was the dynamic and performance pinnacle in 1950 was no longer and Enzo’s legacy was turning into an albatross around the neck of Ferrari. No one believed the spiel anymore when a mid-rear-engined V8 would run rings round a front-engined V12. Lovely they might be, but the V12s were struggling under the weight of all that expectation.

At last year’s launch of the 12Cilindri, Ferrari finally admitted what had been startlingly obvious to everyone else. The V12 wasn’t the most dynamic or fastest Ferrari, but it was the best Gran Turismo. And with less pressure to be the best at everything, that 12Cilindri rolled softer and more relaxed on its Michelins (or run-flat Goodyears).

And so it proves with the drophead, which is arguably a tiny bit softer than the berlinetta, which itself has a gentle ride and handling balance. As a consequence, the ride is pretty good, but in the UK, you’ll probably spend a lot of time with the magnetorheological adaptive dampers in their bumpy road setting. And even then, the 21-inch tyres will clobber any bumps or potholes with a sharp edge and you’ll need the nose lift engaged for sleeping policemen.

The congested roads left few opportunities for a wider exploration of the handling, but squirting it through quiet roundabouts showed the tyres (Michelins) relinquishing grip gently and predictably. On faster third and fourth gear corners, the nose points faithfully and lightly at the apex and the steering feels well weighted and communicative. Push hard and it feels nicely balanced, the kind of car you can have fun in, but with an innate stability and good manners, which makes it safe and easy to drive when it’s not all lovely weather on your way across the Alpes-Maritime.

But don’t go looking for trouble, because that engine’s got that end of things well covered. At 7250rpm the 6496cc 65-degree V12 is punching out its peak torque of 500lb ft; keep your foot in and at 9250rpm the big mill sounds like Maria Callas at La Scala as it passes peak power at 819bhp. The redline is at 9500rpm and by then you’ll truly believe the sky is falling in.

The result is 0-62mph in 2.9sec, 0-124mph in 8.2sec, a top speed well north of 200mph, a WLTP combined fuel consumption of 17.8mpg and CO2 emissions of 360g/km. That means by the time you take delivery, the first year VED will be £5490. Ouch. What I found so impressive though, was the engine’s muscularity at rotating speeds far lower; say 3000 to 6000rpm. In fact, Ferrari has altered the ignition, induction lengths and camshaft timing to maximise the torque in this region, which is where the car will spend most of its life. You could drive all day in that range and probably be faster than anything else with four wheels (if not three!) on the road.

The DCT dual-clutch transmission handles changes adroitly, almost brutally if you switch the steering wheel manettino to Race or everything off, but for the most part, you can short shift, relax and let that torque do the rest.

It is, if you like, a very expensive version of the Mazda MX-5 RF, or (much) more realistically, a rival to the Aston Martin Vanquish Volante due this year, and again another car which will be seen as a piece of automotive theatre.

For those who accuse Ferrari of never missing an opportunity of profiting from its owners, it’s kind of refreshing to learn that in the UK, those minted individuals who want to buy both berlinetta and Spider, will find their order for the latter at the back of the queue. Small beginnings…

In any rational world you’d take the Spider, which is not only less controversial in appearance, but also effectively two cars in one. Yet I can’t help pondering the weird and wonderful coupé, which perhaps will be seen as a stand-out piece of retro futurism in, erm, the future. Either way, while the idea of the automotive grand tour is largely defunct, a car like this could make you seriously reconsider.

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