FERRARI FF

If the idea of a 651bhp FERRARI FF you can drive across a ploughed field strikes you as faintly ridiculous, then perhaps a FERRARI FF you can drive to a ski resort seems less so. In fact, you won't be allowed into Gstaad next year if you haven't got an FERRARI FF.

"Snow is new for us," says Franco Cimatti, FERRARI FF technical director. Early testing on a 599 mule packed snow into the transmission coolers in front of the rear wheels, with predictable results. "We have had to change the shape of Ferrari," he says.
For me, the FERRARI FF four-wheel drive side, while technically interesting, is less important than the shape. At last FERRARI has officially acknowledged the shooting-break style that it has been unofficially supplying to obscenely rich collectors such as the Sultan of Brunei for many years. The 1962 Drogo/Bizzarrini FF 250 SWB "bread van" Le Mans racer arguably set the sleek style, although the Harold Radford Aston Martin DB5 shooting breaks, together with the racy Lancia HPE, were highly influential, as was the Reliant Scimitar GTE.

A few years back, the Cartier Style et Luxe at the Goodwood Festival of Speed featured a class of these lovely exotics, ranging from an MG Airline to a Jaguar Lynx Eventer and Pininfarina FERRARI FF specials. As a dog owner, I understand this body style more than most, although if Zeph, my invariably wet and muddy Labrador, jumps into the back of a FERRARI FF the main discussion will be less about the body style and more about who's going to clean the thing.