Behold the largest Ferrari ever.
Measuring 193 inches long by 77 inches wide, it shades slightly more pavement than does a Lexus LX 470 sport/utility. Even in this day when everything seems to come jumbo, supersize, or el grande, our first glance at this flagship caused us to ask: "Est tu, Ferrari?"
Still, we tried to open our minds as the director of product strategy, Giuseppe Bonollo, laid out the case for his big new baby, the 612 Scaglietti (say it like an Italophone: say-CHEN-to do-DI-chi skahl-YET-ee). It seems the design brief was to build a car capable of blistering Ferrari-grade performance in a package that could comfortably carry four actual adult humans--a feat no four-seatbelt Ferrari in history has managed.
That four-human mandate motivated much of the dimensional inflation, providing 2.8 inches of additional headroom and 0.6 inch more knee room in the rear-seat area, plus 25-percent-more luggage space as compared with the 612's forebear, the 456 of 1993-2003. And it worked--this 5-foot 11-inch scribbler fit just as comfortably behind his own front-seat position in this 612 as he does in a Bentley Continental GT.
Engine placement behind front-wheel centerline makes room for two long, straight, and completely separate fresh-air intake tracts, reducing pressure drop and improving performance.
Oddly enough, the blistering performance directive also drove some of the numbers up, particularly the 13.8-inch wheelbase extension (at 116.1 inches, it's now a tenth longer than a Chevy Tahoe's). This stretch moved the front axle out ahead of the long V-12 engine to help establish the rear weight bias that's so crucial for proper sports-car-dynamic handling (see sidebar). Naturally, the quest for high performance did force a decrease in one of the 456M's key dimensions: curb weight.
Managing this miracle in a much bigger car meant switching from sheet-steel monocoque to aluminum spaceframe construction. Like its 360 stablemate, the 612's new superleggera body was engineered in cooperation with aluminum supplier ALCOA. The spaceframe design is similar in concept to the 360's, employing extrusions joined by cast nodes and reinforced with sheet stampings. They're all held together by self-piercing rivets or metal-inert-gas welding--no structural adhesives are used.