It’s amazing what difference language makes. I was in Cardiff last year at a football match and the Welsh language is undergoing a visual resurgence. Taught in schools across the country, it’s increasingly used in shopfronts instead of English. This poses a problem for your English football fan, in this case me. Queuing for a coffee pre-match, I figured I’d just ask for a cappuccino (it was a lunchtime kick off before any Italians get offended) and all would be well. But there, on the menu, was ‘ffrothi coffi’. You don’t need to speak Welsh to know where you stand with that one, unlike Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch, which is an actual place in Anglesey. This anecdote came to mind when looking at the spec sheet ahead of reviewing the Ferrari 12Cilindri. You don’t need to speak Italian to know what to expect.
The language, however, has a huge bearing on the car. Translated to English, it’s just a Ferrari twelve cylinder. In Italian, however, it’s a Ferrari dough-dee-chee chill-in-dree. That instantly sounds far sexier than the previous iteration, the Ferrari 812 Superfast. Ferrari’s marketing team has been at the same school as Ronseal’s. They do exactly what they say on the tin.
This is no bad thing, except for the ramping up of expectations. At least when Maserati named their big saloon the Quattroporte, they didn’t aim to raise the bar too high. As an aside, imagine that in the UK for a moment. “What car have you got, Dave?” “Oh, I went for the Rover Four Door.” Cut to John Thomson’s Jazz Club character in The Fast Show – Nice.
So the Ferrari 12Cilindri has a V12, then?
Yes. Let’s move away from linguistics and into the actual car. The V12 is so important to Ferrari, it’s really the soul of the marque. “I don’t sell cars, I sell engines. The cars I throw in for free,” is what Enzo would tell his customers. The V12 was his soulmate, the very centrepiece of his creations. As such, any V12 engined Ferrari is a special thing.
Perhaps that carries even more weight now, in 2026, than it did when Enzo was starting out. Tightening regulations are asphyxiating the V12, so you’re never sure when you’re going to drive your last one. That Ferrari has managed to produce this as a naturally aspirated unit is worthy of celebration on its own. There’s no electrical assistance here, no turbo chargers or superchargers. It’s a naturally aspirated 6.5ltr V12 producing 819bhp and 679Nm of torque. Astonishing.
The only burden the Ferrari 12Cilindri carries is that of expectation. In the face of changing times, however, Ferrari has been able to treat the car with a little more reverence. It no longer needs to be the bombastic halo car, rather it just needs to be the halo. Ferrari has deployed hybridisation to giddying effect in models such as the SF90, F80 and 849 Testarossa, chasing outright pace elsewhere in the range.
This means that the Ferrari 12Cilindri has had a freer run at being, probably, a fitting denouement for the F140 V12 unit. At least in non-electrically assisted guise (the Lamborghini Revuelto features a naturally aspirated V12 unit, too, in a hybrid powertrain. If it keeps them running…). It’s an engine which has been tweaked and perfected across the Enzo, 599, FF, F12berlinetta, LaFerrari, F12tdf, GTC4Lusso, 812, Monza, Daytona SP3, Purosangue and, now, 12Cilindri. There’s that burden of expectation.
What’s the Ferrari 12Cilindri like to live with?
Whilst the engine is, obviously, essential to the Ferrari 12Cilindri, it does also need to work as a car. Well, it certainly has all the presence you’d expect of a car equipped with 12 cylinders. The long, sweeping lines are accentuated on the test car here by the bright yellow, or giallo triplo strato to fully linguistic it once more. It’s a stunning thing, simultaneously modern yet beholden to retro roots. I couldn’t stop looking at it. It’s a genuine statement of a car.
The aesthetic drama continues when you slide into the cabin. It’s very much driver focused; a large screen behind the thin steering wheel displaying your vitals, accompanied by an infotainment screen lower down in the centre of the dash. Fans of physical buttons rejoice: the steering wheel has physical rather than haptic buttons. I was in a group of one in not hating the haptic controls, but there’s no denying the buttons are easier to use. Ease of use versus aesthetics, for they don’t look as good.
Ferrari hasn’t installed a Satnav, banking on owners having a smartphone instead. Sensible call, although if you’re an Android user, it’s not wireless, so don’t forget your cable.
This feels like the only area where Ferrari has perhaps out-thought itself a bit. The Satnav info via your preferred app is displayed low down to your left. In the Ferraris Roma and 296, for example, such info is displayed on the main screen behind the steering wheel, making it easier to read. There’s no denying the large, yellow rev counter is nicer to look at though.
The boot is surprisingly big and there’s a shelf behind the seats. Grand touring is very much on the cards in the Ferrari 12Cilindri. Massage seats and Burmester sound system further this appeal.
What’s the Ferrari 12Cilindri like to drive?
Looking out over that long bonnet as it dips behind flared wheel arches, the siren call of the open road becomes impossible to ignore. Hold the start button and the V12 woofles into life. It’s calmer than you expect, but we can thank the regulators for that.
The large proportions are made manageable by the assistance cameras. These are necessary if only for the exposure to the wheels and carbon fibre everything fitted to this car. Up and running, everything settles quickly in the 12Cilindri.
It’s not overly keen unless you really want it to be. It will pootle around town in auto very politely, handling potholes and speedbumps like a saloon, especially with the nose lift feature (another must-have).
But, it’s a V12 powered Ferrari, so of course you want it to be overly keen. It takes a bit of building up to, because this thing accumulates speed with great grace and assurance. When you finally find your bottle and boot it, though, my word does it propel you down the road.
The needle races towards the 9500rpm redline, the engine keeps finding new notes and the hedgerows become increasingly blurry in your peripheral vision. It’s a wonderful moment in which you can only find swear words to utter disbelievingly to yourself in the cabin. It suddenly enlivens the whole experience.
Perhaps the Ferrari 12Cilindri’s greatest trick, however, is its bandwidth. Obviously, it’s magnificent when you’re all out, but it’s also supreme at 7/10ths, too. You don’t need to bury your right foot to get value from it, the violence is always there, albeit somewhat politer with softer inputs.
The car is aided by a brilliant steering setup. Ferraris are known for being eager turners and the 12Cilindri is no exception, but the balance feels just about perfect here.
Conclusion
There’s so much traction to work with, intuitive steering and immense stopping power. A word, too, for the gearbox. Like all modern Ferraris, the 12Cilindri is happy to get into eighth gear as quickly as possible and let the V12 do its work at sub-1000rpm. As you dial up the drive modes via the manettino on the steering wheel, however, it becomes increasingly aggressive. Then, there are the long, sleek, carbon fibre paddles. Put it into manual and the Ferrari 12Cilindri will dance to your beat with instantaneous shifts. It makes accessing all that power and performance remarkably straightforward.
The Ferrari 12Cilindri is so easy to drive, in fact, that anyone would feel like a great driver behind the wheel. It’s perfectly balanced, blisteringly quick and, ultimately, it makes you feel great. This doesn’t come at the expense of engagement, either. Every drive is an occasion, from the moment it first enters your line of vision to the moment you look back on it at the end.
You never tire of the sweeping view out over the wheelarches, nor the sound of the engine chasing the 9500rpm redline, nor the majestic accumulation of speed, nor the near endless traction as you thread it along a B-road, nor the looks of passers by, nor way it makes you feel on every drive. As you approach it, you certainly feel like you’ve got yourself a car. When you drive it, you start to realise that you’ve got yourself an engine. It’s hard to imagine Enzo being unimpressed with this thing.
It evokes nostalgia for GTs of the 1960s, combines it with the performance of modern supercars and it rolls nicely off the tongue. Most importantly, the mighty F140 V12 sits perfectly within it.