When Ferrari revealed the Purosangue, you could hear the collective gasp from the purist community, followed immediately by the pitchforks coming out. A Ferrari SUV? Heresy. The same brand whose CEO once swore on his life there would never be a Ferrari SUV had gone and built one. To the faithful, this was the moment Maranello sold its soul, chasing the easy money that Porsche, Lamborghini, and Bentley were raking in from their luxury trucks. A betrayal of everything the Prancing Horse stands for.
I understand the anger. I really do. The idea of a Ferrari SUV sounds like a punchline, the automotive equivalent of finding out your favorite band started making jingles for fast food commercials.
But here is the thing. The purists are wrong. Not a little wrong. Spectacularly, demonstrably wrong. Because they are raging at an idea, a category, a three letter acronym, without actually looking at what Ferrari built. And what Ferrari built is, in some ways, more pure than the supercars they are so desperate to protect. Let me make the case.
Wrong Point One: It’s Not a Parts-Bin Special
The core of the purist complaint is that an SUV is a cynical cash grab built on cheap shared bones. And for most rivals, that is fair. The Lamborghini Urus shares its guts with Audi and Porsche. The Aston Martin DBX borrows from Mercedes. They are, underneath the badge, corporate platform jobs.
The Purosangue is not. Unlike the Bentley Bentayga, Lamborghini Urus, and Porsche Cayenne, it doesn’t share its architecture with another vehicle, utilizing instead a largely aluminium monocoque. Ferrari engineered this thing from scratch, its own bespoke structure, no hand me down components. As one outlet put it bluntly, this matters enormously. If you put cost to one side, the Purosangue dominates the Urus and DBX opposition. For starters, it doesn’t have to use existing components borrowed from other brands. That is the opposite of a cash grab. That is Ferrari spending a fortune to do it right.
Wrong Point Two: It Has the Purest Engine on the Market
Here is the part that should make every purist eat their words. They claim to worship the naturally aspirated engine, the old religion of revs and sound and no turbocharged trickery. So what did Ferrari put in the Purosangue? Exactly that.
A naturally aspirated 6.5 liter V12 powers the Purosangue, producing 715 horsepower at 7,750 rpm and 528 pound feet of torque, true to Ferrari’s signature design with a 65 degree angle between cylinder banks, dry sump, and high pressure direct injection. And crucially, in an age of downsizing and electrification, it stands alone. Unlike many fast SUVs, which use EV or hybrid powertrains, the Purosangue has a naturally aspirated V12 engine with no electric assistance at all.
Think about that. The Purosangue is one of the last new cars on earth with a big, free breathing, turbo free, hybrid free V12. The purists wanted Ferrari to keep the faith on engines, and the supposed sellout SUV is the very car carrying that torch. The noise alone refutes the haters. The response from that 6.5 litre V12 is astonishing, and so too is the noise, which is ballistic compared to the muted note of turbocharged alternatives.
Wrong Point Three: It Drives Like a Real Ferrari
The deepest fear is that an SUV cannot have soul, that it is too tall, too heavy, too compromised to deliver the Ferrari experience. The reviews obliterate that fear.
The layout is a sports car’s, not a truck’s. It has an aluminium chassis, a front mounted V12 mounted behind the front axle, a transaxle, and four seats. The Ferrari bods are right: this isn’t an SUV, it’s a Rapide Allroad. And on the road, it shames its rivals. It makes most other sporty SUVs feel a bit dead and unresponsive, and the Ferrari hides its weight better than any alternative. Even the famously hard to please testers conceded the point. It really is properly sporting, and the purity of that V12, the uncanny ride quality, the accuracy and poise, it’s something the hyper SUV class hasn’t seen before. It drives better than both the Urus and the DBX.
This is not a numb people mover wearing a costume. It slides and skips and yumps with supreme ease and balance and then settles again with the deftness of a stage ready rally car. That is Ferrari soul, full stop.
Wrong Point Four: Ferrari Protected the Exclusivity
The purists fear the Purosangue will flood the world and dilute the brand the way SUVs took over Porsche and Lamborghini, where the trucks now make up half or more of sales. But Ferrari saw that trap coming and refused to walk into it.
Ferrari maintains that only 20 percent of all its output will be allowed to be the Purosangue, so there’s no way that SUVs will make up half or more of its sales. They are deliberately limiting how many they build, keeping it as rare as the supercars. Ferrari is keen not to make the Purosangue a mass market car, keeping it to a similar level of exclusivity as its supercars, building only a few thousand each year. That is the single most un cash grab decision a company can make. They are leaving money on the table to protect the mystique. The purists should be applauding, not booing.
Read: I Drove the New Mercedes-Benz E-Class. Now Every Other Car Feels Cheap
How It Stacks Up
Here is where the Purosangue lands against the super SUV establishment.
| Model | Engine | Power | Bespoke Platform? | Naturally Aspirated? |
| Ferrari Purosangue | 6.5L V12 | 715 hp | Yes | Yes |
| Lamborghini Urus | Twin-turbo V8 | Around 657 hp | No (shared) | No |
| Aston Martin DBX 707 | Twin-turbo V8 | Around 697 hp | No (Mercedes bits) | No |
| Bentley Bentayga | Turbo V8/W12 | Varies | No (shared) | No |
Look at the right two columns. The Purosangue is the only one that is both bespoke and naturally aspirated. By the purists’ own stated values, it is the most authentic vehicle in the entire class. The thing they hate is the thing that most embodies what they claim to love.
Okay, Let Me Be Fair to the Haters
I have been hard on the purists, so let me grant them their legitimate points, because they are not entirely without ammunition.
It is heavy, and occasionally that shows. The high tech suspension can’t completely hide the car’s significant mass, and it bottomed out a couple of times on a particularly tortuous test route. It is also impractical in ways a real SUV is not. It’s not an off-roader, and it’s not a 4×4, really. It can’t even tow anything. The thirst is brutal, returning around 12 to 16 mpg, and the price is staggering. Starting at $402,050, it fits firmly in the ultra luxury class, with dealers reportedly uninterested unless you pile on tens of thousands in options, plus long waitlists and above sticker resale.
And yes, the semantics are a stretch. It has four doors and a raised ride height. Ferrari can call it whatever genre it likes, but by any normal definition, it is an SUV. One could fairly argue that any tall, heavy, four door Ferrari dilutes the brand’s pure sports car image no matter how brilliantly it is executed. That is a values argument, and values arguments do not have tidy answers.
Here is my read, though. Every one of those gripes is about it being expensive, thirsty, or technically an SUV. None of them touch the actual fear that started this whole revolt, the fear that it would be soulless. On that charge, the central charge, the Purosangue is comprehensively innocent.
Verdict: They’re Mad at the Idea, Not the Car
So where do I land? Firmly on the side of the Purosangue, with respect for the dissenters.
The purists hate this car because of what it represents, a Ferrari SUV, an apparent surrender to the same trend that turned every other exotic brand into a truck dealer. I understand the reflex. But a reflex is not a judgment, and when you actually examine what Ferrari built, the outrage collapses. This is a bespoke, hand engineered, naturally aspirated V12 thoroughbred, built on its own unique platform, capped at low production to protect its rarity, with no fake vents, no shared parts, and a driving experience that genuinely humbles every rival in its class. It puts Ferrari-ness first and then works out what space it can carve out without losing the essential essence.
That is not a betrayal of Ferrari. That is Ferrari refusing to betray itself even while entering a new segment. It kept the V12 alive when everyone else gave up. It built something bespoke when everyone else cut corners. It protected its exclusivity when everyone else chased volume.
I will give the purists this: if your objection is philosophical, that a Ferrari simply should not have four doors and a tall stance no matter how good it is, then no spec sheet will ever change your mind, and that is a position you are entitled to hold. But if your objection was that the Purosangue would be a soulless cash grab, then you owe this car an apology. It is the opposite of that in every measurable way. The purists hate the Purosangue. They are wrong. And the gloriously stubborn, naturally aspirated, bespoke V12 proof is sitting right there in Maranello, quietly being more Ferrari than its critics ever expected. Go listen to that engine, then tell me the soul is gone. I dare you.
