Review: Ferrari GTC4Lusso – More Power, More Style?

An industry love affair with shooting brakes smoulders like a bunch of oily rags behind the shed and there's not a designer who hasn't dreamed of sketching a legacy example. Most agree, however, that the proportions are difficult, easy to overcook and, with a flap of leathery wings, marking departments croak just how much money a vanity shooting brake can lose. But who can argue with a litany of beauties that includes the Drogo/Bizzarrini Ferrari 250GTO Bread Van racer, Harold Radford's series of Aston Martin DB5 shooting brakes, Reliant's Scimitar GTE, Volvo's 1800ES, Lancia's HPE or the Jensen FF?

And while voices criticised the FF for having too little space, too much power and a very hefty price tag, Ferrari claims to have sold about 6,000 examples in five years and given that the average owner buys over £35,000 in options, that's a gross total to Maranello of over £1.5 billion... Strangely, since Ferrari claims the UK has taken its usual ten to 12 per cent of total production, the DVLA website admits to just 261 FF models on its books – where are they all?

So now it's mark II time and a new name, which follows the usual bonkers Ferrari naming protocol. GTC4Lusso might hark back to the Sixties, but it hardly rolls off the tongue and the 4 refers, not to some obscure single cylinder swept volume as of old, but the number of seats.

And to prove that Ferrari is listening to its customers, the new car has, erm more power, not much more space inside and now costs £240,430 when it goes on sale in December/January.

What a looker, though, and while some of the detail, such as the wing vents, absurdly long bonnet, or the tail-fin roof spoiler, verge on caricature, the whole is a stunning reminder of where Ferrari has bravely gone with this car, a place from where its rivals cower in funk. At 450 litres the luggage space beats the average family hatchback (just), so you'll get the shooting apparatus in, but not even the smallest, wriggliest Labrador will deign to leap in, even if you fold the rear seats and release another 350 litres of space. Not so rear-seat passengers where, despite visual evidence to the contrary, there is space and comfort enough for a couple of hours maybe.

The cabin is immaculately upholstered (of course), with a new curvaceous, flowing design where stitching highlights the contours. The dash is simple with a gigantic touch screen in the centre and a smaller screen showing repeat displays of speed, sounds and sat nav sits in front of the most-probably terrified passenger. The driver gets a digital instrument panel, with a switch-festooned steering wheel just like the F1 cars. Truth be told, that simplicity is misleading since each switch is asked to perform a number of tasks and things can get quite complicated, particularly around the cluttered steering wheel. Delphi-sourced electronics give most of the modern requirements in a super gran turismo like this, though there's still no WiFi connectivity and our sat-nav map disappeared on a couple of occasions.

Changes under the bonnet are few, but significant. The basic 65-degree, 6.3-litre, quad-cam V12 stays largely the same, but has a higher compression ratio, redesigned cylinder head and pistons and exhaust manifolding, which make the fuel/air mix burn more efficiently giving 30 more horsepower. The engine will scream up to 8,250rpm, with peak power of 681bhp coming at 8,000rpm and 514lb ft peak torque at 5,750rpm. Top speed remains the same at 208mph, but the 0-62mph acceleration is down slightly to 3.4sec. Fuel consumption gains 0.5mpg to 18.8mpg and CO₂ emissions are top tax-band 350g/km.

Most of that power travels down a propeller shaft to the rear-mounted, seven-speed, twin-clutch transaxle, but some of it comes off the front of the crankshaft into Ferrari's own extraordinary four-wheel-drive system, consisting of a simple, helical-cut, hydraulically controlled two-speed and reverse gearbox with a couple of continually slipping Haldex-type multiplate clutches to activate each wheel when required in first to fourth gears and at speeds below 124mph. New for the GTC is a ZF rear-steering system, an electric-motor powered ram, which pushes the rear suspension against its bushes to give a couple of extra degrees steering in either direction. Driving these systems, together with the F1 electronic rear differential, electronic stability system, magnetorheological adjustable dampers and the torque vectoring, is handled by the Ferrari's fourth-generation side-slip-control system. This is designed to improve stability and agility at all speeds and all road surfaces and Ferrari claims a five per cent improvement in responsiveness (the reduction in steering delay) and an eight per cent improvement in agility (the reduction in steering response).

It's a lot of intervention from a lot of different systems, however and, while Pietro Rigamonti from the chassis department says that it should all work seamlessly, he adds, somewhat portentously: "If you feel anything, we have failed."

The big V12 whoops into life although the exhaust by-pass valves have been returned to make the Ferrari less unsociably noisy at low speeds. Around town it's extraordinarily refined, especially when you consider this is a near 700bhp sports car. At almost five metres long and nearly two metres wide, it isn't the easiest thing to manoeuvre, but parking sensors help overcome the lack of rear three-quarter views and the disappearing bonnet line. The engine provides more than enough torque for towns at idle speed and in Comfort, the seven-speed twin clutch chirks into the next gear with barely a murmur, in fact the air con makes more of a row than the engine. It rides pretty well, too, with enough ground clearance to not shy at every pot hole and road hump.

Speed up and the engine just gets better, providing an extraordinary range of sound effects from woofs to gurgles, and sprinting this two-ton car into the horizon so fast you thank Ferrari for the security of the big brakes. What is very noticeable, though, is that the controls feel over sensitive at first and you need to caress them as you might a frightened horse. Once familiar, the GTC carves through turns and sits back on its suspension as it blasts out with stability and sure-footedness, if not much in the way of control feedback.

You can feel the rear steering and front wheels pushing the nose into the turns and controlling the stability almost as if intelligences far greater than our own were taking a hand, but you need to have a care not to overdrive the GTC or it twitches and comes over all, um, unbecoming.

This is most noticeable when you reach the end of the grip, when the rear steering tries to steer you out of trouble, but too late to compensate for any correcting steering lock the driver has already put on. The result feels abrupt and twitchy and occasionally the back end hopped. It never felt scary, but it was certainly less than refined and in sharp contrast to the GTC's mannered response at all other speeds.

Granted the South Tyrolean roads were ultra-grippy and on lesser surfaces, the rear steer is most likely adding a welcome degree of security and stability, but Pietro, we did feel it.

For all that it's hard not to love the new GTC4Lusso. That dramatic shape, the performance and the singular naturally aspirated V12 all add up to a car that you can imaging racing into the opening credits of its own road movie; supper in Milan, baccarat in Monte Carlo? Now all that remains is to find the required quarter of a million...