The first cars in the “Icona” line offer 800 horsepower and looks borrowed from Ferrari’s post-war racers.
CONSIDER THE PICKLE in which Ferrari finds itself. Consumers want SUVs. Regulators want electrics. Thus will the iconic car company make a plug-in hybrid SUV, to be called the Purosangue—Italian for thoroughbred. Quotidian demands, met. The true Ferrari aficionado, though, does not want vehicles that cater to hand-wringing bureaucrats or drivers who need to do things like go places with their kids and groceries. Which is why, at its Capital Markets Day conference this week, the automaker announced the launch of a new vehicle line it calls Icona.
The line starts with a pair of sports cars that mix classic racing style from the 1940s and ’50s with the best that 21st-century engineering has to offer—including the most powerful engine Ferrari has ever made.
The two cars, the Monza SP1 and Monza SP2, are nearly identical, except the SP2 has room for two humans, and the SP1’s tonneau cover blocks off half the cockpit, leaving just enough room for just the driver. The cars are styled simply, with nary a bold line or hulking wing to be found. A slight narrowing at the waist gives the Monzas a near-hourglass figure. As Ferrari’s press team puts it, “Visually complex solutions, such as those seen on recent racing cars, have been avoided.”
Ferrari says both cars are a callback to the 1948 166 MM, one of the cars that helped it rack up World Sports Car Championship victories in the ’40s and ’50s.
The engine in question is a 6.5-liter V12, good for nearly 800 horsepower (when revved up to 8,500 rpm) and 530 pound-feet of torque. Put those numbers in a carbon-fiber ballet slipper of a car that weighs just 3,306 pounds (the SP2, with its second seat, is 45 pounds heavier), and you get from zero to 62 mph in less than 3 seconds. (If you need proof of how much fun electric cars can be, consider that that’s barely fast enough to beat many battery-powered daily drivers.) Stay on the gas for another five seconds and you’ll hit 124 mph. Stay on it even longer and you’ll eventually top out at 186 mph. Which should be plenty fast, given the lack of a windshield.
Eager to ensure that you look the part in this retromobile—rumored to cost seven figures—Ferrari brought in luxury outfits Loro Piana and Berluti to make a “gentlemen-driver-inspired” helmet, gloves, scarf, driving shoes, and racing overalls. Fancy, fancy overalls.
The Guardian reports that Ferrari will produce fewer than 500 of the things, and—no surprise—it has already sold them all. But hey, maybe you’d like a nice, practical, SUV instead?
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