New Ferrari 849 Testarossa review: brilliant supercar will blow your mind

Verdict

Ferrari’s new supercar is every inch as dramatic to drive as it is to look at, or even just say. By righting the faults of the SF90 and adding sizeable doses of style, drama, speed and feel, Ferrari has created a true supercar for the 21st century. It’s crazily expensive and the looks won’t appeal to everyone, but as a car to drive and enjoy, the new Testarossa warrants its place right at the top of Ferrari’s production-car tree. 

The all-new Ferrari 849 Testarossa. What’s not to like about that? Just the name sends a shiver of excitement down one’s spine – the 849 standing for the number of cylinders (eight) followed by the cubic capacity of each cylinder (490) – but if anything, this monstrous new supercar from Ferrari is even more exciting to drive than its intoxicating name would suggest.

The headline statistics are pretty mind blowing: 1,036bhp, 0-62mph in 2.3 seconds, and a top speed of 211mph. Dig more deeply into the spec sheet and you’ll discover the new ‘Red Head’ plug-in hybrid Ferrari produces 415kg of downforce at 155mph, has an all-electric range of 15 miles thanks to its 7.45kWh battery, can lap Fiorano faster than just about any other production Ferrari in history – including the LaFerrari by several whole seconds – and costs an eye-watering £407,617.

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So it’s an immense kind of car on just about any which level you choose to examine it. But never more so than in the flesh, up close and personal, sitting in the pit lane of a race track in southern Spain. Here, its 4.0-litre V8 twin-turbo percolates loudly via two enormous Inconel exhaust pipes in front of an audience of wide-eyed car hacks. 

Witnessed as such, the new 849 Testarossa is a magnificently intimidating car. It looks huge in the flesh, even though it might not be as pretty as some of its more fabled predecessors – not to these eyes at any rate – and the noises it produces are fantastically terrifying. The numbers its powertrain drums up are not exactly underwhelming, either. 

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The V8 produces 819bhp all on its own, to which you must then add the energy of no less than three electric motors – two at the front, one at the back. These contribute a further 217bhp to make that aforementioned combined output of 1,036bhp. Torque stands at 842Nm.

Yet when you climb inside the new Testarossa, you very quickly realise that, despite all the power, noise and myriad buttons and menus, this car has been designed to take great care of whoever is behind the wheel. Not only that, it’s been simplified inside to be as intuitive to use as Ferrari could make it; the Scuderia’s designers having realised that some of the cabin controls they’ve come up with recently may have been a little bit confusing. An admission like this – that they got it wrong with the haptic controls – represents real progress from Ferrari.

From the way the seat clamps you so perfectly into position behind an obviously F1-inspired steering wheel, to the location of the pedals beneath your feet and the panoramic view forwards along a not especially long bonnet, the new Testarossa screams ‘drive me, enjoy me’ the moment you climb inside it. There’s also a new, more conventional starter button – as found in the new Amalfi – complimented here with a button that cycles through the hybrid system’s four drive modes: Qualifying, Performance, Hybrid and EV. The regular manettino dial is present and correct, on which you can progressively dial out the traction control and electronic stability programme.

When you press the new starter button, you realise how much energy this car contains. Technically it’s a mix of SF90 and F80 beneath the skin, but with a character all of its own, says Ferrari – and one that’s aimed predominantly at use on the road. Except when the V8 fires, pretty much all attempts at describing this car logically go straight out of the window – because on the move the Testarossa feels like no other car on Earth, no matter how many familiar parts it might share with other Ferraris.

The ride is immediately firm but still manages to be impressively soothing for a car of such focus and performance. We tried both versions; the Asseto Fiorano with analogue dampers definitely felt more connected, but also a fair bit stiffer than the MagneRide version. 

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The gearchange is similarly refined, even though it can snap from one ratio to the next faster than you can think. The hybrid powertrain amazes to begin with because it’s so calm and well mannered – to a point where you can pootle about in the new Testarossa just as effortlessly as you might in a Porsche Taycan. 

At low speeds it’s an absolute honey, with surprisingly good all round visibility, nice clear instruments and a sound system that will blow your mind if you want it to. Much like the car’s new exhaust. Ferrari’s aim was to make the Testarossa simpler and more approachable to interact with, but also more dramatic than ever before. The results are palpable on the move; in Hybrid and EV modes it purrs, while in Performance or Qualifying it growls and goes a fair bit harder, too.

But driving around at two tenths is absolutely not what this car was designed to do. And when you up the ante and select, say, Race and Performance modes, the combination of its nutcase power and electronically controlled four-wheel-drive chassis allow it to do things that can fry your imagination. It is cataclysmically fast in a straight line, yet if anything, the brilliance of the chassis – and the immediacy and feel of its steering and brakes – are the aspects that leaves the biggest indents on your mind, long after you’ve climbed out and walked away, head shaking in disbelief.

Any downsides? The ride is firm going on stiff, even on fairly smooth Spanish roads, so might be an issue back in the UK. The cabin is less confusing than before but is also still baffling in places. And then there’s the price. But then the Testarossa is one of those cars that if you have to ask… Well, you know the rest.

In the end, this is a great new supercar from Ferrari – with a brilliant old/new name. At any price it would blow your mind, which is just as it should be with a car like this.