Ferrari 12Cilindri Deep Dive Preview: No electric here, just pure V12 beauty

MARANELLO, Italy – Bentley built its final W12 in April, an engine VW Group introduced in 2001. Mercedes and BMW already bid auf wiedersehen to 12 cylinders. But Ferrari is Ferrari. Defying trends and regulators, the company has created a radically reimagined GT whose name rivals “LaFerrari” for on-the-nose intent: The 12Cilindri.

The new Ferrari 12Cilindri was just officially revealed in Miami, but I got a deep-dive viewing two weeks ago at the company’s sleek Centro Stile (“design center”) in Maranello.

With all respect to the 812 Superfast, the breathtaking, Delta-themed 12Cilindri crumples and tosses its predecessor’s evolutionary design. For years now, Ferrari’s classic front-engine GTs have been overshadowed by its mid-engine V8 supercars, and now the brilliant six-cylinder 296 GTB hybrid. So extending the life of Ferrari’s hallowed V12 is a good thing, but only if the GT it powers gets some love and attention as well.

Talk about an attention-getter. Even as it nods to Ferrari’s past — including a visor-like hood band that’s a cheeky callback to the 365 GTB4 Daytona — the 12Cilindri’s winning modernity seems a career mic drop (so far) for design chief Flavio Manzoni.

Fans of ICE-fueled overabundance will give thanks to 12 apostles, seated for supper in red-haloed rows, below the Ferrari’s DaVinci-spec hood. Those cylinders will deliver a decidedly unholy 819 horsepower, up from 788 in the 812 Superfast, and matching the track-focused 812 Competizione. Ferrari pegs 0-62-mph (100 km/h) acceleration in 2.9 seconds, a 7.9-second rip to 124 mph, and a top speed beyond 211 mph.

The Ferrari V12 that started it all was Gioacchino Columbo’s controversial 1.5-liter design, whose 1946 blueprints are preserved in Maranello. Critics scoffed that the tiny displacement was better suited to a four-cylinder. Italian racer Franco Cortese recalled a general consensus on Enzo: “He’s a nutcase. It will eat his money and finish him.”

Instead, Enzo’s one-off 125 C (and a single 125 S) rolled from the factory gate and into history in 1947. That 125 C conked out with fuel-pump problems while leading its first race, which Enzo dubbed “a promising failure.” The snub-nosed red barchetta