Ferrari GTC4 Lusso

The sheer size of the Ferrari GTC4 Lusso makes it so problematic, it’s basically a $600,000 garden ornament.

Ferrari GTC4 Lusso.

I’ve never read the Bible. I’ve tried, but after a few moments I lose the will to live. It’s the same story with Shakespeare. You just know that no one is going to say, “Secure the perimeter”, and that even if they did, they’d need four hours to say it. And you’d need a teacher on hand to explain what they were on about.

However, for literature that’s impossible to understand or digest, you cannot top a Ferrari press release. “The sophisticated and refined cabin is designed wholly around its occupants.” Really? I thought it’d been designed partly around its occupants and partly for the tea lady’s dog. Moving to the vehicle dynamics, “The 4RM Evo system is more precise than ever. Management of front torque in particular has been improved across the board, but specifically in terms of SS4-based torque vectoring…”

That sort of guff may work well at a conference on industrial piping, but it’s a Ferrari we are talking about here. And there is no space in any of that world for dry engineering technobabble. Ferrari needs to understand this. I don’t need page after page of Shakespeare doing army-speak because the accompanying photograph is telling me so much more. The photograph that came with this press release was of a car so beautiful, it haunted me long into the night.

It’s called the GTC4 Lusso and it’s best described as a three-door sports estate. I’m a sucker for a car such as this. There’s never been a bad one. The Lancia HPE, the Volvo P1800ES and the Reliant Scimitar (Princess Anne had one) were all tremendous, but this Ferrari trumped the lot. It was the best-looking car I’d seen. I stuck the picture on my office wall and spent many long moments gazing at it. I drove the production team mad by thinking up idiotic reasons why we should put it in the next series of The Grand Tour. And every time I was out-voted.

‘It’s got all the usual Ferrari problems, but there’s a second dashboard in front of the passenger.’

I can see why. This car is a replacement for the old FF, and that was rubbish. I tested one once on a frozen lake in Sweden and could not believe how comprehensively it was beaten by the much cheaper Bentley Continental GT. I also couldn’t believe how needlessly complicated the four-wheel-drive system was.

My God, this is a big car. If you want to see all of it at the same time, you need to put it in a field and walk away from it for 10 minutes. What’s weird is that it has broadly the same body as the terrible old FF, but just a few clever tweaks to the grille and the front wing vents and wheels have transformed it. The interior is equally sensational, perhaps because it was designed with the occupants in mind. Yes, it’s got all the usual Ferrari problems, namely buttons for the lights, wipers and indicators on the steering wheel, but – and I loved this – there’s a second dashboard in front of the passenger. They can choose whether they want to look at the rev counter or the sat nav or a million other things. It’s brilliant.

So what’s it like to drive? Not as exciting as you might imagine. Of course, with a 6.3-litre V12 engine, it’s not sluggish, and it’s a Ferrari so it’s not sloppy either. But it’s not exceptional. It doesn’t cause the hairs on the back of your neck to tingle. Ever. It doesn’t even make a particularly tuneful noise. That said, in town it’s docile and quiet, unlike all the people behind you, who are angry and honking because you’re having to back up again because your car’s too wide.

I understand that if you are a paid-up member of the St Moritz Eurotrash set and you need a Ferrari because it’s part of the uniform, it’d be tempting to buy a GTC4 Lusso. Because it has four-wheel drive. But I’ve never been to a ski resort where this would fit. And if you don’t live in a ski resort, why would you want a four-wheel-drive system that only really works at 7km/h on snow? You wouldn’t. You’d have the two-wheel-drive V8 version. But that is the same size, so we are back to square one. There are few places on Earth a car this big works. Dubai, Los Angeles and, er…

It’s probably best, then, not to think of it as a car but as a garden ornament. The most beautiful piece of sculpture of all time. That’s what I’d do: save money on the extras and spend it instead on a plinth.

FERRARI GTC4 LUSSO

Engine: 6.3-litre V12 (507kW/697Nm) Transmission: Seven-speed automatic, all-wheel drive. Average fuel: 15.3 litres per 100km Price: From $578,888 Stars: 4 out of 5