Richard in the Ferrari 550 Maranello

Richard in the Ferrari 550 Maranello - I’m not going to mess about here: I love the Ferrari 550. Always have. There are those who will forever associate Ferrari with mid-engined supercars, and yes, there is something spectacularly purposeful about a car in which you effectively strap yourself to the front of the engine. But let’s not allow the appeal of the mid-engined Fezzers distract us from those in which the driver sits behind the donkey. For one thing, you get to admire the engine. Five-and-a-half litres of Italian V12 churning away up front makes its presence felt.

The Ferrari 550 Maranello and 550 Barchetta are 2-seat grand tourers built by Ferrari. Introduced in 1996, the 550 was an upmarket front-engined V12 coupe of the kind not seen since the Daytona. It shared its platform and 5.5 L (5474 cc) engine with the 2+2 456 (Engine Code: F133) but was positioned as the company's highest-end model. The car used a transaxle layout, with the 6-speed manual gearbox located at the back, in-line with the driven wheels. The model number refers to total engine displacement (5.5 litres) and the model name of Maranello refers to the town where the Ferrari headquarters are located.

First Drive of the Ferrari FF

First Drive of the Ferrari FF - The Ferrari FF is called so because it seats four people and is a four-wheel drive. The FF is a versatile Ferrari that has ample of space for adults and their luggage. It is 30mm taller that the outgoing 612 model but identical in length and width.

Apart from providing ample of space inside the cabin the Ferrari FF also offers a 450 litre boot with seats upright and 800 litres with seats folded.

The FF really does do it all. When the fair winds are behind it, it's a true V12 supercar. The 660bhp engine howls like some magical, crazed hyena-pack. Its thrust is truly epic. The seven-speed transmission shifts faster than you can think.

But however good the engine is, the chassis has no trouble keeping it man-marked.

You don't turn this thing into a corner. You just swivel your eyeballs towards the curve, and the car seems to follow. Did you actually move your wrists? Hard to tell, the car's reactions are so fast and true.

So you lean on the throttle and you can feel the very treads of the tires tensing themselves, digging into the road and finding the force to catapult you onwards. It's not just fast, it's full of sensations and communication.

It's the most selfish kind of car. Except it isn't. It can carry four people, the front two with loads of comfort and the rear two, well, at least snugly. It rides well and it's easy to see out of. It's got loads of luxury equipment. And the boot is about the same size as a Focus's.

It does so much, and we've barely scratched the surface here. For the full beans, and some epic photography of our high-mountain grand touring in the FF, see the new issue of TopGear Magazine, on sale today.

Inside scoop on Ferrari’s new FF

Inside scoop on Ferrari’s new FF - The first thing we were told - this was the marketing man speaking - is that the FF was designed around customers' wish-lists. This made us scared.

Customers have no idea what's possible, or which characteristics are incompatible. It's like asking diners in a restaurant to detail the ingredients instead of letting the infinitely more knowledgeable chef do it for them.

Anyway, apparently people wanted a Ferrari with room for four. And a big boot. And they wanted it to be a whole lot more driveable in the wet (fair enough - a 599 is sphincter-puckeringly skittish in the wet).

This could have resulted in a bulky, ill-proportioned car, an ugly looker designed to fit around the people and the golf bags, as well as the huge engine. It could have been heavy and cumbersome, with a complicated and heavy 4WD transmission.

Which would have met the brief but it wouldn't have looked like a Ferrari should, or driven like one. And the customers, despite having got what they asked for, would have run a mile.

But then we started to speak with Amedeo Felisa, Ferrari's CEO who happens to have come up through the engineering ranks there and is an absolute supercar genius. He explained what's been done to make it agile and fast, as well as manageable in the wet even with - get this - 660bhp on tap.

Can a car have 4WD for security, but still drive like a Ferrari? Can even Ferrari manage that?

Well, the FF doesn't actually have a normal heavy 4WD system with a centre diff and an extra prop shaft. It has a normal Ferrari configuration, with the drive going from the V12 back to a seven-speed twin-clutch gearbox driving the rear wheels. This is good for weight distribution, and in the dry the FF is as fast around a track as a 599 (it's only a little heavier, yet usefully more powerful). Felisa swears it feels like a proper front-engined RWD V12 Ferrari, too. And he has spoken the truth to me in these matters all the 16 years I've been interviewing him.

New pictures of the Ferrari Cars

New pictures of the Ferrari Cars - Ferrari has released new pictures of its four-wheel-drive, four-seat ‘Four'.

So what about the four-wheel drive, then? Uniquely, power is also taken off the front of the engine, which is behind the front wheel centres. It's fed to a compact lightweight unit containing a set of clutches that can progressively feed in torque to a tiny integrated gearbox and front diff. It has only two gears, roughly the equivalent of third and seventh in the main box. How can this be? Because the clutches are always slipping under electronic control, and the front tyres would never be able to make use of all the V12's torque in first or second.

What this means is the car's electronics can smoothly dial up a portion of drive to the fronts if they predict a loss of traction at the back. Yes, they're predictive as well as reactive. And they only do this in the road and slippery-road settings of the steering-wheel manettino. In the more hardcore modes, you can still run it as pretty well entirely rear-drive.