THE CONCEPT
Performance at no compromise

The 550 maranello is Ferrari's interpretation of the 12-cylinder berlinetta, with a front engine and a pronounced sports personality, for the 21st century.

The brief given to the technicians was particularly demanding: design and build a car able to meet the needs of Ferrari customers looking for driving emotions and exciting performance, who do not want to forego driveability or comfort. Customers attracted by state-of-the-art technical proposals from a company which has always treated design as an aesthetic solution to the demand for performance, and has always built its cars with sophisticated craftsmanship.

The formula that produced the 550 maranello is the sum of several factors: superb response to every requirement (acceleration, speed, braking, roadholding), quality of life on board (driving position, passenger comfort, soundproofing, loading space, climate control), styling efficiency (aerodynamic shape, including the sixth surface) by way of a design that combines an extremely modern concept with the best of Ferrari tradition.

The result is a car capable of covering Ferrari's private track at Fiorano in 1.34, namely 3.2 secs. faster than the best time ever achieved by a 512. When assessing performance of this kind we must remember that the ethos of the 512 was optimised to obtain extreme performance on a circuit.

Although we present the car, as usual, with a series of studio photographs, the 550 maranello is best seen in action. The first shots are therefore moving ones. It is a car designed to offer strong emotions to those capable of driving it and it represents the synthesis of excellence in the automotive field today.

This documentation is intended to outline the features of the 550 maranello following a natural progression from its functional and styling definition, to the evaluation if its driveability.