The Ferrari Purosangue has dropped. Images of the car displayed at dealerships are hitting Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, all the usual social media suspects. While there are plenty of likes, hearts, flames and attaboys underneath the posts, there are also a not-surprising number of people self-identifying as Purosangue haters.
The Instagram post above is one of the first featuring a Ferrari Purosangue in the wild. @ferraricarpassion loves it! Dozens of his followers love it! Some are downright effusive.
Scroll through the comments and you’ll soon discover that more than a few are less than enamored. Many of their comments are, in a word (or series of poop emojis), withering.
You can dismiss Ivan and ale_corradi as haters who have to hate, hate, hate. But their automotive antipathy isn’t an empty cry into the wilderness.
You can feel the collective anguish of dozens of brand fans torn between their love of Ferrari and their disappointment at Purosangue’s attempt to embody its peerless design excellence.
As we revealed in Is the New Ferrari Purosangue A Dad Not Daddy Car?, there’s at least one women asserting that Ferrari’s SUV does nothing to improve its driver’s sex appeal, and much to diminish it.
But why do so many men share @billieraebrandt’s opinion that Ferrari’s SUV is equal parts WTF and DOA? Their main focus is, again, the Purosangue’s aesthetic affront.
When was the last time someone called a Ferrari hideous?
The four-seat Ferrari FF came in for a great deal of stick, but even that undeniably awkward attempt to add practicality to an inherently impractical brand didn’t elicit anywhere near the amount of venom aimed at the Purosangue.
Worse: the opinion that the Purosangue doesn’t look like a Ferrari. (At least the initial, butt ugly Porsche Cayenne shared its nose with the 911.) So if the Ferrari Purosangue isn’t a Ferrari per se, what is it?
Some commentators call the SUV an Italian version of the Nissan Juke. Slightly more understandable (and less churlish): the comparison to an Infiniti.
I don’t think a current model Infiniti evokes Ferrari’s V12 SUV, but I gotta say the Infiniti QX Sport Concept has more than a bit of Purosangue to it.
To be fair, an SUV is an SUV is an SUV.
You can dress it up with flares, strakes, inlets, hood creases, a rear wing, suicide rear doors with hidden handles and prancing horse badges. The vehicle still has to meet the same aerodynamic, packaging and safety demands as every other SUV.
Ask the same questions in a wind tunnel, marketing meeting and legal department, and you’re going to get roughly the same answers. That said . . .
The Ferrari Purosangue is not just another SUV. Some very clever people have done some very clever things to make it go, stop and handle like nothing else on the road. Well nothing as large.
There is no question, though, that I’m not the only one who thinks that the Ferrari Purosangue is a goofy-looking thing. And that Ferrari has no business building it.
Which isn’t exactly true. The Italian SUV will increase the automaker’s profits without dramatically increasing production. Is the Purosangue bound to be an asterix in the Ferrari design cannon like the FF, or is it the shape of things to come? Yes. Yes it is.
