Enzo Ferrari, Il Commendatore, would have liked this 1996 Ferrari 550 Maranello. He always liked it this way: a well-appointed, classically proportioned coupe with a short rear deck, leading to a slick roofline then tapering towards to a long front end housing a large, powerful V12. Who doesn’t like it this way?
The 550 Maranello was Enzo’s style. After Ferrari spent almost the entirety of the malaise era making mid-engined cars that were finicky, awkward to live with, and not always objectively excellent, this was a return to form. It was a monument to the cars that put them on the map, blending classic ideology and modern-for-its-day engineering practice. One of the first-ever Ferraris to be an objectively excellent modern car, while still being a quintessential Ferrari. There’s a reason why they named it after the city of Maranello. This was a car to carry the pride of the city that the prancing horse called home since the very first Ferrari was built.
Having said all of that, Enzo Ferrari had nothing to do with this car. The F40 was the last car in which he had any direct input before his passing. The 550 Maranello was the brainchild of the brilliant Luca di Montezemolo, who had been leading Fiat’s racing program since the 1970s. He was appointed to lead the struggling Cavallino into a new era, following Il Commendatore’s passing.
Ferrari had picked up a couple bruises through the 1980s. Their flagship Testarossa was an icon, sure, but the Lamborghini Countach was faster, wilder, and even more iconic, capturing more hearts and minds. Road & Track ran a cover story about a Honda CR-X being quicker than a Ferrari 328 GTS, which was replaced with the 348—which was promptly embarrassed by Honda’s NSX a few years later. Porsche was taking them to school in sports car racing, and while the F40 was a high mark for the brand, Porsche’s 959 was about as fast, but had all wheel drive, active suspension, air conditioning, power seats, a radio, a real paint job, and didn’t smell like glue. The Cavallino’s lustre was fading.
The magnificent F355 was one of Montezemolo’s first directives: put Honda in their place, now. The NSX may have been an objectively better vehicle, but the F355 was so much more sensual to behold, so much more exhilarating to helm and listen to, that nothing else mattered. The 550 was the next step; the aforementioned return to form, the classic formula re-imagined.
It was based on the 456, the first all-new car under Montezemolo’s stewardship, unveiled in 1992. The 456 was never positioned as a sports car; it was always meant to be a luxurious grand tourer. The 456 debuted to positive if underwhelmed reviews, praised for its refinement and the flexibility of its all-new V12 engine, but its subtle style and demure nature failed to make inroads in the hearts and minds of Tifosi.
But the 456 had good bones and a great engine. The 550 Maranello took the fundamentals of that recipe and cranked it up to a much more speziata result—but not just by adding more chili flakes and calling it a day. The tubular space-frame chassis had its wheelbase shortened by 3.9 inches to improve manoeuvrability, trim fat, and improve balance. Adjustable coilovers on double-wishbones all around tie everything together. Like the chassis, the 5.5-litre V12 powering the 550 Maranello was also lifted out of the 456, and had the heat turned up to emphasize all the flavors it could deliver—up to 485 horsepower, specifically. That may not seem like a lot now, with family SUVs trotting around with more than that, but it was among the most powerful cars in the world through the 1990s.
The 550 Maranello made its world debut not at a big international motor show, but at the Nurburgring. This was a deliberate statement of intent; Ferrari was back and Ferrari was fast. The 550 would go on to set multiple high-speed records, like travelling 100 miles at an average speed of 192 mph. With precious few exceptions, the 550 Maranello could give any car on Earth a hard time. Even the insane Lamborghini Diablo could barely shake one of these off.
Its predecessor, the Testarossa, was pretty brisk on the highway, but it wasn’t what I’d call quick. Despite being so much more conventionally shaped, the 550 was a quantum leap in performance; driving both cars not quite back-to-back, but with the Testarossa still fresh in my mind was such a revelation in how far Ferrari had come, how serious Montezemolo was about rejuvenating the brand. The Testarossa was memorable for reasons good and bad; it’s a relic of an era before Ferrari knew how to go about consistently making objectively good vehicles. The 550 Maranello is both a better flagship sports car and a competent vehicle.
Before you even get in the car, the door handle is right there in plain sight, not hidden for style’s sake. The 550 isn’t hard to get into, the seats are excellent, the driving position is comfortable, visibility is great, the gated shifter doesn’t fight you, and the pedals and their surroundings won’t ostracize you for not having a ballerina’s tiny feet. Said pedals are even directly in front of you—novel for a Ferrari at the time—and the general layout and controls are pretty ergonomically sound. There’s even a decent-sized trunk. Ferrari sports cars weren’t like this before the 550, with the arguable context-adjusted exception being the 365 GTB/4 Daytona from which this car draws so much inspiration.
These cars don’t start quickly. They’ll turn over loudly, almost neighing, for a good few seconds before catching and firing to life with a huge bass note. The exhaust has no crossover at all; both banks are divorced from each other, and honestly, the auditory result is mixed. The bottom frequencies at idle would almost be piercing if they weren’t so deep and low. It dominates the senses and resonates your whole body. You can faintly hear the individual pulses of each cylinder through the standoffish exhaust; I started picking up on it when I realized it was interrupting my heartbeat.
It gets better as you get going. The agreeable clutch isn’t too grabby or too heavy, playing well with the fat torque spread of the inimitable V12. If you’re used to the Ferrari cadence—they like to be driven confidently and shifted quickly but not hurried—the 550 is immediately a peach to drive. If you’re not, the 550 makes it easy to learn and becomes a peach in no time. The shifter is short and sweet, requiring a deliberate hand like all gated shifters do, but not a forceful one like in days past.
Once you’re off idle, the harsh resonant frequency fall off, giving way to a sweet harmony as the revs rise. It’s actually all quite lovely. The steering is light, the ride is firm but far from hard, the cabin is pretty well-hushed, and the climate control actually heats and ventilates quite effectively. Neat! The 550 is not an awkward, cumbersome thing to live with and putter around town; there’s no trick to it or awkward idiosyncrasies like Cavallinos of yore; it’s just kind of nice. You could lend this to a friend and not worry about it.
The gearbox’s six forward ratios are well-chosen and closely spaced to best accentuate the engine. Peak torque arrives at five grand, followed by peak power at seven grand, but there’s a very broad spread and such a linear build that you’re simultaneously never in the wrong gear and always longing for more revs. Mind you, not because you need them, but because it’s such an experience to rev this engine out. It’s what sets this car apart.
It’s almost tame around town. The 550 is flexible and smooth, easy to drive lazily, but give it the space to gallop and it transforms. It builds sound and speed at an alarming rate up to its 7,600 rpm redline before click-clinking into the next gear. As befitting of a car unveiled at the Nurburgring, the chassis comes to life at speed just as much as the engine does, so much so that I was a little taken aback by it. We’ve become conditioned to correlate V12 front drivers with relaxed grand-tourers in the vein of an Aston Martin or a Mercedes, but this 550 is not at all like them. It’s first and foremost an exotic Italian supercar that just happens to not be actively contemptuous towards its fortunate driver.
The 550 is dialled in remarkably well, and communicates its prowess via quick, crisp steering and a reassuring chassis. Turn-in is eager, buoyed by an abundance of mechanical grip allowing it to carry surreal speed through sweepers. It’s balance is naturally quite neutral, with the V12’s prodigious and unwavering linear power delivery making it easy to dial in a few extra degrees of rotation as desired. Its stability at speed is flat out incredible, especially for a car of this vintage without the benefit of active aero-this and dynamic stability-that.
But the 550 Maranello’s real magic is in its ability to be a sharp-edged sports car, without being at all edgy. It absolutely nails all the hallmarks of a driver’s car, from its delicious engine and transmission, perfect pedal placement, and terrific responses, to the way the steering feels through your fingers going into a corner and the way the chassis senses through your seat coming out of a corner. It’s a gem, with all the character and charm you’d expect of a proper classic Ferrari, without any of the awkward foibles or fiendish fangs of its forebears.
It’s no surprise the 550 was blessed with the name Maranello. It’s where Enzo Ferrari set up shop and started building legends—in the same style as this car—decades before. After years of trying to keep up with the competition with cars like the Testarossa, this 1996 Ferrari 550 Maranello represents a return to Il Commendatore’s ideals. Moreover, it was a return to form for the Cavallino, ushering in the storied marque into a new era. It’s a masterclass in style and substance, rejecting the antics that led them astray and embracing the tradition that put them on the map. It’s a Ferrari in every single sense of the word.
