Comparing the long line of Ferrari super GTs | Thank Frankel it's Friday

But what of the Superfast and that long, noble line of two seat, V12 coupes that preceded it? Having been lucky enough to sample almost all in one form or another, I thought I’d present a highly partial view of those I thought both under and over-rated. And we’ll start with the 250GT series that began life in 1954. I’ve always considered the 250GT the car that started the line that brings us to today. And I’ll keep my remarks to standard road cars, not homologation specials, limited editions, spiders or anything else.

The ultimate development of the standard 250GT was the Lusso, introduced in 1962. It’s the one I know least well, having only had a short drive many years ago, but to me it was a car whose appearance was not matched by the driving experience. The Colombo V12 was as gorgeous as ever, but the handling was wooden, the performance limited and the brakes poor. I remember driving the contemporaneous 2+2 250 GTE and with its more staid appearance and practical interior it was far better matched to the limitations of its underpinnings.

Its replacement, the 275 GTB was another world. The first street Ferrari with independent rear suspension and the first with a transaxle gearbox, it was not just one of the best looking Ferraris of all time, but one with a driving experience that finally matched the promise of its appearance. The early cars are wonderful, but the later, fully developed four cam car is one of my favourite Ferraris of all time.

By contrast, the 365 GTB/4 ‘Daytona’ is not. It’s a fine machine no question, but I think too it had perhaps a slightly better press than it deserved. This is a car that only comes into its own when driven extremely rapidly, when it is indeed a wondrous device, but at more normal speeds it is heavy to handle and the steering can feel quite wooden. Not a bad car by any stretch, just not quite as good as its reputation would suggest.

The Boxer is the reverse. It had a hard time because it was certainly no faster than the Daytona, was tricky on the limit and had to contest with the Lamborghini Countach. But drive one today, particularly an early 4.4-litre car, and you’ll be struck by how much lighter and more nimble it feels than a Daytona. And its styling is a total masterpiece.

Words that few would be tempted to use to describe the Testarossa. Is this an unfairly maligned Ferrari? Yes, but only in part. It is an effortless, still fast, outstandingly comfortable and surprisingly practical supercar, but you only had to take a turn in its heavily facelifted 512 TR replacement to know how much better it could have been. The TR and its F512M successor were the last mid-engined cars in the series and finally conquered the handling foibles that had dogged these cars since the Boxer’s had first been seen in 1971, 25 years before the eventual demise of the line it sired. I loved them both.

Even so Ferrari’s return to the traditional front-engine layout for the 550 Maranello was an unexpected stroke of genius. Powerful, beautiful, exquisitely well balanced and at last with an interior that didn’t look like secret stash of stolen Fiat parts bin components, it set the tone for the entire next generation of Ferrari supercars. The closely related 575M that replaced it was less attractive and almost all were fitted with clunky robotised manual gearboxes.

The 599 GTB that came next catapulted the Ferrari flagship into a completely different performance league, thanks to the use of the V12 engine first used in the Enzo hypercar, that is still used today. With a power gain of over 100PS, performance was scintillating even if its looks were not Pininfarina’s best work. It’s a really good example of this particular art, but not Ferrari’s very finest.

The F12, however, is. I can remember driving this for the very first time and being near enough blown away by it. Not only did it raise power again to over 700PS, but it was both smaller and lighter than the 599. And on the road it had this brilliantly split personality, one minute the quiet and comfortable trans-continental express, the next a tyre-smoking maniac with an appetite for an apex like few front-engined cars in history.

The current 812 Superfast was really more of the same though and as times progress, it’s fair to say the novelty has slightly worn off. It’s time for a total reset. Will the 12Cilindri be it?