Photography: Jayson Fong

All it took was a couple of yowls and one pull on a paddle and I was back. Back at Fiorano and in the hills above Maranello on the Ferrari test drivers’ time-honoured routes. Can it really be 14 years ago? It appears it can. I’d first gone in 1993, had visited plenty of times since, and many more thereafter but this one still stands out.

The launch of the F12. When, many years from now, the history of the internal combustion engine is written, and people ponder the identity of the very greatest cars it powered, I have no doubt this car will be in the conversation. What was so remarkable about it was that it left the sense that, up until that moment and for quite a long time, Ferrari had been holding something back with its front-engined, two-seat V12 supercars. Its arrival was like watching one of those videos where a former Olympic sprinter lines up for the parent’s race at their kid’s sports day. The poor person with the iPhone doesn’t know where to point it because there is one person already in a different postcode and then there’s everyone else wobbling and staggering along in their wake.

It didn’t just raise the standards of its class, it took Ferrari to a whole new level of excellence. I’d say its predecessor, the 599 GTB, had been in line or slightly ahead of expectations and was a quick and engaging car, helped in no small part by a star turn under the bonnet, the almost brand new F140 V12 engine in only slightly detuned from that in which it had made its debut in the very limited issue, carbon-fibre Enzo hypercar. As an aside, and astonishingly enough some 20 years later, this engine, albeit somewhat modified, serves to this day in the 12Cilindri. But in the 599 it had the same 6-litre capacity as the Enzo and an output of 612bhp, over 100bhp per litre from a naturally aspirated engine. Which was not bad 20 years ago.

And then came the F12, and at once not only was the 599 rendered instantly obsolete, so was everything else like it. Take that engine: bored out to 6.3 litres (actually 6262cc), power had risen to 730bhp, the single biggest leap for an internal combustion engine in a like-for-like replacement in the entire history of Ferrari, before or since. It was over 100bhp more powerful than the similarly configured, scarcely smaller V12 developed by BMW for the McLaren F1. It raised the point at which peak power was developed from the 599 GTB’s 7600rpm to 8250rpm and kept on spinning to 8700rpm before the limiter called time. When I got into this business in the late 1980s, the idea of any engine of this size spinning that fast even in a racing car seemed preposterous. Yet here it was, yelling its lungs out in a standard production road car.

Really the engine was just the headline, because if this were just a faster, restyled version of the 599 GTB, you’d not be reading these words now. It was anything but.

Perhaps the most interesting point to note about the F12 relative to its predecessor was that, in an era where it appeared nothing less than inevitable that each new car would be larger and heavier than the one it replaced, the F12 was both smaller and lighter.

And by smaller, I mean in every conventional measurement from length and height to width and wheelbase. Without sacrificing meaningful interior space – the F12 provides sumptuous accommodation for a pair of six footers and their luggage – the reduction in size brings benefits in all areas. Rather obviously it takes up less space, which as anyone who has been in a car of this kind and winced as they’ve tried to thread it through the gap between some trees and a lorry using more than its fair share of road will know, is a very welcome development. The shorter wheelbase, as well as the use of no fewer than a dozen aluminium alloys in its construction, is one reason the car’s structure is over 20% more torsionally rigid than that of the 599 GTB.

But the greatest gain, and overlooked when considering a car’s size, is that because there is less of it, it’s lighter too. Around 70kg lighter without having to resort to the usual smoke-and-mirrors tactics of making the infotainment and air-con systems no cost options so a car’s homologated weight can exclude their mass even though no one would ever specify a car without them. And a lighter car is not just a faster car, but a better handling and shorter stopping car too.

Some idea of the actual performance gain can be gleaned from times achieved at Ferrari’s famed Fiorano test track. It’s not a long lap – approximately the same distance round as Castle Combe as it happens, yet it circulated in 1min 23sec dead, a night-and-day 3.5sec faster than the 599 GTB. More surprising still, it was a full second quicker than the highly specialised, vastly expensive, limited edition, track-focused 599 GTO. Most surprising of all, it was the best part of two seconds quicker than the aforementioned all-carbon Enzo hypercar.

It makes the car sound like a wild thing, a near uncontrollable beast, but here comes Ferrari’s greatest achievement of all: if you didn’t mind the lack of connectivity relative to modern machines with CarPlay and so on and could stomach fuel consumption likely never to stray far from the teens, it would be a delight to use as your daily driver.

So join me aboard this immaculate, low-miles example. For me it’s been a decade at least since I was last here and yet the muscle memory kicks in immediately. When I drove these cars in period they made an indelible impression upon me, so I know already how it works, how to operate all the controls on the front (and back) of the steering wheel and even how to dial up the information I want on the two screens that flank the majestically large and beautiful 10,000rpm rev counter. It’s not the most modern or intuitive of set-ups, but nor does it scold you if you break a speed limit by a couple of miles per hour or dare take a line through a corner. It would probably object if you tried to drive off without putting on your seatbelt, but that’s as far as the nanny had been allowed to penetrate this generation of Ferrari.

“Press the red button and there are no histrionics; the big V12 whumps into life with a quick growl.”

Press the red button and there are no histrionics; the big V12 whumps into life with just a quick growl before settling down to a melodious idle. There is something about this particular Ferrari V12; over the years it’s had three different capacities (the current 12 Cilindri is a 6.5-litre) but I don’t think it was ever more smooth or sonorous than here.

The cabin is airy, spacious and luxuriously appointed. Visibility in all directions is excellent; it is these real-world qualities every bit as much as the raw power that provides the secret to the magic of this car. The rival Lamborghini Aventador is a fine looking and ferocious thing, but it is intimidating, hard to see out of and, unlike the Ferrari, not that comfortable thanks chiefly to its inadequate seats and firm ride. I’ve said it before but it feels as relevant here as anywhere: the amount of fun a car can provide is only half the equation. The true measure of that enjoyment is the entertainment it offers multiplied by the number of occasions on which it can be savoured. On exactly the right wide, open, deserted and dry roads an Aventador can be a formidable weapon, but how often do you find yourself in such optimal conditions? The F12’s ability to make you want to drive it almost regardless of circumstance is an absolutely fundamental facet of its appeal.

The lanes are opening out now and the gauges are all starting to hit the right zones. It is a salutary lesson in suspension design that so long as you remember to press the ‘bumpy road’ button on the steering wheel, even a supercar like this can cope with the lamentable state of our surfaces with an educated and experienced approach to setting up an adaptive damping system.

“You have to work this motor, and work your brain to figure out how to get the most out of it.”

In the UK you never want anything firmer, so the secret is to turn the little ‘manettino’ control to ‘race’ for the sharpest throttle response and the quickest shifts, but use that magic button to maintain its ability to absorb the imperfections that bestrew your path.

So programmed, when the moment comes, you are ready. A couple of pulls on the left-hand paddle, try not to think about how much better it would be with black ball atop a steel shaft sprouting out of an exposed six-speed manual gearshift gate (Ferrari never made a manual F12), and let that sublime motor remind you why there are V12 engines.

Ferrari V12s are not about instant gratification. They take time to build, adding layer after layer of musical and mechanical intensity with every passing 1000rpm, and with that 8700rpm redline, that’s a lot of layers. The thrust gathers at the same rate, the rate of acceleration increasing as the needle sweeps its way around the dials. So desirable is this trait that for its more modern, turbocharged cars Ferrari uses electronic control to manipulate the torque curves of its engines to mimic it. In the F12 you’ll need 6000rpm on the dial before peak torque and, therefore, maximum thrust finally arrives.