Photos: @anthonybteich

Since it all started with Enzo Ferrari’s first road car, the 125 S, equipped with a 1.5-liter V12 designed by Gioacchino Colombo that produced 118 horsepower, Ferrari is famous for its V12 engines. From 1947 until 2020, the company produced a whole range of V12-powered Ferraris coming out of Maranello, bringing to us beautiful modern masterpieces like the 599 GTO, LaFerrari, F12 Tour de France, and 812 Superfast. We certainly did not forget about the iconic V12 classics, but we want to cherish the ones that currently have more road presence, the ones that might just be the last of their kind.

In 2010, Ferrari launched the 599 GTO (Gran Turismo Omologato), based on the 599XX track car. It set a lap time of 1 minute and 24 seconds at Fiorano, the fastest Ferrari to ever lap the circuit back then, faster than the Enzo! A road-going race car? Yes, it is a monstrous machine with a 6-liter V12 engine placed between the front wheels, punching out 670 horsepower at 8250 rpm with a maximum torque of 620 Nm at 6500 rpm, reaching 62mph in 3.3 seconds. These might not be the best numbers, but its driving experience is like no other. It is a car that doesn’t like to be driven slowly!

In 2013, came the most powerful hybrid hypercar in the world, the two-seater 6.3-liter V12 LaFerrari, equipped with a KERS-esque battery pack and electric motor to give 950 hp and 663lb-ft of torque, going from 0 to 62mph in only 2.4 seconds. The LaFerrari will lap Fiorano in 1 minute and 19.70 seconds. This lap time was recently beaten by the SF90 Stradale, but do we really need track times to say which car made the most impression? With only 400 Coupes & ~200 Apertas produced, could it possibly be Ferrari’s most perfect car ever made?                      

The 2015 F12 TDF, short for Tour de France, pays homage to the Tour de France endurance road race that they dominated in the 1950s and 1960s. It is one of Ferrari’s most brilliant and successful naturally aspirated V12-engine track-focused cars, producing 769 hp at 8,500 rpm. Obviously, based on the F12 Berlinetta, the F12 TDF received mixed reviews, but it is currently lots of people’s favorite Ferrari! Why? They combined the front-engined V12 with such an aggressive design and the latest technologies.

They basically checked all the boxes that were missing in the 599 GTO. Reaching 62mph takes 2.9 seconds for the TDF, and it’ll lap Ferrari’s Fiorano track in 1 minute and 21 seconds, only 1.3 seconds behind the LaFerrari.

The 789-hp 812 Superfast was the replacement of the 2012 F12 Berlinetta; it’s a front-engined, rear-wheel-drive, two-seater 6.5-liter V12 supercar that reaches 62mph in 2.9 seconds. It finished a lap of Fiorano in 1 minute and 21.5 seconds. It is more of an upgrade from a technology point of view. We thought Ferrari was going down the same road by releasing the F12 Berlinetta replacement and then the more hardcore version of it.

As it turned out, they surprised us with the 812 GTS, the most powerful production convertible launched 50 years after the debut of the last V12 spider, the 365 GTS4 Daytona Spider! Let’s not forget the four-seaters, the FF and its replacement, the GTC4Lusso.

These were and still are the best daily-drivable family cars ever produced. You could enjoy that V12 symphony while driving your kids to school! Talk about a game-changer! These aren’t the only powerful V12 Ferraris, but they are absolutely four of the best ever made and have marked the history of the company.

Will we see another V12 engine mounted on the hardcore version of the 812 Superfast? Or have we seen the last Ferrari V12 engine ever made?