By Dan Neil \ Photography by Bob O'Connor for WSJ

In 'Critique of Judgment,' Immanuel Kant argues that taste -- the discerning appreciation of the beautiful and good -- requires the critic to remain disinterested, unmoved by their own feelings of delight or aversion. In my case that means borrowing a fresh-off-the-boat Ferrari 12Cilindri and absolutely smashing Newport, R.I., during the Audrain Automobile Museum's Motor Week festivities -- and trying not to smile.

Would I ever want to own -- emotionally and otherwise -- this gilded phallus of an automobile, just so I could play King Neptune in Newport's classic-car Mardi Gras? Probably not. Do I crave the fellowship of other Ferrari owners? Have you met a lot of Ferrari owners?

But when a car gets showered with so much love it's hard to stay completely dry. My wingman -- Shane Angley, a wine merchant from Raleigh, N.C. -- said he felt sure someone on the street would present us with the key to the city. You're welcome. Sure, thank you. It's not mine.

This is an interesting car, with a strange, reliquary feel about it. Under the endless hood is preserved Ferrari's naturally aspirated V12 engine, a 6.5-liter, 818-hp mutant known as the HD140. Descended from the free-breathing V12 that powered the all-conquering Enzo (2002), the 140HD eschews hybrid propulsion, electric turbochargers and even traditional turbos. Just air, fire, petrol and sky-high rpm.

By way of some straightforward hot-rodding (titanium connecting rods, lightened aluminum pistons and rebalanced crankshaft), Ferrari reduced the engine's rotational inertia by over 40%, helping add another 600 rpm to the redline, now pegged at 9,500 rpm. So it's a screamer.

While it's quicker and faster than its predecessors, much of the focus seems to be on delivering emotional content rather than stopwatch performance -- most obviously, in the presence and sonority of the engine. The parts of this orchestra include equal-length exhaust runners, six-into-one manifolds, variable-geometry intakes and titanium exhaust. There are lots of ways to make horsepower but few sound as pretty.

Hooked to an eight-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission, the V12 is splendidly tractable at around-town speeds. In automatic mode, the car ambles down the boulevard, murmuring, simmering and keeping its immensity hidden from polite society. It might as well be a Lexus. But with a trivial bit of sustained pressure on the gas pedal, the flood gates open. At just 2,500 rpm, 80% of the V12's 500 lb-ft maximum comes online. If you should be so improvident as to kick it hard, the engine will come to full strength at the speed of thought.

Now, however quickly you are going and whatever gear you're in, you're likely to be late on the next upshift. The V12 hammers against the rev-limiter with Pentecostal fury -- WHAP WHAP WHAP WHAAPP. The car's structure rings with the resonance.

While all that is going down, the torque-vectoring rear differential and traction/stability management systems are busy keeping you out of Rhode Island's more fashionable ditches. Tick the paddle shifter, the wailing revs slip slightly -- a kind of warble -- then head through the roof again.

The first moments of the 12Cilindri's holeshot are the opening act of a bigger drama, which Ferrari calls its "Aspirated Torque Shaping" function. This innovation goes back a ways, to Enzo Ferrari himself, who decreed that the power in his cars should always rise, linearly and proportionally, with throttle demand, from low revs to redline.

The torque-shaping software function, active in third and fourth gears, actually checks power slightly in order to create a more linearly proportional response, so that maximum power is only reached at a soul-shaking 9,250 rpm, just short of redline. Yowza.

How does that translate, emotionally? It's intimidating. The glorious holler of the V12 -- equivalent to six Italian superbikes -- would make a statue of Enzo Ferrari cry. But summoning this tempest is something of an act of will. The urge to upshift early is the stuff of panicky, fight-or-flight responses.

Ironically, Maranello's sound machines have had to take it down a notch. Tightening noise-emission standards in Europe and Asia have obliged Ferrari to lower the drive-by volume of its cars. For those in the cabin, the V12 retains the same gorgeous timbre and temper -- maybe a little bit angrier. But on the outside it doesn't have quite the blast radius.

While the 12Cilindri is technically evolved from the 812 Competizione, the new car's styling represents a major change in Ferrari's house style. Ferrari's design chief Flavio Manzoni has talked about how he wanted to move away from the sculptural form language of past models in favor of cleaner, simpler, faster lines, with immaculate surfacing and monolithic volumes.

Note that the 12Cilindri doesn't have a hydraulically actuated spoiler cluttering up the rear aspect. Instead, it uses two synchronous, dynamically compensating control surfaces (flaps), integrated into the corners of the car, forming the distinctive delta-shaped details. These keep faith with Ferrari's longstanding tradition that spoilers and other aero appliances must be integrated into the bodywork.

The aesthetic Manzoni is describing has a lot in common with 1960s-era modernism, from which emerged Ferrari's essential 365 GTB4 Daytona coupe. The 12Cilindri's debt to the Daytona is obvious from space. Ferrari doesn't exactly bill it as a latter-day Daytona -- maybe because the company used that name on another recent model -- but it is. I'm not sure I like my Ferraris drenched in nostalgia.

Am I prepared to defend the good taste of any car costing $704,837, as tested? No thanks. As a critic, I can appreciate the raging genius of the thing without giving into desire.

My friend Shane may feel differently.

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

October 23, 2025 18:00 ET (22:00 GMT)

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