Ferrari GTC4 Lusso

The four-wheel-drive FF gets a new name, more power, rear-wheel steering and revised looks. But is it a sports car or a grand tourer?

- Henry Catchpole

You can almost hear the committee meeting that came up with this latest Ferrari’s name. ‘It needs to be historic,’ says an espresso. ‘how about Gtc?We’ve used that before,’ says a suit so sharp it could prepare sushi. ‘I like it,’ replies the espresso, ‘but we need to remind people about the “four” stuff. You know, the seats, the steering, the driven wheels.’ ‘oK, but Gtc4 sounds much too sporty,’ chips in some designer stubble. [Pause for cigarette break.]

‘Why don’t we tack on a lusso?’ suggests some indoor sunglasses on their return.

‘Perfetto!’ cries an enthusiastic mahogany tan. ‘Gtc4 lusso. snappy. so much better than FF. to a long lunch!’ decrees the sharp tailoring.

The initial impression is that the Gtc4 lusso is a mild facelift of the FF, but the more you walk around the car, the more you see the changes. the back in particular is much fussier and wider-looking with the extra tail lights. I do like the big gills on the flanks behind the front wheels, though, and the overall shooting brake/bread van design remains very appealing, I think.

Under the skin, the four-wheeldrive system retains the clever arrangement whereby it draws power directly from the front of the engine. this was the central part of the FF’s 4rm system (that’s ‘quattro ruotemotrici’ or ‘four-wheel drive’), which also incorporated the e-Diff, F1-trac, esc and scm (magnetorheological damping). In the Gtc4 lusso, 4rm has been updated to eVo status with the inclusion of fourth-generation side slip control (ssc4) and, more importantly, rear-wheel steering (4rm-s). unlike in the F12tdf, where it was used to improve stability, here the 4rm-s is designed to increase agility on the way into corners.